By: Anna Streetman
Hollywood lost another legend this month. Joan Rivers, actress, comedienne, writer, producer and television host, was pronounced dead Sept. 4 after complications during a vocal chord surgery.
Rivers’ career spanned four decades and included co-hosting a show called “Fashion Police,” receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, having her own line of jewelry and apparel on the QVC channel, authoring 12 best-selling books, winning a Grammy nomination, a Tony nomination, a Daytime Emmy award, and starring in a reality television series called “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?” Rivers coined the phrase, “Who are you wearing?” when giving red carpet interviews. Rivers was also the first woman to ever host a late night talk show, “The Late Show with Joan Rivers.”
She was also known for her often harsh and politically incorrect humor. Many times, people felt that her humor crossed the line. A recent example was when, in a passing interview, Rivers referred to Barack Obama as gay. The interviewer asked, “Do you think that the country will see the first gay president or the first woman president?” Rivers answered, “Well we already have it with Obama, so let’s just calm down.” She then added about the first lady, “You know Michelle is a tranny.” Another controversy was her speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When asked where civilians in Palestine are supposed to go when bombs go off, she said, “I don’t care! They started it!” Despite being Jewish herself, Rivers often joked about the Holocaust. In her defense, she said: “This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humor.” Rivers also mocked the clothes people wore in her show “Fashion Police.”
Despite making jokes at other people’s expense, she also threw some of it her own way on numerous occasions. Rivers was very open about her extensive plastic surgery, saying, “I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.” She also joked about her lack of exercise, saying things like, “I don’t exercise. If God wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor,” and “I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.”
Rivers also made jokes that were very edgy for a woman to joke about at the time. She often made crude jokes about men, women and sex. Some of her notable quips include: “I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was ‘the man goes on top and the woman underneath.’ For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds,” and “It’s been so long since I’ve had sex I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.”
Rivers has never apologized for her humor, and has said of it, “I’ve learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I’ve ever done,” and “You can tune me out, you can click me off, it’s OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness.”
But according to those who knew her best, Rivers was very different off the stage than she was on the stage. Joy Behar, a close friend of Rivers, said in an interview with ABC News that Rivers was “a normal person” and that “you would have enjoyed her company.” She also defended her longtime friend’s humor, saying that Rivers always tried to be an antithesis to political correctness, and that she wanted to prove that not all women have to be “nice, good little girls that don’t speak their mind.” Behar added that Rivers sent a powerful message about being yourself, speaking your mind, and not caring what other people think of you.
Rivers was also highly involved in philanthropy, her biggest cause being HIV/AIDS research. Rivers was an honorary director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She was also an activist for Guide Dogs for the Blind, a nonprofit organization that provided blind people with guide dogs. Rivers was also involved in the Human Rights Campaign and Habitat for Humanity.
Rivers was a woman of two faces. Onstage, she was biting, cruel, sarcastic, and unapologetic. Offstage, she was giving, calm, hardworking, and very normal. She paved the way for female comedians in the world of comedy. Whether people agreed with her humor or not, Joan Rivers is a woman who will not soon be forgotten.
