‘Women laughing’: A salve for our times
New documentary captures the voices of the women cartoonists at the New Yorker
The cartoonists at The New Yorker tell their story in a new documentary, “Women laughing.”
The absence of continuing media coverage in Rhode Island of this ongoing story is appalling, in ConvergenceRI’s opinion. Attorney General Neronha and Day One are planning a workshop on online exploitation, which is a positive step forward.
There are changes afoot in the union of Brown Physicians, Inc., and Brown University Health. The providers formerly under Brown Physicians, Inc., are going to switch to Epic, a big story not yet covered or understood by the mainstream media. OHIC has no regulatory authority to monitor health data in the state.
Nurses at Rhode Island Hospital are moving to 10-hour shifts to attempt to deal with the chronic shortage of nurses. Steve Ahlquist’s recent talk with Rep. Seth Magaziner took a personal pivot when Ahlquist revealed that he and his wife were $100,000 in debt due to cancer treatments for his wife. Brown Health is on the verge of managing an enormous, growing medical debt from Rhode Islanders.
In all of these distressing times, learning to laugh again is an important salve to our well being.
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — “Hello everybody in the People’s Republic of Montclair!" New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill shouted to a crowd of thousands gathered at the “No Kings” rally in Brookdale Park in Montclair, New Jersey.
The nickname “People’s Republic of Montclair” is apt. The town, located 12 miles west of New York City, is a blue fortress with a historically diverse population and an active arts scene. A late summer jazz festival always features the world-renowned local luminary, bassist Christian McBride. It is home to noted journalists, actors, artists, and musicians.
And it is home to the Montclair Film Festival, an annual extravaganza where new feature films, documentaries, and short films are screened at multiple theaters around town. Big ticket events each year are Stephen Colbert’s onstage conversations with filmmakers and performing artists. Over the history of the festival, those conversations have featured Martin Scorsese, Rob Reiner, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Ben Stiller, and Paul Giamatti, among others. Yes. Stephen Colbert is one of Montclair’s own.
It should come as no surprise that the town also includes many subscribers to the magazine, The New Yorker. So, when the Montclair Film Festival screened “Women Laughing”, a short film featuring a gathering of women New Yorker cartoonists, an eager crowd, many of whom had been at “No Kings” the day before, was on hand to watch.
Cartoonists are sketch comedians. Their product: A seemingly simple drawing made up of a few scribbled lines, coupled with an economical line of text that, in an instant, makes you laugh and allows you to see life’s realities from an absurd perspective.
The film was directed by veteran “Frontline” documentarian, Kathleen Hughes, and by Liza Donnelly, a New Yorker cartoonist. It recounted the women whose cartoons and cover art appeared in the early, pre-World War II era New Yorkers, the absence of women from the cartoon roster after World War II, and the reemergence of New Yorker cartoons by women, pioneered by Donnelly in the late 1970’s.
For the film, the cartoonists had gathered at the storied Algonquin Hotel to talk together about their work, to discuss the challenges of entering a field that had been historically dominated by men, and simply to doodle and draw together. The high-spirited discussion included Donnelly, Roz Chast, Liana Finck, Emily Flake, Sarah Akinterinwa, Bishakh Som, Victoria Roberts, and Amy Hwang. Donnelly had one-on-one conversations with each artist and with the current New Yorker cartoons editor, Emma Allen. Each conversation was peppered with samples of their published work.
The conversations included serious topics and lighthearted chat about drawing. Donnelly mentioned that, although, back in the late 1970’s, she was among the first women cartoonists published in the the New Yorker in decades, all of her early cartoons featured men exclusively.
It took time for her to develop the confidence to make cartoons about women. Liana Finck mentioned that she has difficulty drawing cats. She received an on-the-spot lesson about and demonstration of how to draw them from another artist at the table.
The film lived up to its title. Hughes and Donnelly showed us that the comic colleagues who make us laugh like to laugh with each other.
The filmmakers and several of the artists featured in the film had a freewheeling live panel discussion with audience Q&A following the screening. Emily Flake, a self-proclaimed evangelist about the importance of humor, described herself as a writer who draws. She runs a humor-writing workshop for women, does occasional stand-up comedy, and says that her cartoons “give me another opportunity to run my goddamned mouth”. She writes her cartoons before drawing them.
Amy Hwang said that she also writes first, “usually.” Inspiration comes in the moments when she doesn’t expect to find it. Ideas emerge for her in the shower, cooking breakfast, or walking the dog.
Bishakh Som, who, in the film said that cartooning was something I had to do, said in the Q&A that she feels compelled to do more politically oriented cartoons, “especially with a surge in anti-trans legislation.”
Asked about the “Cartoon Caption Contest,” the artists said that they don’t submit drawings for the contest. Often, the cartoons editor will reject their fully-captioned cartoon, but will use the drawing as the week’s contest entry. Flake said, “As long as they use my drawing, I get paid, so I don’t care.” She spoke for the group when she added, competitively, “We like to see if the public can do better than us.”
(Editor's Note: The film is expected to be available on the New Yorker's website early in 2026.)
Robert Mellman is an attorney in Montclair, N.J., who is a musician who performs with a group, “The Reticents.” Janice Belove, Robert’s wife, is a painter who works on canvas and on the iPad.
