Image of Tina Fey courtesy of Thehangover.files.wordpress.com

Now that it’s summer, I have a list of things I want to do with my free time. One item is to dive into my reading list of books I actually want to read that I don’t have time for during the school year. Three of the books on my list come from the same author; Chelsea Handler. Her books, the most recent being Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, have topped best-seller lists. They are full of hysterical anecdotes about Handler’s life.

For those who don’t know Handler, she’s not simply an acclaimed author. She also is an established stand-up comedienne and late-night show host. Her show, Chelsea Lately, on E! has an audience of nearly 800,000 viewers. She also has her own production company, Borderline Amazing Productions.

Handler is just one of the many women taking the world of comedy by storm, proving that women can be beautiful, smart and funny.

There was a misconception even just 20 years ago that women either had to be funny or beautiful; funny women had to fall back on their humor since they didn’t have the looks. Critics said these things about Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Gilda Radner. But today, in an age when women are proving more than ever that they can have it all, the new era of funny girls seems to possess more than just humor.

Another female comedy powerhouse, Tina Fey, has risen to the top. She found fame as a sketch comic on Saturday Night Live where she served a stint as the show’s head writer. After she left SNL, she wrote and acted in the movie Mean Girls which starred Lindsay Lohan as the main character. She also acted in other movies. However, her most recent success has come from the hit show she created, 30 Rock, where she serves as actor, writer and producer. Since airing on NBC in 2007, it has won multiple awards including two Emmys for Fey.

Fey, however, doesn’t see herself as the girl who has it all. She pictures herself as more a nerd who broke through. In an interview, she said, “Yeah, it’s tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it’s true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.”

Many would disagree with Fey regarding her conceptions about her looks. She is obviously a pretty woman with a whole lot of substance. But as many barriers female comedians have broken down, there are still more. Male comedians aren’t called out for being attractive and funny; it really doesn’t matter if male comedians are attractive or not. Female comedians may finally be considered equals when we stop feeling the need to put the “female” before the comedian.

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“I hate waiting for the phone to ring,” Lisa Sundstedt divulges. “I create all of my own opportunities, and it’s what I encourage all of my students to do, too. That’s what stand-up is [after all].”

Sundstedt, a former actor and dancer, half-jokes that she started the stand-up comedy showcase Pretty Funny Women back in the mid-nineties after a guy told her she was “too pretty to be funny.” “I wanted to be a star; I wanted to be famous!” She laughs casually—but in all seriousness, it was Sundstedt’s fearless ambition and deep determination to make things happen for herself that allowed her to create such a forum.

Soon she found herself working much more behind the scenes as a writer and producer than a performer. “To be a comedian you need a really strong point of view,” Sundstedt explains. “Your audience needs to be able to sum you up in a few words…I found it was much harder to write for myself because I’m kind of a chameleon.”

Sundstedt knows that in order to achieve something you have to first believe you can do it. However, the most important thing might be to have a role model. “Somebody you’ve seen do it…to know you, too, can achieve it,” Sundstedt explains. She credits the women who really “[did] it all and put on a show” who came before her (like Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, and Bette Midler) as her own inspirations. To many trying to come up in comedy today, though, Sundstedt has become that inspiration.

Traditionally, comedy has been a field heavily dominated by machismo and often misogyny. Just a few weeks ago, Norm Macdonald publicly commented to an interviewer that he didn’t think “chicks” could draw the big laughs. Such a thing should be discouraging in 2009, but Sundstedt doesn’t let it stop her. In fact, to counter such attitude, she encourages her girls to dress up and do their hair and make-up like they’re going out on the town. She doesn’t want them to downplay their gender in order to fit in with the guys. “I don’t want you to ever be someone you’re not,” Sundstedt stresses. Instead of conforming, she wants them to carve out their own spaces.

Sundstedt teaches three workshops a week and encourages her students to “stay together; write together; and support each other.” She gushes when she discusses her classes and students and admits it is the one thing she can see herself doing forever. And though those who enroll in her classes are women who want to become comediennes, her words reach across all professions. “Helping other women…is so fulfilling,” Sundstedt glows. “Nothing is [greater] than having someone come up to me at graduation and say, ‘You made one of my dreams come true.’”

Pretty Funny Women can currently be seen at five venues around the country. For information on upcoming shows, please visit: www.prettyfunnywomen.com

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