“It’s not usually this crazy,” Lizz Winstead apologizes, greeting me at the door of her Brooklyn apartment alongside two overstimulated dogs. Inside, a small staff helping prepare Lady Parts Justice for its upcoming launch. The site is the latest in a long line of projects that straddle the sometimes treacherous line between comedy and politics.
Winstead’s impressive CV includes co-founding both The Daily Show and the since-departed left-wing radio station Air America, on which she co-hosted a program with Chuck D. and then relatively unknown politics wonk named Rachel Maddow.
In the wake of a series of standup shows throughout the midwest, the comedian opted to focus her political efforts on a primary political cause — on that has been at the forefront of a number of recent news cycles due primarily to unfortunate turns of events.
Built with the help of a recent Indiegogo campaign, Lady Parts Justice aims to sign light on the struggles of reproductive rights through a series of well-produced, star-studded comedy videos and some cold, hard facts. It’s an issue that’s been at the front of Winstead’s activism since the product of a conservative midwestern upbringing found herself at an abortion clinic at age 17, an experience she writes about at length in her 2012 essay collection, Lizz Free for Die.
We grabbed a couple of chairs coated in dog fur to discuss the cross section of politics and comedy and how some funny YouTube videos might some day effect change.
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