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Jessie Kahnweiler’s Bold Brand of Comedy

The Jewish comic brings her in-your-face physical comedy to a new web series

by
Batya Ungar-Sargon
March 14, 2014
(YouTube)
(YouTube)

The marvelously talented and wickedly funny Jessie Kahnweiler has released a preview of her newest project, a web series called “Jessie Goes There.” The first few episodes are called My Boyfriend is Homeless, which is exactly what it sounds like. After dating every guy in L.A., she explains, she’s trying her luck in the homeless community.

“Let me dumb it down for you,” her producer says to her from behind the camera after she meets a nice, Jewish, homeless guy. “You said you want baggage. You said you want to fix somebody. Who has more baggage than a homeless guy?”

Kahnweiler, the one-woman comedy troupe behind Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah, got widespread attention late last year for her bold video, Meet My Rapist. In it, we see Kahnweiler haunted by the constant specter of her rapist, in that she sees him everywhere. The video, based on her own experiences, is challenging and thought-provoking and edgy in all the right ways.

“Jessie Goes There” is lighter, but keeps Kahnweiler’s satirical, in-your-face realness. The series, for which she is currently seeking funding, features a combination of sketch comedy and man-on-the-street interviews. The homeless men featured are really homeless, making the series almost as revolutionary as it is entertaining. With the physical comedy and the super-smart high concept we’ve come to know and love from Kahnweiler, we’ve got high hopes for “Jesse Goes There.”

Batya Ungar-Sargon is a freelance writer who lives in New York. Her Twitter feed is @bungarsargon.