Saturday, March 21, the Ampersand International Arts Festival at the College of William and Mary hosted Emmy-winning comedian and writer Jenny Hagel ’98 at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall for her show “Jenny Hagel Gives Advice.”
Hagel has been nominated for six Primetime Emmy awards for her work as a writer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and the Amber Ruffin Show. She has also been praised for her advocacy for LGBTQ rights. Hagel co-hosted the show with six-time Emmy nominee and cartoonist for the New Yorker, Asher Perlman.
While Hagel offered much in the way of humor, her unique personality and care for humanity shone through as she offered pearls of wisdom to audience members. The show featured everything from relationship advice to cat rants to wonky career beginnings.
“It’s because I have a very weird personality trait where I am obsessed with giving advice.” Hagel said. “I give people advice all the time, even if they didn’t ask. Even if they say, ‘Please stop. I’m trying to finish your pap smear.’”
Romantic inquiries were a well-covered topic as Hagel and Perlman took cracks at normative dating, gay dating apps and how to cuff or cut off situationships among close friends.
In relation to dating, Hagel and Perlman were clear: reject the dating apps and find a communal alternative. Hagel and Perlman emphasized the importance of authenticity and individuality when searching for love.
“I think a specific thing that you enjoy might attract someone who enjoys that specific thing as well,” Hagel said. “But I think being yourself, being your weird, specific self – and I don’t mean weird in the pejorative. I mean, we are all weird in some way, right? We all have these weird specifics about us – if you actually let those be themes, then you will find a person who either loves that specific weirdness or shares that specific weirdness.”
Hagel also voiced the hardships of finding love in the LGBTQ community, raising awareness for the cat epidemic on gay dating apps.
“If I see one more cat photo on Hinge, I’m going to barf,” Hagel said.
When it came to breaking off developing situationships, she emphasized the value of honesty and directness.
“You can’t be like, ‘look, I would love to, but I’m just out of a relationship. I don’t want to ruin our friendship.’ You have to look them in the eyeballs and be like, ‘I am not horny for you.’”
Hagel and Perlman also had advice outside of the romance department. Throughout the night, she touched on how to communicate with one’s spouse and ways to engage undergraduates’ attention while in class.
If your spouse holds their own mini lectures in physics, history, music, or biology, Perlman has some marriage-saving advice.
“I love my husband. He talks to me a lot about the English Civil War. Is it okay that I zone out sometimes and don’t listen? Yes.” Perlman said.
Hagel also had some new creative strategies for professors looking to keep their students more engaged in class.
“Put one of those white electrodes under each seat, and if you see them look somewhere else, then electrocute them,” Hagel said.
The show’s audience matched its eclectic tone, ranging from undergraduate students to community members and alumni. Among them was Chloe Allen ’22, who found Hagel’s stage presence and the communal nature of the show especially meaningful.
“I really loved how engaged the audience was, not only listening to her answer the questions, but hearing the audience react,” Allen said. “There were a couple of oohs and a lot of claps, which made it fun, because then you feel an energy shift in the room, especially for serious questions that came up.”
To conclude the show, Dr. Melissa Noble, a staff psychologist at the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center, made a cameo. In her professional capacity, Noble issued her own personal judgement on the show as well as Hagel and Perlman’s pieces of advice. All joking aside, Noble echoed Hagel’s message of individuality underlying the seemingly carefree performance.
“When they talked about letting your most interesting edges show about you, I think it really represents this idea of being authentic and being yourself,” Noble said. “If people like that, that’s awesome, that’s amazing, those are your people. And if they don’t, then that’s okay, they’re not your people. Just be yourself.”
