Privilege, pronouns, haters and the youth of today: a conversation with rising Orlando comic Heather Shaw

Heather Shaw never gets ruffled. She calmly and cooly faces bizarre confrontations, overzealous fans, hecklers — you name it — with a witty retort worthy of an improv artist. Only she doesn’t do improv. Heather is a punchline comic who wakes up in the middle of the night, pulls over on the side of the road or politely excuses herself from a conversation to make a note in her phone when a great punchline comes to her. She worries about building the joke out later. But it all starts with the punchline.

A 32-year-old born in Buffalo, New York, Shaw bears an uncanny resemblance to Jim Carrey. That in itself is a punchline, and she built a bit out of it. Languishing in the stand-up dry spell of the pandemic (She has only done three shows over the past year — the most recent one at an outdoor Gainesville venue in February), Shaw launched a TikTok channel with a series of flawless Jim Carrey impressions and the fake news revelation that she is Jim’s long-lost daughter.

The bit went viral and proliferated a series of spin-off bits that have boosted Shaw’s TikTok following to 1.1 million in less than four months.

A few weeks ago, Watermark went for a walk-and-talk with Shaw around Lake Eola and a quarter way around the loop, despite being cloaked in the dark cover of night, Shaw was spotted by a fan.

Said fan nearly had a joy-induced brain explosion, she was so shocked and excited to see Shaw in the flesh. This seems to be a typical reaction. Shaw was friendly and unfazed.

WATERMARK: you’re an out lesbian comic incorporating sexuality into her jokes. does your family enjoy your act the way your fans do?

HEATHER SHAW: They think it’s funny. You know, they like it. It’s cool. I thought about it … If I got up there and they … didn’t approve, that would suck.

Nobody likes it when their parents don’t approve

I know. And mine kind of have to. Me and my two siblings, we’re all gay. So my parents are in the minority. They are outnumbered.

There are three gays?

Yeah, three gays, and two straight parents. Well straightish. We’ll see. My mom, she’s probably a little gay.

How much do your jokes reveal about your personal life?

It’s not very personal. I’ve never been one to talk about myself. I’m private in that way. I just don’t find me all that interesting. A lot of my jokes are based on things I make up to fit the punchline. There’s one about a curvy girl, but I’ve never dated a curvy girl, not that I wouldn’t. But people hear the curvy girl joke and picture me with a curvy girl, and I get asked about her.

Are you doing comedy full time, or do you have a day job?

I’m a research analyst at a bank. Wells Fargo.

Okay, now I see why you don’t find yourself interesting. Are you involved with the LGBTQ+ community?

Not really. Most of my friends are straight guys, other comics. And my girlfriend is a med student, and the people in her program are mostly straight. So we don’t know a lot of gays. I never go to the Pride parade. It’s probably because it was never a struggle for me to be gay. I was accepted. I was never bullied at school, either. In the LGBTQ+ community, one of the ties binding people together is the shared struggle.

How well do you know gay history?

Stonewall, Matthew Shepard, Harvey Milk. I know some. There’s a lot I don’t know. But I appreciate the impact that was made and I appreciate the struggle.

Boomers and Generation X, all the people that came before you. They had a major battle to fight for acceptance, right? And I’m not saying your generation doesn’t have battles. Of course, you do. But you grew up with full acceptance from your family.

Being gay wasn’t acceptable back in the day, but when I grew up there was a big transition underway. It’s like a leaked email. That’s the moment when everything changed.

When you’re on stage, do you see yourself as a voice for the gay community?

I’m not an expert. I’m not a voice for all gay people since people’s situations are all so different. I suppose I represent people who have grown up with acceptance. And I’ve changed my mind about the Pride parade already. I’ll f–king get on top of a float.

How do you feel about pronouns?

I’m really having to get ahold of the whole pronoun situation. People ask me and I’m like hee/haw. A lot of times I can’t get it right. For Gen Z, they don’t even have to think about it. They pick up on pronouns and can remember what everyone prefers. I wonder if we can get to a point where everyone is they/them. That would be easier. Or maybe eventually it will go back to traditional pronouns. Or we’ll just call everyone by their names and not use pronouns.

So, you’re in your 30s and at this point you clearly have a sense of the differences between generations. Other than the pronoun thing, what do you see with Generation Z?

Woke City. Every comic’s worst nightmare.

How’s that?

There are so many things I’m not supposed to say now, and I want to. I mean, I personally can’t be offended. I get why everyone isn’t this way, but other people’s issues are not mine. Someone can come up to me and call me a bold-faced fa-got and I’ll be, like, ‘Hey, what’s up, dude?’ And sometimes I’ll get mistaken for a guy. I just don’t care.

Is there anything at all that can elicit a hostile response from you or send you into a rage?

I wish I could say that if you insulted my mother I’d be mad, but even then, I would understand that you’re just like that. That’s your thing, not my thing. There’s really nothing someone can say to trigger me. I don’t take anything seriously, especially people.

Do you think each generation is more woke?

Nobody is woke like Gen Z. They are open, proud, accepting and they wear mom jeans. Although they say it’s not cool to use the crying-laughing emoji anymore, so that’s not very accepting. And they don’t accept skinny jeans. Actually, I’m terrified of them. I wear skinny jeans and I’m not changing.

Your family moved to Melbourne, Florida when you were in high school. You recently you said you consider Orlando to be a liberal city, Does it truly feel like a bastion of progressive thought to you? Is that because you compare it with Melbourne?

I do think it is a liberal city for Florida. I mean, you know, we did Black Lives Matter protests here. I was part of it and we got tear gassed.

At this point in the conversation, it dawns on me just how centered Heather really is. Her built-in confidence and security give her a view of life that originates with her own safe experience. You could call it privilege, and that would be fair. Privilege has gotten a bad rap, understandably, but the flip side of that coin is that the generations that came before her fought for equality, and winning those battles amounts to privilege being enjoyed by those who were once underrepresented, oppressed and targeted. And that’s the reality Heather was born into.

For Heather, Orlando is liberal because she is here. Official tear-gassing notwithstanding, the city is defined by her own brand of liberalism. She doesn’t need to fight. She only needs to live out her will and be who she is. Orlando is liberal because she has been and will continue to live freely. Her self-expression is unstoppable.

The life of a comic is a natural fit for this attitude.

When did you start doing stand-up?

2015? I always wanted to do it, but I was chickensh-t … and then I was just like, “F-ck it!” And then I fell in love with it. It is everything I thought it would be.

More in Arts & Culture

See More