a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Can Menopause Be Funny?
For the past couple years, menopause has been the hot topic among Gen X and Xennials now that they're in its unrelenting, sweaty grip. Halle Berry and the best-selling memoirist Naomi Watts have been promoting menopause-wellness programs and beauty and health products. And a year after it first hit shelves, readers are still unpacking Miranda July's critically acclaimed book 'All Fours,' the irreverent autofictional portrait of a perimenopausal woman's voracious sexual awakening.
The havoc that menopause wreaks on bodies and minds can feel nothing short of absurd. But, while it has provided an abundance of great material, can it actually be the basis for an entertaining TV sitcom?
The veteran comedy writers and actors Meredith MacNeill, 50, and Jennifer Whalen, 55, are the creators, executive-producers and stars of 'Small Achievable Goals,' a boldly candid half-hour workplace sitcom on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that depicts two Gen X women going through menopause, much as they are experiencing it themselves. The premise alone is a large achievable goal: selling what Ms. Whalen described as 'a joyful comedy about menopause' to Canada's premiere network, especially amid a culture that is squeamish discussing anything related to the menstrual cycle. Then again, the comedians have a proven track record at CBC, with multiple writing and acting awards to their names.
They're considered 'Canadian comedy royalty,' according to, among others, their castmate Alexander Nunez. Though Canada has exported the comic actors Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, as a Toronto resident Lisa Levy (no relation to Mr. Levy) explained it, our neighbors to the north do not have an obsessive celebrity culture like Americans do, unless they're 'athletes or Drake,' so there is not, say, a Tina-and-Amy equivalent in Canada (referencing Tina Fey and Amy Poehler). But if there were, these two would qualify.
'Small Achievable Goals' — or 'SAG,' as the women appropriately call it — deftly strikes the balance between raucous comedy and heart-rending poignancy as an unlikely work partnership unfolds between polar opposites whose hormones have gone haywire, amid an office full of bewildered young millennials and zoomers. 'This is a crazy time of life, but we wanted to make a laugh-out-loud comedy about [menopause] and talk about these things openly,' Ms. Whalen said.
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