Tig Notaro’s Former Breasts Have a Point

Comedian Tig Notaro ripped her shirt off at the New York Comedy Festival revealing her double mastectomy scars and ensuring herself an ornate award in France someday. Unlike Angelina Jolie who had new boobs built after she found a guy in Tijuana to machete off future cancer, Tig Notaro really had cancer, really lost her breasts, and really decided just to leave her post-operative chest as is.

By performing her set with her mastectomy scars bared onstage, Notaro hoped to prove that any amount of social stigma can be overcome by sheer force of performance. According to breathless New York art critics in attendance, within seconds the audience was brain-deep in her comedic stew and completely ignoring her scarred chest. Either that was the best comedy routine ever presented, or somebody is spinning a genenrous fib.

We can desensitize society to the stigma of medical conditions, scarring, deformities or just plain ugly bodies by constantly whipping our clothes off in public forums. Nudists have been unleashing their flog rolls on the public eye for years. The bigger question is, why the fuck would we want to? At some point we as a society decided we were going to wear clothes and make some effort to cover up our disturbing bits until we find somebody so blinded by our fake love of hiking and romantic comedies they will accept our imperfect bodies. Attractive women were obviously excluded from this social compact.

Apparently Notaro’s audience now looks forward to the chance she might peel off her top and show them her scars. This sounds more like a fetish than a liberation. In which case, I’m able to say I support it fully.