Broad City’s Ilana Glazer Talks Dealers, Gender and Non-Progressive Hollywood in Dallas Show

On Sunday evening, the Granada Theater was packed to the brim with fans ready to see Ilana Glazer. Hot off the end of her breakout Comedy Central series, Broad City, she is on the road for her nationwide Ilana Glazer: The Planet is Burning tour. While her Broad City character, Ilana Wexler, offered viewers a fictional, exaggerated caricature of the comedienne and actress, Glazer’s stand-up set invited the audience to take a look into her actual life.

She first opened her set praising Lower Greenville restaurant Aw Shucks for their Alaskan crab legs, adding that she ate several before taking the stage and would soon go on to tackle some heavy subjects, like mental health, without trepidation.

“Ilana Wexler wakes and bakes,” Glazer said of her famous alter-ego. “Ilana Glazer wakes up, takes her vitamins, a dash of antidepressants, and then she gets high. Wake, take and bake.”

Glazer also noted that unlike Wexler, who will openly purchase weed, whether it be on a train or from a stranger in passing, Glazer will “sit in the closet and scroll through Instagram” while her husband answers the weed dealer at the door, as she does not want the dealer to know where she lives.

She compared Instagram to a “full-time job,” right before allowing the audience to shoot stills, as well as a Boomerang clip of her. She then instructed the audience to put their phones away for the rest of the show.

Apart from weed and mental health, Glazer also touched on her sexuality. She praised the gender-nonconforming youth of today and noted that she feels “60 to 70 percent female and 30 to 40 percent male,” emphasizing that gender exists on a spectrum, rather than a forced binary.

On Broad City, Glazer’s character is seen having casual encounters with men and women, and while neither Glazer nor her character have outright labeled themselves as bisexual, she described herself as a cocktail, “one part gay, two parts straight.” Other examples she listed were “‘Gina Ton-dick” and “Both Sexes on the Beach.”

Glazer has been married to her partner David Rooklin for two years.

“I’m married to a cis white man...ew,” Glazer said. She later added that she doesn’t like referring to Rooklin as her husband, “because it’s like, oh my God, I’m a ‘wife’?” Despite her disdain for such titles, Glazer admitted she enjoys making a house a home. “Don’t tell my feminist friends this,” said Glazer.

While Glazer offered the audience a look into her personal life, she also used her platform to discuss social justice issues. She compared President Donald Trump and his administration to “cystic bacne,” while criticizing New York and Hollywood for being less progressive as one would think.

“Texas made Beyoncé, but New York made Trump,” Glazer said, before apologizing on behalf of her home state. Glazer later condemned Mel Gibson for his misogynistic, racist and anti-semitic remarks.

“Oh yeah, Hollywood, so progressive,” Glazer said. “Then why is Mel Gibson still working? Mel Gibson currently has eight films in production, and I’m not going to see a single one of them.”

Glazer also denounced homophobia and other forms of bigotry.

“Homophobia is like, the gayest thing ever,” Glazer said. “These men are literally admitting that all they think about is gay shit. It’s like when someone farts and immediately blames the person next to them.”

Throughout Glazer’s set, she did not mention any of her previous co-stars by name, including her longtime sidekick, Abbi Jacobson. Does this imply bad blood? Absolutely not. Glazer spoke positively about Broad City, noting that she would rather watch two episodes in the time that it takes her to shave her legs. Glazer even recently worked with Jacobson to bring a SheWork (a fictional outdoor co-working space created by Glazer’s Broad City character) pop-up to New York City.

At the moment, Glazer is setting the stage for post-Broad City stardom. By using her platform to bring attention to contemporary issues and for simply being honest about her sexuality and her mental health, Glazer fits in perfectly with today’s entertainment landscape.