HBO’s new television series Hacks could certainly show the downside of success in the stand-up comedy business that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is just beginning to explore.
The new HBO Max’s American dark comedy, Hacks, created by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, starring Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, and Carl Clemons-Hopkins, is a television series based on Deborah Vance who is a legendary Las Vegas comedy diva looking to appeal to a younger audience. The show presents a deeper aspect of the world of stand-up comedy, presumably showing a downside that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel could certainly explore in coming seasons.
The dramedy, Hacks, revolves around a character, Deborah Vance, an aging celebrity who reluctantly hires young comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) to freshen up an act that hasn’t changed much since she was telling jokes about the space shuttle Challenger exploding. What Mrs. Maisel has yet to learn is what Hacks Deborah Vance is living; that despite the success, you never stop paying your dues.
Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an American period comedy-drama starring Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam “Midge” Maisel, a New York housewife who discovers she has a knack for stand-up comedy and pursues a career in it. The series has received critical acclaim and award-winning success followed by the show earning multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards including an Emmy for Brosnahan. The show began filming its fourth season in January of 2021 after a nearly year-long delay in production due to the COVID pandemic. An air date for new episodes has not yet been announced.
With Hacks, HBO Max showcases another powerhouse actress, Jean Smart, as the legendary Las Vegas stand-up icon Deborah Vance. Recently seen delivering exceptional supporting work in noteworthy projects such as Watchmen and Mare of East town, the Emmy-award-winning Smart finally gets to step into the spotlight as the show’s lead and makes the most of every moment on-screen. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hacks are quite similar as it features two funny women struggling to succeed in stand-up, although they come at it from distinctive different angles. Hacks, Deborah Vance’s story shows the darker side of what Mrs. Maisel might soon be facing.
Hacks does an excellent job in showcasing how pressurizing it gets to keep performing and how the toll takes on Deborah physically and emotionally. Having succeeded and reached the top of her career, whether she may still enjoy it or not, Deborah must keep performing because so many people in her empire now depend upon her for a paycheck. That is what puts extreme pressure on her to stay fit, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Mrs. Maisel is still on a path to reach and achieve the fame and success that Deborah has achieved. Although she has just begun, Mrs. Maisel is learning that the price she is going to pay may be far greater than she realizes. Forced to be strong women, Midge and Deborah are constantly fighting for prominence in a male-dominated profession. The downside Hacks exposes brings greater focus onto the sacrifice one must make to achieve and maintain success. What Deborah Vance has been forced to do somewhat parallels the career of the iconic stand-up legend Joan Rivers, she has come to the hard conclusion that she cannot live by stand-up alone and has wisely diversified her brand into a profitable QVC and book empire.
HBO Max’s Hacks has effectively displayed how hard comedy is. Midge and Deborah both have succeeded by writing their stand-up material. However, to stay relevant to the current audience, Deborah is seeing learning the hard way that she may be a bit out of touch with the times and accepting the help of a young writer, Ava to give her stand-up a fresh angle. Ava eventually learns quickly that writing comedy and writing stand-up are vastly two different things, but hard and challenging. Watching these two women make their way together and learn from one another in this dark, comedic world is what makes Hacks much interesting and entertaining to the viewers.
