Sometimes ideas are just in the air and they keep bubbling up to the surface all a once. Following up on the spoken word piece I shared yesterday, Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) was recently interviewed in Vulture and part of their conversation was about women in magic and he shared the following:
“Everybody that I know in magic got in before they were 10 and they have a huge affection for that scene of older men — it was always men — with cigars talking in the basement of a library about magic. I hated that. I didn’t get into magic in any real way until I was 19 and met TellerRaymond Joseph Teller met Jillette in 1974, and they began their trademark show in 1981. Teller normally does not speak in shows or in public, citing early magic shows at frat parties where bros paid closer attention when he was silent. . My whole life up that point was about dirty rock bands. And most of my friends in high school were girls. So the idea of a boys’ club that excluded them — which is what magic was — made me furious. Even now it fills me with rage that people ask if my son is into magic and don’t ask if my daughter is.
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So the biggest trend I’m seeing in magic is what we saw in comedy 15 years ago, which is that the boys’ club is crumbling. Three years ago, it was maybe one girl every two years who would come up after a show and say she was interested in magic. Now it’s about three girls a week — 12-year-old girls with a deck of cards in their hands saying, “I’m going to be on ”
You can read the full article at Vulture.
