What’s So Funny About Menopause?
Baroness Von Sketch Show alum Jennifer Whalen talks about finding the humour in menopause, and reuniting with her Baroness co-star Meredith MacNeill, for the new comedy Small Achievable Goals.
For Jennifer Whalen, the personal is also hilarious when it comes to the topic of menopause and perimenopause.
The writer, actor and producer best known for creating the groundbreaking comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show (alongside Meredith MacNeill, Carolyn Taylor and Aurora Browne) returns to TV with Small Achievable Goals.
The 30-minute CBC comedy, casts Whalen as Julie Muldoon, an award-winning podcaster who suddenly realizes her hot flashes, flop sweat and simmering rage are not caused by workplace distress but by the onset of menopause.
She is tasked with producing a beauty podcast with the perimenopausal Kris Fine (MacNeill), an insecure TikTok star dealing with out-of-control menstrual flow, painful cramps and an intense fear of failure.
The show takes dead aim at the taboos and stigmas associated with menopause and, in typical Whalen and MacNeill fashion, turns uncomfortable menopausal moments into laughs.
Now & Next caught up with Whalen to chat about making menopause funny, resisting the urge to be perfect and her co-star’s penchant for crawling on furniture.
What was the genesis of Small Achievable Goals?
It started during the end of the pandemic. I started to realize that I was possibly in menopause, and I was really shocked about how little I knew about it. I'm kind of a big nerd and as I started to research it, I realized, first of all, that I didn't know anything about perimenopause and that a lot of things that I experienced in my late forties, which I thought was, “Oh, I'm stressed, I'm getting older,” were actually perimenopause. I had no idea that they were very, very common things. And when you look into menopause, a lot of what you hear is so bleak and depressing that I felt like I could use a laugh about it. I figured I couldn't be alone in that, and talking to Meredith she felt the same way.
Does this show feel more personal than your other work?
Other work that I've done had more broad themes, but because of the subject matter this one does feel more personal, for sure. Yes.
When you pitched the show to funding organizations and networks was there any pushback?
That's what I expected! I expected there to be some resistance and, I must admit, I formulated the devastating argument for why it was something really important and why I should do it, and I was actually completely flummoxed that the reception we got was positive across the board. People were really interested. And I was like, “Oh, really? I’ve got this great argument!” It was amazing and heartening.
Were there more women in the rooms when pitching this show as compared to pitching Baroness Von Sketch a decade ago?
Yes. There are so many more women in broadcasting than there used to be. I think in every single meeting that we were in there was at least one woman who was of the age who was like, “Ohhh, yeah, yeah.”
When it comes to the show’s humour, you go there! We see the effects of menopause and perimenopause, both physically and emotionally. Do you ever question how far you can go with the humour?
Both Meredith and I have a taste to see us go as far as we possibly can. And Meredith is amazing, dare I say a genius, at physical comedy. Some of the things are scripted and we know that they're going to happen, and sometimes when we start improvising things become larger.
When scripts get broken down, production looks at it and says, “That's a stunt.” And we're like, really? That's a stunt? I tell you, we had to test all the desks in the office to make sure everything was load bearing so if Meredith decided to crawl up on them we were ready for it.
The power of your humour is in how it subverts society’s notions of what it means to be female.
I think that in the comedy that we do, we want women to be seen. We want women to recognize themselves. But it is interesting because I have had people say to me of the comedy, “Oh my God, it's so embarrassing. You do so many embarrassing things!” It's funny, I never thought about it that way. It speaks to a lot of our sense about women and making mistakes and being socially embarrassed. I think it also could be that as women we have so much pressure to be perfect. And so, I think subverting that perfection, or trying to do the thing that you're supposed to do and then not being able to quite meet it, speaks to women.
There’s been a shift in the media talking about menopause, sometimes to great effect. A four-part TV docuseries, Loto-Méno, made a big splash in Quebec in 2023. And because of it expensive medication that women were taking is now being reimbursed by the Quebec government. Why do you think we’re experiencing this shift?
I think there's just a willingness. I think that also, to your point about Quebec, this is a major medical issue for anyone who's got a uterus.
And it has huge effects. Women fall out of the job market. It affects us economically. It can affect our relationships. It can affect our physical, our mental and our spiritual well-being, because it's this thing that we're supposed to not talk about and just pretend it's not happening.
It’s also a double whammy for you because you work in an industry focused on youth and beauty.
Yes, it's super disheartening. We get offered things like playing grandparents. And societally, I think that the message that you get from the media in general is that your work as a human is over. This is a cliff that you fall off, and then after that you're done. But I think that we're aging differently. We're taking better care of ourselves than we did. It's interesting, I was watching TV the other day and there was a commercial about seniors, 50 and over, and it was like, 50? I mean, maybe 40 years ago, when life expectancy was like 70 or 75, but now people are living longer and longer. We have to shift the conversation.
What do you want viewers to take away from Small Achievable Goals?
We want people to enjoy it but also take the stigma away from menopause and perimenopause. Partly why I wanted to do the show, for myself, was to try and find some good role models. This can't all be negative!
