The Film
Ain’t Your Mama’s Heat Wave is a stand-up comedy special from the frontlines of the climate crisis. It’s filmed in the St. Paul’s district of Norfolk, VA, a Black public housing community that is being redeveloped because of climate flooding, sea level rise, and a legacy of racist urban policies. The city of Norfolk, which is below sea level and sinking, is grappling with the climate crisis and racial injustice.
Four Black millennial stand-up comedians, hailing from Virginia Beach, Atlanta, Chicago, and Ohio, take the stage to “make the climate crisis funny” in front of a St. Paul’s audience who are at risk for a Hurricane Katrina-like disaster and many of whom are currently being displaced from their homes. Things are not so funny when it’s clear that climate threats can mean life or death. But, in the Black American tradition of struggle, resilience, and triumph in the face of existential threat, the joy of comedy, music, and art informs and empowers.
Besides making the climate crisis funny, this 46-minute stand-up special serves up hilarious jokes about daily life struggles, love and relationships, and racial justice.
The comedy of this show helps everyone see that the climate crisis is much more than a crisis; it’s an opportunity for us to right wrongs and truly make life on this planet better for everyone. The joy of comedy, laughter, and finding the humor in existential threat, makes the project a new genre of climate storytelling. We laugh so we don’t cry. We can come together because we can laugh together.
