The women behindThree Busy Debrasbring their surreal, Stepford-wife comedy act to Adult Swim.
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Theyre all based on our personalities, so you have to guess which one is which.
Honig gives a conspiratorial look: Imthe cunt.
No, youre the bitch and Im the cunt, cuts in Stonoha.
We all can agree that Im the moron, says Jouhari.
Im sorry: bitch, cunt, moron, she says pointing at Honig, Stonoha, then herself.
Two to one, you lose Sandy, says Stonoha.
Im sorry, I just thought I was the cunt, says Honig, with feigned sadness.
Its because you are veiling the fact that you are saying something mean, she says to Honig.
You will couch it in a compliment and make it sound beautiful.
Got it, got it, got it, Honig nods, her daisy earrings bouncing joyfully.
Whereas Alyssa will just be like sorry, thecharacter will just say the mean thing, Jouhari continues.
I guess Im sort of passive-aggressive, says Honig.
And Im aggressive-aggressive, says Stonoha.
And youre passive-passive, Honig tells Jouhari.
Honig, 27, has a watchful intensity about her, as though shes casing the joint.
The three met as they were all starting out in the alt-comedy scene in New York.
Jouhari had just moved to New York at the end of 2014.
(Honig and Stonoha had met a few months prior at another comedy show.)
The lo-fi production capabilities of the Annoyance forced them to develop the absurdist and minimalist style of the Debras.
(One big shift is that the Debras look at each other rather than avoid each others eyelines.)
The Adult Swim version is still undeniably theirs itretains their madcap weirdness with an undercurrent of sweetness.
Its all control in different ways, Jouhari explains.
Whereas I want other people to be more like me, says Stonoha.
But Debras was a shelter they could always return to a collective identity they could inhabit together.
But perhaps theyre understandably uneasy about using the language of corporate feminism.
They often make fun of girlboss speak take a 2015 parody Stonoha and Honig did of anOshkosh Bgosh commercial.
A similar skepticism underliesThree Busy Debras.
A lot of the way we write these characters is knowing the Debras are bad women, says Honig.
The Debras are absolutely capitalist; theyre absolutely not feminists.
Theyre absolutely not intersectional.
That also comes across in the treatment of Mitras Debra.
We treat [her] as other because she is a not-white Debra.
Its their socialism episode: They imagine a world where suddenly everyone has what the Debras have.
The ATM erupting means that Lemoncurd is now flooded with cash.
What does that mean for the Debras and their status in the town?
Its like,If I dont have my money, which is my power, then who am I?
Because she finds him disgusting.
Jouharis Debra would be very desperately hosting a lot of poorly attended Zoom parties.
She would be the center of the outbreak.
Three Busy Debraspremieres Sunday, March 29, at midnight EST on Adult Swim.
