Not Just a Joke: Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, and the Weak Reflexivity of White Feminist Comedy

Colpean, Michelle; Tully, Meg

doi:10.1080/07491409.2019.1610924

Cited by 25 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Further, the question arises of who can call out Netflix's working conditions; gendered pay gaps for comedians have been raised by Schumer and seemingly addressed by Netflix, however other comedians, like Mo’Nique, who have raised the issue of gendered and racialised pay gaps have had to sue Netflix for discrimination to resolve disputes (see Aviles and Dasrath, 2020). We could, therefore, see the critique of work that pregnant stand-up comedy offers as symptomatic of ‘weak reflexivity’ in mainstream white feminist comedy (Colpean and Tully, 2019). Analysing Schumer, Tina Fey and white feminism, Colpean and Tully (2019: 166) argue ‘weak reflexivity’ is a ‘monitoring of one's subjectivity with no acknowledgment of power’, embodied in recent white feminist comedians simultaneously positioning themselves as feminists, superficially acknowledging their whiteness and using racial tropes through their routines, while refusing to address their complicity in reinforcing racial inequalities and power structures.…”

Section: Critiquing Maternity Inequality Through Pregnant Stand-up?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

Lockyer

Benedictis

2023

International Journal of Cultural Studies

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Stand-up comedy has recently become a primary site where representations of pregnancy are increasingly prevalent. Yet little academic work focuses on pregnant stand-up comedians and their performances. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article examines the cultural work of pregnant stand-up comedy. Thematic analysis of pregnant stand-up comedy by Amy Schumer, Ellie Taylor and Ali Wong identifies three significant features characterising the performances: (1) Comedic Corporeality, Vulgarity and Ambiguity; (2) Breaking Silences through the ‘Unruly Expectant Mother’; and (3) Critiquing Maternity Inequality through Pregnant Stand-Up? We examine how pregnant stand-up comedy interacts with and disrupts dominant cultural pregnancy representations, illustrating how pregnancy functions simultaneously as comic content and critique in the performances. Such comic content and critique are characterised by complexity as ambivalence is central to pregnant stand-up comedy. We argue it is precisely such ambivalence that provides productive means to understand the cultural and theoretical significances of pregnant stand-up comedy.

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Section: Critiquing Maternity Inequality Through Pregnant Stand-up?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

Lockyer

Benedictis

2023

International Journal of Cultural Studies

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“…For example, Nanette contextually exists within a feminist comedy boom of performances from unruly women like Tina Fey and Amy Schumer, who explode feminine expectations as their mode of resistance (for reference, see Rowe's Unruly Woman, 1995). However, as Colpean and Tully (2019) explain, these unruly proto-refractors' work "only shallowly explores difference without any meaningful engagement" (p. 162).…”

Section: Stand-up Comedy In the Current Cultural Momentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Refractive Comic: Nanette and Comedy From Inside Identity

Bennett

2022

Television & New Media

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This essay theorizes a millennial-era iteration of stand-up comedy: refractive comedy. Through close textual analysis of Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette (2018), I argue refractive comedy alters the message, affective nature, and form of stand-up comedy through a rejection of the dominant worldview and subsequent centering of marginalized standpoints. This essay examines Gadsby’s refraction in a broader discourse of industrial and cultural, gendered, and racial gatekeeping. I examine how refractive comedy, additionally, has inspired critical conversation on comedy’s role in relation to shared and collective trauma, as seen in Bo Burnham’s Inside (2021).

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“…Colpean and Tully (2019) speak to the dangers of “white feminism” that utilizes a kind of “weak reflexivity” where racism and other forms of oppression are only explored in a shallow and performative way, functioning to reinforce whiteness and other dominant ideologies. Badwall (2016) powerfully critiques the ways in which “critical reflexivity” may operate as a tool of regulation, whiteness, and coloniality, continuing this harmful legacy of the social work profession.…”

Section: The Need For Decolonizing Intersectional Feminist Practice O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Creative Writing and Decolonizing Intersectional Feminist Critical Reflexivity: Challenging Neoliberal, Gendered, White, Colonial Practice Norms in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mayor

Pollack

2022

Affilia

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Creative writing during the COVID-19 pandemic can serve as a decolonizing intersectional feminist method for critical self-reflexivity. We share responses to the prompt: “If my therapeutic practice came with a warning label in COVID-19, what would it say?” and provide an analysis of the neoliberalism, whiteness, and colonialism embedded in our creative writing and practice. Engaging in critical self-reflexivity through metaphor carries potential for revealing hidden gendered, racialized, colonial, and neoliberal biases and norms related to social work practice, particularly when done in a collaborative, dialogic manner. We conclude by providing possible creative writing prompts that might be used in social work practice, supervision, and teaching to advance existing practices of self-reflexivity in social work both during and beyond the pandemic.

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Not Just a Joke: Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, and the Weak Reflexivity of White Feminist Comedy

Cited by 25 publications

References 30 publications

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

The Refractive Comic: Nanette and Comedy From Inside Identity

Creative Writing and Decolonizing Intersectional Feminist Critical Reflexivity: Challenging Neoliberal, Gendered, White, Colonial Practice Norms in the COVID-19 Pandemic

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