Women and Comedy

Abstract

This entry provides an overview of the dominant debates surrounding women and comedy. Two main arguments characterize academic, comedy industry, and popular media debates on women and comedy—one that contends that women cannot be funny and the other that maintains that women can be funny. A number of interconnected features, and myths, circulate to construct a masculine discourse surrounding the production, content, and reception of comedy. Yet there is a large body of evidence suggesting that across history—from Greek mythology through to contemporary stand‐up comedy—women have been, and continue to be, funny. Research on the forms and functions of comedy performed by the increasing number of women comedians suggests that comedy performed by women allows women to move from the object, to the subject, of comedy, and that it can have subversive qualities, content, and functions. Despite the increasing number of women comedians performing, evidence suggests that the number, and types, of performance opportunities for women comedians are sometimes restricted and censored.

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

“…As the examples above illustrate, 'unruly expectant mothers' disrupt pregnancy norms through their transgressive comic content, excessive speech and direct tackling of taboos. Fundamentally, 'unruly expectant mothers' rework the visual power and disrupt the social hierarchy of mainstream media and (live) comedy where pregnancy is rarely visible due to the gender inequalities in both production and representation of mainstream comedy (Lockyer, 2020), while simultaneously expanding the pregnancy typologies that exist in mainstream media. The 'unruly expectant mother', like all 'unruly women', is a 'figure of ambivalence' (Rowe, 1995: 31).…”

Challenging the stereotype through humor? Comic female scientists in animated TV series for young audiences

“…Historically, comic performance-one of many cultural expressions of humor-has been a privilege of men (see Lockyer, 2011Lockyer, , 2020Dickinson et al, 2014;Jürgens et al, 2021b). Women have been marginalized in the production and consumption of public humor (Fox, 2017;Jürgens, 2021), while men were believed to have superior humorous expression (Dickinson et al, 2014;Johnston, 2014).…”