Hindsight

                 Seriously Funny!  Thoughts on Gender, Power and Humor

I have the worse girl crush on Melissa McCarthy.  Into her TV show Mike and Molly, and love her latest films The Heat, and Bridesmaids.  She has this amazing ability to offer up her self-expression in the most humorous manner.  Which got me to thinking about humor, gender and power, so some thoughts...The field of comedy has for the most part been a White Man's arena. We can think back through American pop-culture to the female comedians of the thirties and forties, Gracie Allen, Fanny Brice, Patsy Kelly, Eve Arden, and Lucille Ball.  

Although, Ball is the exception in many ways, these women have had a voice, but it was 

clearly that of the second banana; and usually the second bananas plays up to the smarter male or 

'prettier' girlfriend. So, howdid we get to the current popularity of comedians such as Melissa 

McCarhty, a plus size woman, andher hilarious physical comedy on a SNL or the unbridled success 

of talk show host comedian, Ellen Degeneres an open lesbian, or Tina Fey's nerdy character of Liz 

Lemon on 30 Rock? How did all of these women, and they are just a few of the
outstanding female comedians in in the public eye today, push their way into the spotlight? 

Theorists like Constance Rourke and Henry Nash Smith suggest that rhetorical comedy draws on the 

prevalent hegemony stereotypes, and cultural codes. From this perspective, then why are there so many 

humorous feminist women on the scene today? Currently America policies still struggle to give 

women equal pay, and debate a woman's ability to think for herself with regards to birth-control; and 

America continues to have an appalling rate of domestic violence and sexual assault when contrasted 

with other developed countries. Yet, never before has our country had such a force of 
humorous, often subversive rhetoric created, produced and exhibited by female citizens. 
So what explains the pop-ularity of Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, 
Wanda Sykes, Chelsea Handler, Betty White (in her late 80s) and Melissa McCarthy? 

These are women of varying sexual orientation, class, and ethnicity, yet they are all being
heard through their humor on the once taboo topic of female sexuality and birth control. 
 I suggest that these women use humor as a form oppositional resistance, they are the
truth-tellers, representing a shifting, if not always apparent, dialectic on the role of 
women within American culture.  

Within hegemony, the powerless have literally nothing to say, nobody to talk to, or 
must remain silent when more powerful people are speaking, yet within comedy many 
of the marginalized have found their voice, not just for themselves, but also as
a voice for others.

Sandra and Melissa, Hear them Roar!