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gender and comedy

The Boob Tube

From One Comedian To Another: Amy Poehler Interviews Irma Kalish [VIDEO]

by Jill Pantozzi | 5:47 pm, March 29th, 2013

Amy Poehler recently got the chance to sit down with comedy writer/producer Irma Kalish for her webseries Smart Girls. It was a pretty big deal for Poehler considering Kalish is a significant trailblazer for women in comedy. Take a look at their chat, it’s enlightening and sweet.

(via Jezebel)

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Essay

Some Girls Are Pretty. Some Girls Are Funny. I’m Pretty Funny.

by Emily Schorr Lesnick | 12:28 pm, October 21st, 2011

Months ago Emily Schorr Lesnick approached us and asked us if we would be interested in running her “localized study of female improvisers” that “looked at how funny women navigate gender on stage.” Naturally, we said “Of course,” “Yes,” and “Yes, please!” Over the summer she adapted her twenty-page senior capstone project to a more blog-friendly format that we’ll be running this week in three parts. The first one ran on Monday, the second on Wednesday.

And so no further introduction from me, here is Part Three of Emily’s Funny Women project, which deconstructs the dichotomy many women improvisers feel exists between being pretty and being funny. Needless to say, just because women can be pretty and funny and vice versa, it doesn’t mean they have to be the former to be the latter.

My research and interviews with fellow funny women illuminate the significance of the female comic being marked in opposition to the “ideal” woman who conforms to norms of beauty and decorum. Women who are not traditionally beautiful often rely on wit and conversely, female comedic performers are limited by beauty norms placed upon them.

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Essay

How Do Funny Women “Do” Gender On Stage?

by Emily Schorr Lesnick | 12:33 pm, October 19th, 2011

Months ago Emily Schorr Lesnick approached us and asked us if we would be interested in running her “localized study of female improvisers” that “looked at how funny women navigate gender on stage.” Naturally, we said “Of course,” “Yes,” and “Yes, please!” Over the summer she adapted her twenty-page senior capstone project to a more blog-friendly format that we’ll be running this week in three parts. The first one ran on Monday, the third will be up Friday.

And so no further introduction from me, here is Part Two of Emily’s Funny Women project.


I interviewed  Twin Cities funny women affiliated with long-form and short-form improv and improv-devised sketch comedy theaters about their experiences.

The main questions I asked all nine women included:

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Essay

On Funny Women: From Typecast to Transformed

by Emily Schorr Lesnick | 12:35 pm, October 17th, 2011

Months ago Emily Schorr Lesnick approached us and asked us if we would be interested in running her “localized study of female improvisers” that “looked at how funny women navigate gender on stage.” Naturally, we said “Of course,” “Yes,” and “Yes, please!” Over the summer she adapted her twenty-page senior capstone project to a more blog-friendly format that we’ll be running this week in three parts; one today, Wednesday and Friday.

And so no further introduction from me, here is Part One of Emily’s Funny Women project, an introduction itself.

“Women can’t be funny.” This is a mantra repeated both subtly and explicitly in theaters, classrooms, black box spaces, and large performance clubs and venues, a mantra spoken and internalized by men and women alike.

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Today in things that make us scream incoherently

Scientists “Prove” Men Are Funnier Than Women

by Jamie Frevele | 2:48 pm, June 20th, 2011

A group of researchers from the University of New Mexico conducted an Official Scientific Study and determined that “humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males.” In fact, that was the title of the study. So, to sum this up: a bunch of scientists got together for a beer one day and said, “Comedians get all the girls! Stupid comedians!” And then they cried into the aforementioned beer and got funding for a scientific study based on something that is entirely subjective and involved non-comedians writing comedy. They hijacked comedy and tried doing science to it.

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