Since the creation of Saturday Night Live in the mid-1970s, women have increasingly become more visible within the spotlight of mainstream comedy. It’s been a slow, yet gradual transition. (It took 34 years for SNL to find its first female head writer in Tina Fey.) The recent death of Joan Rivers has invited a series of tributes of the innovative comedienne as well as several think pieces on women’s role in mainstream comedy. Snippets from these pieces have been in the back of my mind throughout the past week. With these different stories, there has been one recurring theme I can’t seem to let go: Rivers was crude and rude, two very traditionally unfeminine characteristics. (As the daughter of a Southern Conservative, I somewhat understand Rivers’ place, as I’m often reminded that my affinity for and use of the F-word isn’t “becoming.”) From an early age, it was reinforced that women such as Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell were vile, unattractive and nothing to aspire to (which is unfortunate). I knew (and know) the industry has a long way to go.
But, I’m lucky. I meandered through an awkward adolescence with women such as Fey, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch and Maya Rudolph serving as lights at the end of a very long tunnel. (By that time in my life, I’d realized my sense of humor differed from that of many of my family members, and that was OK.)
In some ways, I feel that female comedians are under more pressure than female movie stars. The same gender stereotypes still apply: Women are still sexualized and scrutinized. However, in some sense, it seems as if members of the media take it a step further with female comedians.
Why? Because they fight back. And because they fight back, they’re labeled fair game.
Fey and Poehler on the cover of Entertainment Weekly
Most female comedians, especially Rivers, refuse to be silenced. Likewise, in her 2011 book Bossypants, Fey shares a memorable interaction with Poehler in SNL’s famous writers’ room:
Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday night read-through to start. […] Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and ‘unladylike,’ Jimmy Fallon […] turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, ‘Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.’ Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. ‘I don’t fucking care if you like it.’ Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit. With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it’ (Fey, 2011).
I love comedy. I appreciate the cultural commentary SNL so masterfully creates. And I’m thankful for the the impact comediennes such as Poehler and Fey have had on the women of my generation.
With these elements combined, I’ve decided to focus on the representation of females in comedy for Project 1, and possibly my final paper. Other related issues I hope to explore through research in this class are the emphasis of aesthetics placed on female comedians (i.e. Lena Dunham and the Vogue Photoshop scandal), the fight for air time and the representation of female African-American comedians.
Works Cited
Fey, T. (2011). Bossypants. New York : Little, Brown and Co.
Expanding Perspective 
Love this post! Love these ladies, too.