Standup Comediennes: Killing Us with Laughter

Abstract

<p>This study examines the social worlds of standup comediennes. Data were collected through participant observation in comedy clubs and in-depth interviews with comediennes. The focus is on their experiences as women in a male ordered occupation. A variety of objective and ideological constraints which women, as a minority, face, are analyzed. Attention is then paid to how they deal with these realities as well as their attempts to integrate their personal convictions into their performances. Problems which are specific to female comics and thus, gender-based, are analyzed from a feminist perspective. It is argued that since stand up comedy is based on control and since patriarchy, in its structure and process of socialization, denies women access to control, female standups are faced with varying degrees of resistance. This study suggests that acceptance of female comics is linked to cultural perceptions of women. Thus, resistance to female comics will disappear only if and when society accepts the idea of women sharing control with men.</p>