Stock image for illustration purposes only - book cover, edition or condition may vary.
Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics
Linda Mizejewski
€ 75.21
FREE Delivery in Ireland
Description for Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics
Hardcover. Women in comedy have traditionally been pegged as either "pretty" or "funny." This book focuses on Kathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres, the women comics who flout the postfeminist girliness, the Hollywood A-list, and feminine whiteness with their wit and biting satire. Num Pages: 278 pages, 15 b&w photos. BIC Classification: 1KBB; APF; APT; JFSJ1. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 5830 x 3895 x 509. Weight in Grams: 563.
Women in comedy have traditionally been pegged as either pretty or funny. Attractive actresses with good comic timing such as Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, and Julia Roberts have always gotten plum roles as the heroines of romantic comedies and television sitcoms. But fewer women who write and perform their own comedy have become stars, and, most often, they've been successful because they were willing to be funny-looking, from Fanny Brice and Phyllis Diller to Lily Tomlin and Carol Burnett. In this pretty-versus-funny history, women writer-comedians-no matter what they look like-have ended up on the other side of pretty, enabling them to make it the topic and butt of the joke, the ideal that is exposed as funny. Pretty/Funny focuses on Kathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres, the groundbreaking women comics who flout the pretty-versus-funny dynamic by targeting glamour, postfeminist girliness, the Hollywood A-list, and feminine whiteness with their wit and biting satire. Linda Mizejewski demonstrates that while these comics don't all identify as feminists or take politically correct positions, their work on gender, sexuality, and race has a political impact. The first major study of women and humor in twenty years, Pretty/Funny makes a convincing case that women's comedy has become a prime site for feminism to speak, talk back, and be contested in the twenty-first century.
Product Details
Publisher
University of Texas Press
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2014
Condition
New
Weight
563g
Number of Pages
278
Place of Publication
Austin, TX, United States
ISBN
9780292756915
SKU
V9780292756915
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Linda Mizejewski
Linda Mizejewski is a professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies at the Ohio State University. Her most recent book is Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics.
Reviews for Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics
Can a woman comic be pretty and funny? This academic (but readable) feminist take on six transgressive women laugh-getters - DeGeneres, Sykes, Silverman, Griffin, Cho and Fey- shows how each challenges the conventional role the culture assigns them - Ms. Magazine Focuses on Katy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Maragert Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres - Chronicle of Higher Education Pretty/Funny compiles six case studies of famous female comedians who write their own material - Fey, Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes and Ellen DeGeneres. Particularly, it focuses on how each woman's comedy challenges the pretty/funny binary that has shape-shifted as women making their own comedy expands [...] Race and sexuality fittingly play a big role in the book's analyses as well, looking at how these comedians' writing challenge and poke fun at how gender appears in sexism, racism, anti-semitism and homophobia. Pretty/ Funny is a fun and revealing book fit for anyone interested in the academic underpinnings of the anti-authoritarian bastard children (lady comics) of a cultural bastard child (comedy). - Columbus Alive! In her new book Pretty Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics, Linda Mizejewski - Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University in Columbus - rips apart the notion that there are no funny women, and pours scorn on the idea that funny women should be judged only by their appearance. Pretty/Funny is very accessible for the non-academic reader, and is an enjoyable stomp through the sexist battlefield of the comedy circuit. - What the Frock?