Television Comedy and Femininity: Queering Gender

ISBN-13: 9781784533625 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 256 str.

Rosie White

Opis

Until recently--with the likes of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler achieving dazzling success with 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation--popular entertainment has rarely featured women comedians in leading roles. Can comedy on television harbour elements of gender transgression or subversion? And if a man is permitted to be 'funny peculiar'--playing the underdog or misfit--does a woman seem stranger in his place? Mapping examples from British and American comedy television over the past sixty years, from I Love Lucy to Roseanne and Absolutely Fabulous to Jam and Jerusalem, the book asks: are particular forms of television comedy gendered in specific ways? Paying attention to performances and series yet to receive critical attention as well as more established shows, the book offers fresh insights for the fields of television studies, gender and women's studies, cultural history, and comedy.

Recenzje

Dealing with the fascinating topic of female comedy on both sides of the Atlantic, White showcases such hilarious talents as Lucille Ball and Tina Fey and untethered programs such as 30 Rock and the British sketch comedy Smack the Pony ... What is good about White's book is its wedding of British and American comedies, its recognition of the variable of age, and its celebration of women ... Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers and faculty. CHOICE

Spis treści

Introduction Funny Peculiar: Queering Gender, Comedy and Television 1. Gracie, Martha, Eve and Lucy: Queering Femininity in Early American Television Comedy 2. Back to the Dollhouse? Queering Postfeminism in Contemporary American Sitcom 3. The Big Bang Theory: Queering Masculinity in American Sitcom?4. Smack the Pony: Feminist Negotiations in British Sketch Comedy5. Queering Age: Older Women in British Television Comedy

O autorze

Rosie White is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, Theory and Popular Culture at Northumbria University, U.K.