Women In Comedy

Faith Beglane

April 17, 2015

            Over the past week we have read articles by Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler. While reading these articles the same themes appeared; women being insulted but using humor to fight back against these insults. Both Amy and Tina were in uncomfortable situations where they could have been easily offended or hurt, but instead they use their sense of comedy to come back and fight against these men. Later in the week, we watched the documentary ‘Why we Laugh: Funny women’, where Joan Rivers narrates a film about women in the comedy business. Most of these comedians felt that they were grouped together for the soul purpose of being women in comedy and having a similar sense of humor, when in reality these women were far from similar. These women did share one thing in common; men rule the comedy industry. This was a shock to me because when I think of comedy, I usually think of three or four famous comedians, all of which are women. They explained how men don’t find women in comedy funny, and how when women first entered the industry, there were a lot of sexist comments. I never thought that there was such discrimination in comedy. When I think of comedy, I usually think of people getting up on a stage being able to say just about whatever they want. They are allowed to be as ruthless, and offensive as they want without anyone being able to say anything. After these comedians described how they were treated, I saw how much judgment was placed on these women when they first entered. They also felt that to be in the industry, a women had to have tough skin and they had to be able to be able to enter a predominantly male ruled world. These women can’t have the luxury of having kids and being in the comedy industry. Men can do both because their wives will take care of the kids while they’re on the road. I think that these women shouldn’t have to face these boundaries, and that they should be able to enter in industry without facing discrimination. If people find a women funny, then who is a man to question her or put her down? Of course men feel threatened because maybe they don’t get that same reaction that women do. Of course there isn’t much that these women can change about whether or not they can have kids and be in the industry because of the fact that society has made it clear that a women should be the one to raise the children. Women in comedy have to endure a lot of stress, and discrimination which is why it takes someone with tough skin to enter the industry.