http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/6505907

Six funny women : gender, body, sexuality and power in the stand-up comedy of Judy Tenuta, Paula Poundstone, Ellen Degeneres, Roseanne Barr Pentland Arnold Thomas, Adele Givens and Margaret Cho

In this dissertation, I draw on queer and feminist theory to investigate the performance styles of six female stand-up comics working in the last two decades. In this interrogation, I attempt to situate the work of these six comics within an historical framework. This work is guided by the following questions: What are the boundaries that encompass women performing comedy? Do Judy Tenuta, Paula Poundstone, Ellen Degeneres, Roseanne, Adele Givens, and Margaret Cho perform "feminist" humor? How are their performance personas and acts influenced by their social role(s) as women? How do issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality influence comic performances when women are the performers? How does female stand-up comedy address the subordinate status of women? The sources for this investigation are video and audio recordings of each of the women studied. Also included are other performances, such as work in film or on television shows, when this work enhances an understanding of the comic's persona or the cultural reading of that persona. Additional source material includes autobiographies, humorous essays, and interviews.

Open All Close All