Comediennes had to strive harder than their male counterparts to do their job well (Wilson 2007). The audience was not sure comediennes could be funny. Comedians were uncomfortable with women cracking jokes and controlling the conversation. Doing so belonged only to men. Women and girls were supposed to be quiet and well-behaved, according to a magazine about feminism and pop culture. Many people still felt threatened by funny women as women were socialized to play nice, not to use comedy as a form of power. Simply speaking up was already considered subversive if women did so. Funny women made great contributions for feminism, according to advocates. Comedy possessed a subversive nature, they said. It was and still is a powerful way of saying what they wanted to say. It also made people hear it and even led them to change their minds on the matter (Wilson).
Andi Zeisler, co-founder and editor of *****, a magazine on feminism and pop culture, said there was need to determine who defined what was funny (Wilson 2007). If a woman said the joke and a man did not laugh, the joke may not be funny. Yet women were perceived to have a good sense of humor if they laughed at men's jokes and not when they told the jokes themselves. Professor Gina Barreca of the University of Connecticut also said that a sense of humor was defined differently between men and women. If someone told a man that a certain woman had a great sense of humor, that man would imagine her to look fat or have some physical abnormality. But if a woman was told that a man had a great sense of humor, she immediately imagined him to be cute and would be a great lover or fun to have as company. People in general perceived desirable women as quiet or spoke infrequently. The assumption was to speak little to be desirable (Wilson). Loud and funny women, then, violated this time-honored social perception.
Yet the Carol Burnett Show hugged top ratings until its final telecast in 1978 (Purdy 2002). Her life became an assortment of highs and lows. She also performed excellently as a film actress...
Tillie in 1972 and "a Wedding" in 1978. Although her films did not succeed, she carved her place in the realm of television. Thirty-five years after winning her first Emmy award, Carol won another Emmy for her role as Jamie Buchman's mother in "Mad About You" on television. She returned to television in 1998 to play opposite Walter Matthau in "the Marrying Fool." Although she has been with television for almost four decades, she still remains in the mind of viewers. She is a valuable reminder of television's Golden Years (Pundy).
Carol is a woman of character (Young 2007). Watching her perform already made audiences realize how difficult it was for comedy to be easy. Her writing was witty and her delivery of her lines turned every line into "solid gold." In between were flashbacks of her painful childhood and later-life distress over her daughter Carrie Hamilton's drug addiction and eventual lung cancer. In a 90-minute interview, Carol said that the two things she never stooped to in her entire life were dirty and low. She said that she never felt angry or could not do anything. She said she had a Mickey and Judy mentality, which saw her through many difficulties and pains. The mentality told her that, despite hardships and ugliness, there was beauty out there. There were fun, music and laughter. She saw life as a movie that would end OK (Young).
Bibliography
Purdy, Elizabeth. Carol Burnett. St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: Gale Group, 2002. Retrieved on February 11, 2009 at http://www.gIepc/is_2419200154?tag=content;col1
Wilson, Emily. Are Men Threatened by Funny Women? AlterNet: Independent Media
Institute, 2007. Retrieved on February 11, 2009 at http://www.alternet.org/story/61102?comments=view&cID=7243062PID=724251
Young, Susan. PBS Finds Carol Burnett to be a "Woman of Character" Oakland Tribune:
ANG Newspapers, 2007. Retrieved on February 11, 2009 at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20071102/ai_n21091606?tag=content;col1
