Female Comedians aren't Funny: Gender and Sketch Comedy

It's been two years since Kenan Thompson came under fire for blaming a lack of diversity casing in Saturday Night Live on the poor quality of black female comedians. Women often lack representation in the media, especially women of color, and the comedy genre is no exception. Similar to previous posts I've written about tokenism, it seems that the few females that are successful serve as stand-ins for the general inability for women to be funny. If Amy Schumer or Garfunkel and Oates can achieve success, why not every woman? Those who are successful are held up as proof that there is no bias or discrimination, although they still represent a minority of comedic faces. It's clear that prejudice still remains, with men still chairing key positions on popular comedy news shows and women of color remaining relatively absent even as male diversity increases. There are some notable exceptions that I hope will become more frequent. One of my favorite Daily Show segments features Samantha Bee and Jessica Williams tackling race issues. Tell me these women aren't funny.

Daily Show news team. Retrieved from Comedy Central.

The new season of Inside Amy Schumer has also been receiving attention as she tackles important social issues with a comedic slant. Among the very many attempted sketch shows, this one seems likely to succeed with Amy's keen insight for satire. Among her many hilarious and poignant videos, Amy has addressed beauty standards (video below), female representation in the media (long, but completely worth it, especially if you like 12 Angry Men), rape culture, and obsession with the female anatomy. Catchy and hilarious, "Girl, You Don't Need No Makeup" is a satire of boy bands and requirements for female beauty that reinforce unnecessary adornment and pruning. They note, "with a little mascara, you'll look female" linking the wearing of makeup as a female gendered activity; to not wear makeup is to violate the female identity. It is okay for males to comment on and discipline the actions women should take regarding their appearance. At the end of the video, the male singers try on some of the makeup products and their reactions reveal the ridiculousness of the products women are expected to wear.

Garfunkel and Oates (who frequent one of my favorite LA coffee spots, Bricks & Scones) are a successful comedy duo that also release sketch comedy videos. They've commented on issues such as an emphasis on pregnancy as crucial to the female identity, the gender divide in sports, and chastity (video below). This is a heads up that the video on chastity does show some mimed sex acts and references anal and vaginal sex. The song is a humorous take on the religious restrictions placed on youth to avoid their sexuality and find "loopholes" to stay pure. For me, this video does a great job at highlighting the double standards for purity, where females cannot be pleased sexually but the male can. Overall, the song brings attention to a common side-effect of abstinence-only sex education that promotes female virginity over information and personal choice. It also brings into question why certain sexual acts are treated differently than others and the treatment of sodomy in homosexual vs heterosexual relationships.

Comedy is a persuasive means of communication that often keeps attention and promotes critical thinking (especially in works of satire). The rise of female comedians opens up new areas for this critical eye of importance to women. I don't think these spaces are exclusively for females to occupy, but it is hard to speak for others. Female comedians provide a sense of legitimacy and authenticity to these issues, having lived many of these double standards and social obstacles. The writers and performers of the jokes come from a standpoint that reflects the unique position of a female in contemporary society. I hope that these shows continue to be popular and I encourage people to support them!

The Limits of the Human Body: Horror (and) Marathons

The mind/body dualism continues to captivate the attention of scholars. The inherent separation and differences between the two, and yet their interdependence, creates a constant struggle without end. In the past week, I have been occupied with a similar dilemma of understand the mind and the body. The human body is an amazing thing: simultaneously a hunk of weak flesh and bones, but trained and controlled by the mind to accomplish great feats. In the random collection of thoughts that follow, I will connect ideas from horror films, marathons, and the mind/body dualism.

Image retrieved from this site.

I have been working with a friend and colleague of mine, Kari Storla, on a project about bodily trauma and the Saw franchise. The basis of the film is that the main character, John Kramer, learned the value of human life after trying to commit suicide by driving his car off a cliff. His epiphany about the value of life drove him to test others in a series of "traps." These vary widely and are often related to the trauma that the individuals caused to others or used as substitutes for truly living life.

Amanda's Trap in Saw. Image retrieved from this site.

The tapes that describe the traps often refer to the power of the mind to overcome the impending physical trauma. The people in the traps must make a choice between life and death, lauding the power of the human mind to persevere over the temporary physical pain. To keep the body and mind alive, the body must be sacrificed through a conscious choice. The fate of both are linked, for the mind can only survive if it has a body to inhabit.  In Saw, when Amanda escaped her trap successfully, Jigsaw said, "Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore." For Jigsaw, people are not truly alive unless they value and are grateful for it. The survivors of the traps are now more alive in their physical and mental rebirth.

Image retrieved from this site.

By the time this blog post is published, I will be done (whether finished or disqualified) with my first marathon experience. I vividly remember running track in high school and being, by far, the slowest person. Although I was never told to leave the team, the immense pressure to perform well in track meets and the way I was treated communicated my lack of welcome clearly. I was mentally and physically tormented through running; it is an activity of the body and of the mind. On a two mile loop around the campus one afternoon, it started to rain. I had just started running, I was painfully slow, and hadn't ever run more than the length of a tennis court in a row. Everyone on the track team was forced to wait outside for me to finish as I flailed through the increasingly sticky mud and slogged through 2 miles in an embarrassing 35 minutes. The elite athletes, some who received scholarships to college for running, stood around, in the pouring rain, watching me, and waiting, for 20+ minutes. The horror, embarrassment, and shame followed me through college: I was not a runner.

I need this. Image retrieved from this site.

My physical body was stopped by the mental block in my head. Not until my partner encouraged me to start running again did I realize that my body could do these amazing things, if I only opened my mind to the opportunity. Now, whether I have finished the complete 26.2 miles or not, I have accomplished something that my high school self would have thought impossible and insurmountable. The mind dictates the body's abilities and what it can put upon itself. Of course, no matter how ready the mind is, the body must go through training to complete distances of great lengths. But, with the focus of the mind and of the body, united and together, amazing things are possible.

Image retrieved from this site.

I think of ultra-marathoners who defy odds in multiple day races. I think of the great strength of the trans* community when minds and bodies are aligned. I think of people who survive great losses and turn them into positive and empowering experiences. I think of survivors of tragic events such as the Holocaust, slavery, and Hurricane Katrina. People are strongest when their minds and bodies work together. The mind opens up the possibility for the body to complete them.

Image retrieved from this site.

I want to acknowledge that I am not intending to communicate ableism in this post.  I am certainly not the voice for representative bodies and am not trying to be. I think the body is capable of many amazing things, no matter its state or ability level. The unity of the mind and the body allows for incredible accomplishments and the recognition of all types of bodies. I think more media should represent these bodies, such as the Sports Illustrated Body Issue. Many participants of varying abilities will race with me today. I'm also very excited that the 2015 Special Olympics will be held at USC. Burke argued that humans are always working towards perfection, or teleology. However the body is constructed, people will attempt to reach its limits.

Although scholars may have struggled with the intricacies of the dynamic, scholars such as Susanne Langer, argue that they are never truly separated: “all categories tend to have imperfect boundaries” (In Mind 1988, p. 104).

Edit:

Donald Sterling as a Modern Day Earl Butz

It is impossible to ignore all of the online and offline discussion of the owner of the LA Clippers, Donald Sterling's racist remarks. He noted in a private conversation to his girlfriend that he didn't want her "associating with black people," and specifically bringing them to basketball games. The hypocrisy in Sterling becoming rich off of the labor of black bodies has been addressed better elsewhere, so I wish to address another important part of this discussion: the apologia. Using Kenneth Burke's guilt-redemption cycle, this post will discuss the similarities of Sterling's remarks to the racist statements of Earl Butz, and how these statements implicate the larger American public in the persistence of racism.

Donald Sterling and the Clippers's logo

Earl Butz was Secretary of Agriculture in 1976 who eventually resigned his position after racist comments emerged. This site has the full timeline of the events including the offensive joke. A scholarly article was written about that event by Dr. James Klumpp and Dr. Thomas A. Hollihan called "Debunking the Resignation of Earl Butz: Sacrificing an Official Racist." The title reveals some important terms and information that will inform this comparison between Butz and Sterling. I will also highlight some important differences that reveal modern racial tensions. Butz was "sacrificed" as Klumpp and Hollihan say, as a part of Burke's guilt-redemption cycle. This cycle describes how pollution, or some type of disorder, is introduced into an order, which creates guilt and a subsequent need for purification, purging, and redemption.

Earl Butz, retrieved from this site

For Butz and Sterling, the pollution was their racist statements that shattered the values of equality inherent in their respective social and political orders (government and sports). Both of these institutions are supposed to value equality, all Americans, and their constituents. As public figures, their voices can be seen as stand-ins for the groups that they represent. Butz was "sacrificed" by the Republican Party, who wished to separate their public appearance from racism. The NBA also separated itself from Sterling by banning him from the organization, fining him $2.5 million, and urging him to sell the team. The sacrifice can come in many forms, but it must make the punishment commensurate to the crime committed. Considering that the pollution for each was the potential crumbling of national organizations, the punishments were made quite prominent, public, and severe.

Some prominent reactions to Sterling's statements

Another important similarity between the two are the separation between public and private. Klumpp and Hollihan address this dichotomy by nothing that officials are sometimes seen as not have the right to privacy: anything said even in private could destroy a public persona, one's reputation, and career. Some were quick to jump to Sterling's defense such as columnists at Fox who pointed to the "thoughts" of Sterling as harmless and a personal right. Some articles went as far as to implicate the girlfriend (who recorded the conversation) as the real criminal. In the aftermath of the announcement, Mark Cuban echoed the words of a Fox News reporter about whether convicting people for statements in private could be a "slippery slope" to the thought-police.

Though some of these concerns were raised, there has been overwhelming support for Sterling's punishment. One might say that it was a "success" in some ways in that an athletic profiteer who undermined his own team and the values of the NBA (and perhaps, the country) would be receiving a just punishment. However, Klumpp and Hollihan raise a point of contention with these types of guilt-redemption activities. They note that by creating a sacrificial goat out of Butz and Sterling, we as a nation do not have to address underlying and persistent racism that we may all (or at least most of us) be guilty of. Instead, we can claim that wrongs have been righted and that racism is an individual issue that does not have to be addressed on a societal level. They note that these overt punishments of racism create a culture that "tolerates private racism and its consequences” (p. 11). Jon Stewart adeptly addresses the issue of post-racial society in his critique of Sterling and the recent SCOTUS decision to uphold Michigan's ban on affirmative action.

Retrieved from the Daily Show

What is to be learned by the Donald Sterling incident? One thing is perhaps most important: racism still exists. There is no magical, post-racial world because we have a black president. People haven't stopped being murdered because of their race, people haven't stopped trying to make relevant the KKK, and people still use the n-word. This is only the tip of the iceberg, however, as racism against other minorities, especially immigrant populations, is also a common American theme. Is this what America is all about? We need to take examples like Butz and Sterling and open our eyes to the underlying problems from which these individuals stem. Structural racism is happening and continues to happen; we cannot remain blind to it and only care when individuals break norms of keeping racism a private endeavor. All racism needs to be addressed, and we have a lot of work to do.

Feminine and Masculine roles at a USC Football Game

Football was not a large part of my undergraduate experience (though ice hockey was!), so I have to admit how overwhelmed I was attending a USC football game for the first time last year. Not only is the sound booming, but the action is non-stop, the heat is blazing, and the energy is palpable. Considering the history of the Coliseum in hosting the Olympic games and the traditional sports association with gender stereotypes, I thought I would dedicate this post to the gender disparities I noticed at the last game I went to.

It doesn't take a communication scholar (or any scholar for that matter) to notice the strong gender separation in the sport of football. I find the disparities highlighted at the football game because of the lack of a female equivalent to football really doesn't exist. Instead, females participate in the football game in the form of marching band members, the audience, and the USC song girls (our version of cheerleaders). The audience has the power of gaze and observation over the performing male bodies. The athleticism of the male is the activity to be cheered and booed when performance is outstanding or below expectations.

Though the audience in a sense has this gaze and some power, the ultimate power over the mood of the game relies on the performance of the masculine bodies on the field. Though the center of attention, they hold the power over the narrative of the game day.

The marching band embodies a skillful performance, precision, and musicality which reminds me of the Ancient Greek chorus that interrupts the action for some crowd appeal, break from the continuing action, and engagement with the audience. The mixed genders that make up the marching band show a skilled performance of expertise with instruments, hands, and foot coordination as opposed to expertise of physical force and dexterity. The feminine role is exemplified as a member of the team, an important, integral part of the marching band and its cohesive performance. Though the drum major is traditionally male at USC (doning the Trojan uniform and leading the marching band as would an army general), the band itself is composed of all types of people who come together, unified for a common goal.

Although the song girls are a USC tradition, I find their performances over the games I've been to a sad reinforcement of gender stereotypes that portrays the female as the unskilled observer whose only purpose is to perform the sexualized dance routine in the breaks between football plays. I do not wish to offend members of the USC family who enjoy this tradition, but I find the un-coordinated hair-flipping and hip-shaking a detriment to the capabilities of women and creates a stark contrast between the abilities of the male bodies and the sexuality of the female bodies. The male body in the game is only a success if it performs physically in terms of strength, agility, and operationalized by scoring touchdowns and running yards. The female body, on the edge of the performance arena, is only a success if it can serve as the sexualized object of the audience and football player's gaze. A step out of line, a missed tackle, an out of place hip twirl, a weak head flip all create standards of excellence that the male and female performers can meet. The clear differences are between the amount of skill for each activity, the measurement of success or physical prowess, and the power struggle that occurs between performance and audience.

I understand the history of male performers and female cheerleaders is a historic one, but I still feel that the traditional "cheerleader" shows more skill and prowess than do all of the song girls combined. Physical athleticism is achieved through advanced cheerleading techniques, formations, and gymnastic abilities.

The format and engagement of the athletic body may not ever change, but I think that engaging the more athletic abilities of females at sporting events can help to minimize gender disparities and the differences between athletic performances and the expectations of the body.

Visual Communication Reflection 1: Nudity

At the Visual Communication conference this past weekend, I saw a panel about the representation of the body that I feel merits additional discussion. I was fascinated by the topics that were all linked by images, visuals, and the body: nudity in sports magazines, the narratives of tattoos, and eyewitness testimony. I will devote a blog post to each of these ideas and then finally connect them all with an important communication concept and a personal example of that connection at work.

The first paper performed a critical rhetorical analysis of the visuals in ESPN Magazine's "body issue" that shows athletes in censored but mostly naked poses. As opposed to a pornographic magazine, the photographs were of athletes who covered genital and chest regions with creative posing, sports equipment, or other people.

Serena Williams - Tennis

The tagline for the body issue is the "bodies we want", an ode to the athletic form as the most desirable for both males and females. The issue even states that the reason for the special issue focusing on nudity is to "celebrate the athletic form", emphasizing the body as the ultimate tool of the athletes. Even though athletes may use soccer balls, nets, rackets, and bats, their fundamental tool and skill remains within the capabilities of their body. Strong legs, arms, and torsos, speed, agility, strength, and power are all attributes of the perfect athletic form that strives for victory and perfection.

"Each year, we stop to admire the vast potential of the human form. To unapologetically stand in awe of the athletes who've pushed their physiques to profound frontiers. To imagine how it would feel to inhabit those bodies, to leap and punch and throw like a god. To ... well, gawk. So go ahead; join us."

The idea is that "normal" people cannot achieve such physical fitness and athleticism is something "god-like", to be worshiped and praised. Athletes, though, arguably occupy a wide variety of physical fitness. From the small, thin frame of the jockey to the lean muscle of the runner to the bulky, muscular form of football players, athletes come in all shapes and sizes. Their bodies are thus icons of perfection, not because they fit a certain mold or standard of perfection, but because they are perfect tools to fulfill their specific role. Interesting additions to the body issue, infrequent, is the representation of Paralympic athletes such as Esther Vergeer (2010 issue) and Oksana Masters (2012 issue). Although their bodies may not be the "perfect", "god-like" bodies that one would initially think of, these athletes have become titans in their sport, serving as a symbol of the power of the athletic form, however one may define it.

Sarah Reinertsen - Marathon/Triathlon Runner

The part of the magazine that the researcher's focused on was that although the audience is almost exclusively young and middle-aged males, the magazine had nearly equal proportions of male and female athletes which would contradict heteronormative assumptions. Instead of only focusing on female forms to attract the attention of their target market, the magazine also included naked male bodies, complicating its association with pornographic material. 

The rationale behind the male/female frequency in the magazine was justified by the researchers in the comparison of the types of images. The female athletes were consistently shown in stoic, full body poses performing no action besides being a subject for the camera to focus on. For example, Venus Williams was shown supine in a bathing suit beside a pool, performing no action but relaxing. Julia Mancuso was standing facing the camera, bending a leg and crossing her arms to cover herself. From these photographs, we would have no indication of their sport, physical abilities, or skills as an athlete, but can only focus on their form as an attractive body.

Julia Mancuso - Olympic Skier

The male athletes, however, were consistently performing actions, such as aspects of their sport, exercising, or interacting with teammates. Instead of focusing on the body, the male photographs created action, a narrative, and activity to follow and contextualize the naked male form. For the female athletes, the only focus was directed to their body, showing no skill, talents, or actions specific to the sport or athletes. For example, Tim Howard was shown in goalie gloves diving across the photograph in an attempt to save an imaginary goal. Patrick Willis was shown exercising, lifting larger weights and emphasizing his strength, power, and muscles.

Jose Reyes - Baseball

Evaluating these differences as evidence of heteronormativity, the researchers conclude that the publication still objectifies female athletes for their attractive bodies and worships the male body as a site for action, victory, and athletic ability.

The methodology the researchers chose was based in gender and feminist studies, but I wish that the overall issue of the body and power had been explored. I find the inclusion of Paralympic bodies, the bodies of jockeys, bobsledders, and sumo wrestlers, and non-traditional athletic forms is a powerful statement about who can and should be considered an athlete.