Subject Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Course description
This seminar focuses specifically on women in film comedy in the United States, from the early twentieth century to the present day. In exploring this subject, students will be asked to think and write about what cultural factors have led some to argue that women aren’t funny, and why the field of comedy has traditionally been dominated by men. We will interrogate Hollywood's hegemony by calling attention to and studying the attitudes women endorse, the roles women play, and the stereotypes they reinforce or challenge. With an emphasis on writing, students in this class will be asked to keep a journal dealing with specific topics each week. There will also be three papers of increasing complexity: a response paper, an argument, and a substantial research paper, the topic of which will be developed with the instructor around the middle of the term. With all three, there will be ample opportunity for revision. Through close “readings” of films, students should not only improve their writing, but also their visual literacy. Our approach encourages a reassessment of film history and new ways of thinking about the potential women have for influencing society through laughter. A society without laughter is not a free society.
[Source:IWR, Winter 2024]
In the Library's collections
You can use one of these subject headings to start your research in the library's online catalog:
Introductory reading(s)
A companion to film comedy by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781118327821A wide-ranging survey of the subject that celebrates the variety and complexity of film comedy from the 'silent' days to the present, this authoritative guide offers an international perspective on the popular genre that explores all facets of its formative social, cultural and political context. ...
The feminist spectator in action: feminist criticism for the stage and screen by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780472035199Publication Date: 2nd ed.The Feminist Spectator as Critic broke new ground as one of the pioneering books on feminist spectatorship, encouraging resistant readings to generate feminist meanings in performance. Approaching live spectatorship through a range of interdisciplinary methods, the book has been foundational in theater studies, performance studies, and gender/sexuality/women's studies. This updated and enlarged second edition celebrates the book's twenty-fifth anniversary with a substantial new introduction and up-to-the-moment bibliography, detailing the progress to date in gender equity in theater and the arts, and suggesting how far we have yet to go.
Hysterical!: women in American comedy by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1590 .W64 H97 2017ISBN: 9781477314524Amy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, Tig Notaro, Leslie Jones, and a host of hilarious peers are killing it nightly on American stages and screens large and small, smashing the tired stereotype that women aren't funny. But today's funny women aren't a new phenomenon--they have generations of hysterically funny fore-mothers. Fay Tincher's daredevil stunts, Mae West's linebacker walk, Lucille Ball's manic slapstick, Carol Burnett's athletic pratfalls, Ellen DeGeneres's tomboy pranks, Whoopi Goldberg's sly twinkle, and Tina Fey's acerbic wit all paved the way for contemporary unruly women, whose comedy upends the norms and ideals of women's bodies and behaviors. ...
Specters of slapstick & silent film comediennes by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C55 H46 2018ISBN: 9780231179478Women explode out of chimneys and melt when sprayed with soda water. Feminist activists play practical jokes to lobby for voting rights, while overworked kitchen maids dismember their limbs to finish their chores on time. In early slapstick films with titles such as Saucy Sue, Mary Jane's Mishap, Jane on Strike, and The Consequences of Feminism, comediennes exhibit the tensions between joyful laughter and gendered violence. Slapstick comedy often celebrates the exaggeration of make-believe injury. Unlike male clowns, however, these comic actresses use slapstick antics as forms of feminist protest. ...
Women and comedy: history, theory, practice by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781611476439Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice presents the most current international scholarship on the complexity and subversive potential of women's comedic speech, literature, and performance. Earlier comedy theorists such as Freud and Bergson did not envision women as either the agents or audiences of comedy, only as its targets. Only more recently have scholarly studies of comedy begun to recognize and historicize women's contributions to--and political uses of--comedy. ...
Selected book title(s)
Bossypants by Call Number: AudiobookISBN: 9780316056861Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.
The Cambridge companion to the actress by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1590 .W64 C35 2007ISBN: 9780521608541This Companion brings together sixteen new essays which examine, from various perspectives, the social and cultural role of the actress throughout history and across continents.
Comic Venus: women and comedy in American silent film by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780814341025For many people the term "silent comedy" conjures up images of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Buster Keaton's Stoneface, or Harold Lloyd hanging precariously from the side of a skyscraper. Even people who have never seen a silent film can recognize these comedians at a glance. But what about the female comedians? Gale Henry, Louise Fazenda, Colleen Moore, Constance Talmadge--these and numerous others were wildly popular during the silent film era, appearing in countless motion pictures and earning top salaries, and yet their names have been almost entirely forgotten. As a consequence, recovering their history is all the more compelling given that they laid the foundation for generations of funny women, from Lucille Ball to Carol Burnett to Tina Fey. ...
The girl in the show: three generations of comedy, culture, and feminism by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1590 .W64 F54 2017ISBN: 9781510718364From female pop culture powerhouses dominating the entertainment landscape to memoirs from today's most vocal feminist comediennes shooting up the bestseller lists, women in comedy have never been more influential. Marking this cultural shift, The Girl in the Show provides an in-depth exploration of how comedy and feminism have grown hand in hand to give women a stronger voice in the ongoing fight for equality. ...
Pretty/Funny: women comedians and body politics by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780292756915Women in comedy have traditionally been pegged as either "pretty" or "funny." Attractive actresses with good comic timing such as Katherine Hepburn, Lucille Ball, and Julia Roberts have always gotten plum roles as the heroines of romantic comedies and television sitcoms. ...
Working girls: gender and sexuality in popular cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W6 T36 1998ISBN: 9780415140058Working Girls investigates the thematic concerns of contemporary Hollywood cinema, and its ambivalent articulation of women as both active, and defined by sexual performance, asking whether new Hollywood cinema has responded to feminism and contemporary sexual identities. Whether analysing the rise of films centred around female friendships, or the entrance of pop stars such as Whitney Houston and Madonna into film, Working Girls is an authoritative investigation of the presence of women both as film makers and actors in contemporary mainstream cinema.
Other library resource(s)
Film comedy from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Film comedy is a ubiquitous form of cinema, present from the medium’s earliest days with little “mischief joke” movies such as the Lumière brothers’ L’arroseur arrosé (1895) in which the “hoser gets hosed.” Comedies were popular not only in turn-of-the- century France but also in the United States, with Thomas Alva Edison producing shorts such as A Wringing Good Joke (1899) in which a boy ties his grandfather’s chair to the wringer of a washer and mayhem ensues. While some consider comedy a film genre, it is such a broad category that others liken it to a mode (e.g., melodrama) that itself is divided into various genres: romantic comedy, satire, parody, and the like.
Makers. Volume 2, Women in war, space, comedy, business, Hollywood, politics by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18206ISBN: 9781627891011Profiles women leaders in the fields of politics, business, military, space, motion pictures, and comedy.- Making trouble byCall Number: Jones Media DVD #18556Profiles six female comic entertainers of the last century, Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner and Wendy Wasserstein and explores "what it means to be Jewish, female and funny.
- Women and film from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286“Women and Film” encompasses numerous issues in academic film studies, including the histories of female practitioners in the industry; the works they produced; female audiences; female critics, historians, archivists, and theorists; and the portrayals of women on the movie screen. In the early years of cinema, women played a significant role in filmmaking (e.g., the director Lois Weber and the scenarist Frances Marion in the United States), but these individuals were soon forgotten as the industry became male dominated.
- Women and the silent screen from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Research on women and the silent screen examines the role gender plays onscreen and behind the scenes in early film cultures worldwide. This vibrant sub-field emerged in the 1990s in response to the rise of scholarship on early cinema that began after the Brighton conference in 1978 and the emergence of feminist film theory earlier in that decade. Scholars of women and silent cinema add a historical perspective to feminist film theory, while demonstrating the formative role that gender and sexuality played in early film-making, film-going, and film culture. ...
Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)
You can find scholarly literature for women and comedy in film in a variety of journals. However, if you want to do targeted searching, you can use a subject specific data such as Film & Television Literature Index. You can also use the search box at the top of the page.
Camera obscuraCall Number: Electronic resourceCamera Obscura provides a forum for scholarship and debate on feminism, culture, and media studies. The journal encourages contributions in areas such as the conjunctions of gender, race, class, and sexuality with audiovisual culture; new histories and theories of film, television, video, and digital media; and politically engaged approaches to a range of media practices.
Feminist media historiesCall Number: Electronic journalInter-medial and trans-national in its approach, Feminist Media Histories examines the historical role gender has played in varied media technologies, and documents women’s engagements with these media as audiences, users and consumers, creators and executives, critics, writers and theorists, technicians and laborers, educators, activists, and librarians.
Media history digital library by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe Media History Digital Library digitizes collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. The project is supported by owners of materials who loan them for scanning, and donors who contribute funds to cover the cost of scanning.
The Collection feature extensive runs of several important trade papers and fan magazines.
MLA international bibliography by Call Number: Electronic resourceMLA International Bibliography indexes journal articles, books and dissertations. Coverage includes literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceCovers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television.
Women's studies international by Call Number: Electronic resourceThis resource includes references from a variety of Women's Studies bibliographic databases.
Web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Internet resource(s)
- Plight of the Funny Female from The Atlantic
Olga Khazan's article on why people tend to appreciate men’s humor so much more than women’s. - Women and Hollywood
Women and Hollywood educates, advocates, and agitates for gender parity across the entertainment industry. - Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP)The Women Film Pioneers Project (WFPP) is a digital publication and resource that advances research on the hundreds of women who worked behind the scenes during the silent film era. WFPP publishes original scholarship on women who worked all around the world as directors, producers, screenwriters, editors, and more. ...
- Women in Comedy Festival
Their goal is to help close the gender gap in comedy by showcasing women and their allies across all comedic platforms. All of their offerings are open to people of all genders. - Women in Comedy from The Huffington Post
A compilation of articles on women in comedy from the news site.
Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References
Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.