Funny Women on Demand AUSTRALIAN FEMALE COMEDIANS ON SCREEN
Throughout Western history there has been much debate over the relationship between gender and humour.1 Even with the presence of funny female actors, writers and comedians, the label of ‘unfunny’ has lingered over the heads of women, especially within the hyper-visible space of popular culture.2 From the late twentieth century until the present day, female comedy has been typecast as performances of humour centred on domesticity, bodily functions and stages of life.3 This style was regarded as being directed at a female audience and, while considered ‘funny’, was not legitimated as an expression of intelligent humour; as media theorist Nancy Walker remarks, it was deemed ‘a sharing of experience rather than a demonstration of cleverness’.4 However, it could also be argued that female comedians have used this type of humour to pry open the door into a male-dominated field. As Australian comedian Denise Scott noted in a 2011 interview, if men are culturally afforded the creative licence to ‘talk about masturbation and their dicks till the cows come home’, then women should have the same liberty.5 Yet, while female comedy has evolved over the last fifty years, the diverse range of identities and lived experiences that fall under the ‘female comedy’ banner have not always been adequately represented on the screen.
In the 1970s the woman in need of male validation, the domestic woman, the ‘dumb’ or self-deprecating woman, and the ‘mentally unhinged’ or unruly woman. As screen academic Rosie White has noted, ‘Appropriate femininity does not apparently encompass having a sense of humour – or more importantly having wit, as in being intelligent, sharp-witted; able to respond verbally if not physically’. In recent Australian screen history, however, a number of female comedians working in skit television, situation comedy, radio, film and stand-up have been making their mark – apart from Scott, there’s Fiona O’Loughlin, Judith Lucy, Magda Szubanski, Kitty Flanagan, Jane Turner and Gina Riley – and these women have paved the way for their contemporaries and successors.
