Why break the mould when you can smash it?

I’m going to ask you, if I may, to cast your minds back. If you’re a Gen Z reader then I’m going to ask you to cast your minds way back to the Biblical times. 2007. Take a deep breath. Picture it. The prestigious magazine Vanity Fair has just shocked the world with an article by the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens. Now, I greatly admire Mr Hitchens’ wide body of work but this, it must be said, was not his finest hour. The article, which he no doubt thought was a very thorough and meticulous example of journalism, was entitled “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”

Pre-woke culture this was the sort of thing that men felt entitled to write, and that major publication thought appropriate to print. Using the typical British private school references - Stanford Medical School, Rudyard Kipling et al, he delivers a respectful but pseudo-scientific argument about how women are conditioned not to be funny as a biological imperative, a maintenance of the natural order. As though the addition of humour to their toolkit might somehow remove them from the plinth of the Madonna on which, in his perspective, they must all naturally, like Goddesses, recline. The irony in it however is that he reaches out to two very funny women, Nora Ephron and Fran Lebowitz to hammer down his point. Realistically they have more to say on the oppressive Patriarchal structures stymying women, than the actual capabilities of women to be funny, but he goes on to describe their humour as “...hefty or dyky or Jewish, or some combination of the three." Draw from that what you will, but it strikes me that he perceives them both only as comedians , their womanhood, at least in his eyes, is almost omitted. As a man who is proud and fortunate to have a wealth of wonderful and hilarious women in my life, I take umbrage with this analysis.

Skip to a year later, 2008, Jesus has just emerged from the Cave and Vanity Fair has published a rebuttal. Alessandra Stanley steps into the ring to refute. Nora Ephron and Fran Lebowitz are once again drawn back, recontextualised, respected, but the refreshed angle of criticism is now pointed squarely at the entertainment industry. Apparently, over the course of that year, miraculous opportunities have appeared for women to start being funny and proving themselves in televised comedy. Only now, they have to be sexy, foul-mouthed, still brazen and kind-of-but-not-really masculine. Landing hard punches just to get the air time in this male-dominated, showbiz, TV battleground.

In the post-MeToo world that we’re in, far be it from me to dispute or hypothesize on the well-documented trials and tribulations faced by women in the biz. The Stanley rebuttal served its purpose though. Alessandra Stanley stood her ground and proved that, actually Christopher, women are funny. Well, as long as they're sexy anyway. Using such stalwarts as Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig and Amy Poehler, to name just a few, Stanley gives an exhaustive list of glamorous examples to prove it.

Skip again, if you will, to 2015. The second coming is nigh, Netflix has become an entertainment behemoth, and at last the turn for female led comedy seems to be cementing into the zeitgeist. Enter 'Grace and Frankie' stage left. Step aside ‘It’s Always Sunny’ the grandma’s are in the ring, and they are coming for your gig. This was the year that Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin proved that such comedies do not, in fact, need to fit the prescribed foul-mouthed, youthful, sexy Stanley mould to take the world by storm. They also don't have to aspire to the Hitchian Goddess, Maiden or Crone. 'Grace and Frankie' follows the lives of two women in their seventies whose husbands are business partners, revealing to their respective wives that they’re leaving them… for each other. This illicit gay affair leads to a charming story about finding commonality through shared tragedy, female friendship and trying to find new family dynamics later on in life. Critically it received mixed reviews, even though I think it’s excellent. They were nominated for multiple awards that year and won only one, a best actress at the OFTA’s for Jane Fonda. Still despite being critically overlooked, it must be said that it yet again proved a point. It definitely passes the famous Bechdel test.

Three years after that, TV powerhouse and dialogue-writer-extraordinaire Amy Sherman-Palladino took the 2018 awards season to church with the premiere season of `The Marvelous Mrs Maisel’. Claiming 16 wins, including two Golden Globes, two Critics Choice, and a whopping five Primetime Emmy Awards, Mrs Maisel proved to the world that female-led comedy was not only here and here to stay, but that it was a genre par-excellence. Following the burgeoning career, from wealthy-but-stifled New York housewife to comedy headliner, of Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, played superbly by the effervescent Rachel Brosnahan. Born into a prominent Jewish family in Manhattan, Midge goes on to develop an all-encompassing comedy career, upending her privileged uptown life and sending her marriage into painfully chaotic and hugely entertaining disarray. This show is glamorous, hilarious and best of all a solid two fingers up on both hands to the Hitchens’ of the World. While he may be right in some ways, the humour is occasionally hefty, and sure sometimes I suppose it is could be seen as a bit “dyky” for lack of a better word, especially in Alex Borstein’s acerbic portrayal of Midge’s manager Susie Myerson, and ultimately it can’t help but be very Jewish. However, his suggestion that such humour is burdened by the sisyphic rock of masculinity couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything it just proved that if men can talk about it, women can talk about it too, and you’d best believe that they’re going to. After all femme-fatale has its place but femme-facétie just works so well!

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is, for those of us who know her work, very much a gritty return to Sherman-Palladino’s roots. Intergenerational girl power and a life and career hard-earned in spite of an easier but ultimately stifling existence of patriarchal privilege is very much a narrative that we the fans might recognise. If, like me, you found yourself in tears of raucous laughter following Midge and Susie’s exploits, and the wealth of smaller characters that are so expertly crafted into their world then I strongly suggest you trace Sherman-Palladino’s oeuvre back to the beginning.

Beginning in 2000 and concluding in 2007, the year Hitchens dropped his article, the first season of Gilmore Girls was quietly laying the foundations that would set up female-led dramedy for the next 20 years. Absent of all “heft” or “dykiness” and far too WASPy to be Jewish, this is really the show that, had he seen it, should have stopped Mr Hitchens in his tracks.

Gilmore Girls chronicles the lives of quirky, silver-tongued single mother Lorelai Gilmore and her booksmart, ivy-league-aspirational sixteen year old daughter Rory in small-town Connecticut. Packed to the brim with enchantingly memorable characters, the first series begins with Rory’s acceptance into a prestigious private school and Lorelai ultimately has to ask her high society parents, Richard and Emily (the third Gilmore Girl) whom she ran away from aged 16 with the newborn Rory, to help her fund it. These fraught relationships form the heart of the show. Occasionally terse, often turbulent and always unflinchingly honest, the women here are nothing short of a tour de force. Without leaning too heavily on stereotypes, though they are of course occasionally present, Gilmore Girls has managed to retain its watchability 21 years after it first aired. For me, it's the ultimate comfort food. It's rainy Sunday, under the blanket, wish-the-world-away entertainment. It launched several iconic careers, not least Melissa McCarthy who portrays Lorelai’s best friend and business partner Suki who, were awards able to be given retrospectively, deserves every accolade for her comedy skills which it must be said were beautifully honed here. My mother and I know and sing along to every word of the iconic Carole King theme tune “Where you lead, I will follow” and honestly, I will still follow. I will probably follow forever.

If you'll humour me for a brief aside though, I really do think we have to look at it as a product of its time. Contemporary feminists have critiqued it, and consequently Amy Sherman-Palladino, perhaps rightly so, for its perceived lack of intersectionality. After all, there are feminist themes, but despite their hard work the women that she writes are usually white and from privileged backgrounds. LGBTQ+ characters are only ever really shown in the form of Michel, the sardonic French reception manager at Lorelai's inn, whose queerness is implied more than discussed and who consequently doubles up as the only notable character of colour as well. It would be unfair to attack Ms Sherman-Palladino too harshly though, these intersectional requirements that an audience might ask for are definitely present, and prevalent, in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. Sure we've seen the formula before, but can we blame her for using an initial formula that works for her? It works for me too. Clearly it works for a lot of people. As I said, Mrs Maisel took the awards season by storm when it aired and despite not having received as wide critical acclaim, Gilmore Girls has gone on to become a cult classic, making it onto several of those “100 best TV shows of all time” lists. I must say that I am compelled to agree. Sherman-Palladino has made her mark. Her influence lies everywhere.

Across the pond in the UK, there are traditions of female comedy that follow similar models. Generally darker and grittier, if you’re looking for a more British take then I doubt I need to suggest Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s groundbreaking Fleabag. Another awards season grand-dame. Snubbed for awards however, and wrongfully so, you should definitely check out Michaela Coel’s hilarious Chewing Gum - which is endearing and awkward and entertaining in bundles and deserves far more accolades than it received. In fact, what Sherman-Palladino lacks in representation, Michaela Coel makes up for in spades. Like Waller-Bridge, Coel’s Chewing Gum is also based on her earlier play and documents the story of Tracey Gordon, a naive, conservatively and religiously raised London girl aiming to lose her virginity and discover what the world has to offer. In the noticeably whitewashed world of female-led TV, Coel's work is a display of black girl magic that should not go unnoticed. If you find yourself a fan of Coel, and fancy a real display of creative range, check out I May Destroy You, for her hard-hitting take on a woman rebuilding her life after a sexual assault. Granted it's a step out, but it's just so good. I pray it receives the recognition it deserves in the 2021 season, it has won some, others are still pending, I hope the awarding bodies take note.

If the last thirteen years since the Vanity Fair fiasco has taught us anything, it's that women are, in fact, very, very funny. True, perhaps they are occasionally “hefty” or “masculine” but perhaps though, they’re just quirky, misunderstood, independent. Perhaps they are Jewish, but perhaps they’re BIPOC or queer or some combination therein (see Chewing Gum or Nora from Queens) and perhaps, as I would hope I’ve shown, they don’t actually need to fit into any prescribed moulds. When women are so incredibly intelligent, powerful and political beyond measure, and possessed of an abundance of creativity that we’re only just beginning to recognise the depth of, it can only be a good thing to see them now, at last, have the opportunities to share it. Nuance, which was so sadly lacking from those poorly aged pages of publication, is playing itself out now on our screens, our stages and our streets. Feminist narratives on TV probably still have some way to go, as a man it’s hardly my ball-park to say what is or isn’t feminist, but it seems as if it’s starting to get there and as far as I'm concerned, these watch-list suggestions are a great place to start.

References:

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/funnygirls200804