20 research outputs found
Special Editorial
No full textThis text is the section written by Ellie Tomsett for the 'Special Editorial' of Comedy Studies Vol 12 Is 2. This text sits alongside works by other international scholars reflecting on the impact of Covid 19 on live comedy industries around the world. This contribution focuses on the UK comedy industry and was written in March 2021
"May, Juncker and Farage walk into a bar...": comedy is playing a vital role in enabling people to come to terms with Brexit
No full textComedy is inherently linked to identity. Joking enables us to present ourselves and our view of the world to others while simultaneously inviting them to form connections with us through laughter. If you are 'in' on the joke, you form a connection with the joke-teller; you are (however briefly) a community united by humour. So what does this have to do with Brexit? Quite a bit, argues Ellie Tomsett (Birmingham City University)
Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms : Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities /
No full textWhat are the barriers to women's participation in live comedy, and how these barriers are maintained in the digital era? In this book, Ellie Tomsett considers how the origins of stand-up comedy still impact on current live comedy production, and explains how the contemporary stand-up scene still reflects wider societal stereotypes about the capabilities of women. Using primary data collected from women-only comedy nights and immersive research with the UK Women in Comedy Festival in Manchester, Tomsett analyses examples of stand-up performed by contemporary comedians - including Bridget Christie, Lolly Adefope, Luisa Omielan and Ava Vidal - and questions how these performances relate to conceptions of feminist and postfeminist humour, as well as notions of backlash against contemporary feminisms. She focuses on live comedy that is explicitly feminist to consider how social attitudes to women, the increasing visibility of female labour outside the home, and the emergence of multiple (and sometimes contradictory) feminisms has influenced the comedy produced by women comedians in 21st century Britain.Introduction 1. How did we get here?: The evolution of the UK comedy circuit and stereotypes regarding women and comedy. 2. Where are we now?: Challenges today for women comics. 3. Women-only comedy spaces: Addressing inequality on the UK comedy circuit. 4. Online to IRL: The impact of social media on stand-up comedy by women 5. Self-deprecation and beyond: Feminisms on the current circuit 6. An (un)equal and opposite reaction: The backlash and barriers facing feminist comedy 7. Time's Up for comedy sexism Conclusion Bibliography IndexWhat are the barriers to women's participation in live comedy, and how these barriers are maintained in the digital era? In this book, Ellie Tomsett considers how the origins of stand-up comedy still impact on current live comedy production, and explains how the contemporary stand-up scene still reflects wider societal stereotypes about the capabilities of women. Using primary data collected from women-only comedy nights and immersive research with the UK Women in Comedy Festival in Manchester, Tomsett analyses examples of stand-up performed by contemporary comedians - including Bridget Christie, Lolly Adefope, Luisa Omielan and Ava Vidal - and questions how these performances relate to conceptions of feminist and postfeminist humour, as well as notions of backlash against contemporary feminisms. She focuses on live comedy that is explicitly feminist to consider how social attitudes to women, the increasing visibility of female labour outside the home, and the emergence of multiple (and sometimes contradictory) feminisms has influenced the comedy produced by women comedians in 21st century Britain
Positives and negatives: reclaiming the female body and self-deprecation in stand-up comedy
No full textDrawing on existing research into feminist humour, this article argues that many of the functions of self-deprecation within comic performance that have been identified and explored in relation to the American context of the late 90s and early 2000s are still evident on the current UK circuit. Self-deprecation in stand-up comedy by women continues to be understood as both positive (as part of the rise of popular feminisms) and negative (as reinforcing patriarchal norms). These contradictory understandings of self-deprecation in stand-up comedy are always inextricably linked to the identities of the audiences for such humour.
I consider how emergent female stand-up performers may rationalise and understand the role self-deprecation plays within their own work in the current British context. I then discuss the work of stand-up comedian Luisa Omielan as an example of the rejection of self-deprecatory address.
I make the argument that self-deprecation cannot function simply as positive or negative in the current UK context, but must always be considered (for both audiences and performers) as challenging and reinforcing restrictive patriarchal attitudes towards women simultaneously
Twenty-first century fumerist : Bridget Christie and the backlash against feminist comedy
No full textThis article engages with the work of comedian Bridget Christie in relation to definitions of feminist and post-feminist comedy. The year 2013 was a highpoint in coverage and acclaim for feminist comedy and this article will explore how, at a time when the majority of female comedians operate from a post-feminist standpoint, Christie’s work seeks to politicise and galvanise her audience. The evolution of Christie’s work is explored in relation to the changes in her delivery style and the implications this has on the accessibility of her material to wider audiences. Additionally, the response of the wider U.K. comedy industry to the higher profile of feminist comedy and the reassertion of patriarchal masculinity in comedy is considered
“The person inside has experienced the most change…”:The labour of fitness, positivity and narratives of suffering
No full textThis chapter analyses influencer Alice Liveing’s Instagram account in the context of a heightened exercise and fitness culture, a shift from self-help to self-health, and the emotional labours of positivity. This shift creates a number of contradictions, including (1) a need to engage in constant forms of work on the body and on the self while extorting the benefits of loving yourself just the way you are (Gill, Rosalind and Ana Sofia Elias. “‘Awaken Your Incredible’: Love Your Body Discourses and Postfeminist Contradictions.” International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 10, no.2 (2014): 179–188.), (2) the careful governance of negative emotions and affects, expressed in constant calls to ultimate happiness—either in the present (“I am happy now”) or the future (“I am working on my happiness”) and (3) the way these contradictions necessitate a blurring of public and private, through which all elements of intimate, private life become part of an entrepreneurial practice of self-branding (Banet-Weiser,.Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture, University of New York Press, New York, 2012). These contradictions are discussed through (Illouz,.Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008) concept of ‘triumphant suffering’. In Liveing’s social media presence, the triumph in having overcome, among other things, eating disorders, body insecurity and an abusive relationship, provides the hook through which she is able to present her life work as the outcome of a positive mental attitude and herself as the ambassador of her own self-transformation
Recuperating women’s care work in 2010s television fictions of nurses and nursing in the neoliberal NHS
No full textThis chapter explores screen media depictions of nurses and care work in series produced and aired in the context of a UK political climate defined by neoliberal imperatives. It interrogates a selection of case study examples of British television fictions of nursing from the 2010s that differently depict nurses’ experiences of managing and negotiating the dilemmas for women of doing care work in a neoliberalised National Health Service. It does so with a view to arguing that the neoliberalism that informed and led to the passing of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 [HASCA 2012] and its subsequent implementation, beginning in 2013, are key contexts in relation to which these depictions of women in the nursing profession must be understood. The chapter begins with an interrogative contextual analysis of the BBC sitcom Getting On (2009–2013), which lampoons NHS managerialism and bureaucracy, and culminates in a case study analysis of the issues raised by the depiction of nursing and care work in the first series of the BBC drama Trust Me (2017–)
Exposing Russell Brand: navigating allegations of sexual misconduct and appealing to the manosphere
No full textOn 16 September 2023, Channel 4’s Russell Brand in Plain Sight: Dispatches aired allegations of the celebrity comedian’s sexual misconduct with women over the course of his career. The documentary, which was dramatically revealed in the schedule only the day before transmission, resulted in significant international press attention, several internal reviews of production company practices, and the opening of an ongoing police investigation His professional transition across the 2010s away from edgy sexually explicit stand-up comic to online wellbeing influencer gave Brand a platform, underpinned by a narrative of personal development, from which to distance himself from his past behaviour when allegations emerged.), This article scrutinises how Brand tried to take control of the exposé narrative by positioning himself as a victim of post-#MeToo cancel culture, and framing his suspension from certain monetised online platforms (without a trial) as a freedom of speech issue. Brand’s appeal to online manosphere communities, through his contemporary ‘conspiritual’ persona, is discussed in terms of being symptomatic of a wider crisis of contemporary masculinity
Stand-up Comedy, Gender Inequality and Sexual Violence
No full textStand-up comedy as a form is inextricably connected to gender inequality, both in terms of the material delivered on stage, and the industrial practices that occur once the mic is dropped and the spotlights are switched off. As such this chapter will consider the inclusion of misogynist and sexually violent material in stand-up comedy, and the problematic and exclusionary industrial conditions of live comedy circuits, in regard to recent international disclosures of sexual violence occurring in these contexts.
Whilst overt sexism may, in the majority of social contexts, provoke censure, gender inequity continues in contemporary comic material, especially that found in the live environment outside of media regulation, as it reflects and replicates discourses of popular misogyny, transphobia, and the rise of the manosphere. To challenge these violent and sexist narratives, some comics, including those who are survivors of sexual assault themselves, have used routines to confront misogyny, promote various kinds of feminism, and critique the continued use of rape jokes
Stand-up Comedy, Gender Inequality and Sexual Violence
No full textStand-up comedy as a form is inextricably connected to gender inequality, both in terms of the material delivered on stage, and the industrial practices that occur once the mic is dropped and the spotlights are switched off. As such this chapter will consider the inclusion of misogynist and sexually violent material in stand-up comedy, and the problematic and exclusionary industrial conditions of live comedy circuits, in regard to recent international disclosures of sexual violence occurring in these contexts.
Whilst overt sexism may, in the majority of social contexts, provoke censure, gender inequity continues in contemporary comic material, especially that found in the live environment outside of media regulation, as it reflects and replicates discourses of popular misogyny, transphobia, and the rise of the manosphere. To challenge these violent and sexist narratives, some comics, including those who are survivors of sexual assault themselves, have used routines to confront misogyny, promote various kinds of feminism, and critique the continued use of rape jokes
