@article{Feminist:6514,
      recid = {6514},
      author = {Brandman, Mariana Elise},
      title = {Take Back the Mic: The Rise of Feminist Stand-Up Comedy in  American Culture},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2023-06},
      abstract = {“Take Back the Mic” examines the first cohorts of feminist  stand-up comics in the United States, from the years  immediately preceding the emergence of the women’s  liberation movement through the end of the twentieth  century. Through an analysis of comic performances, media  coverage, audience reception, and interviews, this account  reveals how comics introduced a variety of female  perspectives and pro-woman sentiments into American  stand-up comedy. It argues that feminist comics used their  acts to demand public recognition of their whole personhood  and their right to participate fully in cultural life. The  entrance of women into stand-up was not merely about the  right to perform the same old jokes along with the guys.  Rather, feminist comics wielded humor as a tool in order to  make their voices heard by audiences unaccustomed to  considering women’s perspectives, and advocated for the  cultural authority to engage in freer self-expression. In  so doing, they reshaped the comedy stage as a site for  feminist engagement.

In telling the story of the origins  and growth of feminist stand-up comedy, “Take Back the  Mic,” brings together issues of feminism, politics, and  public performance in the later decades of the twentieth  century. The comics included here – from Sophie Tucker,  Belle Barth, and Jackie “Moms” Mabley to Joan Rivers and  Lily Tomlin to Roseanne Barr and Ellen DeGeneres – both  reflected and shaped the culture that surrounded them. The  rise of feminist comedy was a gradual process, helped along  by reciprocal dynamics between the underground and  mainstream in which new styles developed on the fringes of  mass culture (such as women’s movement venues), and then  infiltrated the center (such as comedy clubs and network  television). The trajectory of the genre, over many years  and across a variety of venues, reveals a range of feminist  energy and discourse in periods and arenas previously  thought fallow. Comedy constitutes an overlooked area of  public life in which feminist actors fought for not just  access and equity, but also authority and self-expression.  While feminist activists and politicians worked to remove  the legal and economic boundaries that circumscribed  women’s lives, feminist comics used their platforms to  critique the cultural prescriptions that inhibited them,  and to offer their own ideas for a better, more truthful,  and funnier future. },
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/6514},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.6514},
}