A recent BBC News report stated that box office sales for female comedians has increased to 14% from just 2% back in 2009. With Sarah Millican and Miranda Hart being the biggest female lives draws in the last five years. How brilliant. I absolutely adore a whole bunch of different female stand up comedians and comedic actresses so it's great to hear that more people are enjoying female comedians. I really can't see the negative in a statistic like that.
However, very interestingly, I have been reading a lot about how a specific form of comedy that prominently female comedians are using is in fact damaging to female empowerment. Many female comedians use a self deprecating style of humor that leaves audience laughing along with them while simultaneously laughing at them. Is this damaging the empowerment that these female comedians have? It can and has been argued that this enables audiences to lose their respect and admiration for the female comedians due to their own seemingly lack of self confidence and self love. A recent, interesting example of this is via American actress and comedian Mindy Kaling, who we all know, i literally adore. However, I have noticed as of recent that many fans are gushing about how much they love Kaling's humor in the US T.V show The Mindy Project but find that the use of that trusty self deprecating sense of humor is damaging towards to her overall sense of power and female strength. During much of The Mindy Project, Kaling's weight and size are often touching points for comedy, whether Kaling's own character is mentioning her apparent size difference to other girls, or whether her co-stars are quipping about her eating habits and it can be argued that this enables the opinion that women of Kaling's size are indeed abnormal and suitable for comedy but no other genre.
Personally, I'm exceptionally guilty of using self deprecating humor in my own life. If I'm self conscious about something then I'll definitely make a joke about it first so that others can't and you can argue that perhaps female comedians are doing the same. However, personally, I believe that this sense of humor is only becoming problematic for female comedians because audience are still not seeing them as equal and fair game within comedy. Stop treating them like delicate flowers that cannot use their own apparent 'short comings' as ammo as to make being pee themselves laughing. You get your fair share of male comedians using the same kind of humor and never do you find people criticizing them, accusing them of risking their empowerment because of it. Grow up. Men have flaws. Women have flaws. Should one be able to use theirs to create a career and not the other? No. If I could make a career making fun of some of my flaws, you bet I would.
What do you guys think though? Can female comedians still hold a sense of power in the entertainment industry while using self deprecating humor as their main style? Let me know!
