Unit Two Blog: Swink's Article

Robyn Swink’s article, “Lemony Liz and likable Leslie: audience understandings of feminism, comedy, and gender in women-led television comedies”, brought up key points throughout the experiment about feminism, gender, and comedy. The use of credited individuals and research collected from the experiment strengthened these key points. One of the points raised was which characters did the participants relate to the most. Another point made was the results of the participants favorite characters. These two separate points came together to form a developed analysis. It is a topic I am interested in pursuing and researching more for the project.

The participants stated that they related mostly to female characters such as Liz Lemon and Mindy Lahiri. However, they related to these characters based upon their flaws, rather than positive traits. Although these individuals have a stronger connection with these women, they tended to favor the male characters. Some participants said the male characters were just funnier. Thus, adding to the belief that females are not as funny as men. It was interesting to read that co-writers like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler wrote and designated these funny parts specifically to the male characters. It’s interesting that they did this having knowledge that genders could view them as “less funny”. It happens often that people are discredited. In addition, sometimes those significant details go unheard by the general public. I related this to the movie, Hidden Figures.

Although, Hidden Figures is not centered around comedy, it correlates to the notion of women being discredited. For those who have not watched the movie, it is about three black, mathematician women who worked for NASA. They helped behind the scenes of launching John Glenn into space. Personally, before watching the movie, I never knew who any of the women were. They each contributed significant data and calculations to prepare for Glenn’s travel into orbit. However, this takes place in the 1960’s with racial segregation and gender inequality. They faced many challenges and oppression within the workplace. Throughout the movie, the audience sees how the women’s hard work is credited to the male workers in their departments. It is not known until later that the true masterminds were Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson.

As previously stated, the two situations are not directly related in terms of comedy, but they do share similarities. Fey, Poehler, and other female writers go without recognition, identical to the three women in Hidden Figures. It makes one wonder how this exactly happens. It seems that in many ways we do not know the names of those who work behind the scenes. I did not know until reading that Fey and Poehler were co-writers. Similarly, I was unaware that three African-American women worked for NASA. It makes me wonder why I never learned about something so important and relevant. I also question if I would have discovered these women’s achievements if the movie were never produced. Or if people would have known Fey and Poehler co-write the funny parts. I also wonder if people have known any of that if Swink never wrote an article about it.