My Personal Standards for a Feminist Comedy

What is a feminist comedy, anyway?  Is it possible for a TV show, a film, a viral video, to be both feminist and humorous?

My initial, derisive response is to say, “Duh. Yes.”  My favorite form of comedy is satire.  Quality satire requires social awareness, and so does feminism.  In that sense, feminism and comedy are harmoniously united in a beautiful marriage (that is unfortunately still illegal in forty-five states).

Still, some clarification is in order.  What makes a feminist comedy?

Speaking only for myself, of course, I offer these three criteria:

– It has to pass the Bechdel test.  The Bechdel Test, for those of you not in the know, comes from cartoonist Alison Bechdel.  She wrote a comic strip called “Dykes to Watch Out For,” in which one of her characters decided that she would only see a movie if it satisfied three basic requirements: 1) the film had to have at least two women in it, who 2) talked to each other about 3) something besides a man.  Now, I can’t afford to be that selective when I choose a movie to watch – if I did, I would never be able to watch a Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter movie ever again, and I am not now, nor will I ever be, ready to sacrifice my Geek Card.  But I do always keep the Bechdel test in the back of my mind when I judge a piece of work based on feminist credentials.  For example, a recent comedy that just barely passes the Bechdel test is Zombieland. There is a brief scene where Emma Stone’s and Abigail Breslin’s characters talk about something other than men or their relationships with men.  (Um…spoiler alert?)

This brings me to my next criterion:

– Women must have some agency in the storyline.  I’m not interested in books, films, or television shows where female characters exist solely to further the journeys of men.  I have occasionally watched films and read books where women were nothing but pawns in the stories of the male characters, and even if the story was well-written, I always felt a little dirty afterward, and not in a good way.

Women having agency in the storyline is a big deal for me.  I want to see a woman make choices about her life, even if she’s not the main focus of the story.  These choices do not even have to be feminist choices. If a female character decides she would rather stay home and have babies than pursue a career, I still consider that a feminist story if the story shows that journey from her perspective.  If a woman in the story has a voice and does not exist only to prop up the male characters, I consider that a victory.

Finally, my third, and possibly most important, criterion:

– The women in the story are as ridiculous as the men.  I’m sick and tired of seeing movies and TV shows where the men get to relive their adolescence and the women only exist as their scolding, nagging Jiminy Crickets to bring them back to real life.  I want to see more shows and movies where the women get to be as goofy and silly as the men.  This is one reason why I’m so immensely fond of shows like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, and Community. The women characters don’t just sit back and sigh over the crazy-but-fun antics of their male friends and relatives.  They participate in their zany, satirical, over-the-top worlds as well as the male characters do, and they do it with gusto!  I will never get tired of 30 Rock, simply because Liz and Jenna are allowed to be as silly and ridiculous as Jack, Kenneth, and Tracy.

Of course, I’ve enjoyed movies and TV that have broken some, or all, of these rules.  Glee, a show that I have an intense love-hate relationship with, breaks the first two rules on a consistent basis and often leaves me infuriated when I would rather be basking in its silliness – but I still watch it, because it passes rule #3 with flying colors.

I have to face facts here: I would have to stop watching most television shows if they were perfectly feminist, and I’m not going to stop watching my stories, which means I will have to come face-to-face with many shows that don’t meet my criteria.  I’m okay with that.  I would rather discuss those texts than ignore them and pretend they don’t exist – otherwise, what would I write about?