A Wild Bunch
Older “Funny Girls” and the Small Screen
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6187656 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Franziska Röber (0000-0001-8533-5464) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1991-9336 • E-ISSN: 1991-9336 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/12avi |
| OpenAlex | W4403271407 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
The sitcom has had significant impact on how images of later life as well as later-life femininity are perpetuated, legitimized, transformed, and deconstructed. Not only have they increasingly featured older female leads at their centre, but comedy offers an arena for (older) women to be unruly and behave in ways that contradict stereotypes of ageing and femininity without being punished for doing so. The following article explores how the sitcoms Waiting for God and The Old Guys employ stock situations and stereotypes in order to construct later-life femininities, but also how the mechanisms of the sitcom allow for a transgression of these stereotypical notions of femininity. Particular attention is paid to the question of humor and the domestic spaces (older) women inhabit and how these spaces may be mobilized by older women in order to be “funny” and behave “badly” without being punished
Art · Art history · Literature · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Media, Gender, and Advertising · History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |