Leah E Waters
November 22, 2015
JOUR 5260
The Construction of Gender-Based Humor in American Sitcoms
When Gershon Legman first made the claim that women were the “last oppressed group” to demand equality for their inferior gender, he did so without the hindsight of decades of success of female comedians from Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore to Tina Fey and Amy Schumer (1968). As he wrote in his dirty joke handbook, female genitalia and all the constructs of gender were holding us back: “Women are still frozen at the paltry assimilationist stage of hating themselves for the women that they are, and wanting to be what they can never be: men – pants, penis and all the rest of it” (Legman, 1968, 319). And almost 40 years later when the late …show more content…
By looking at the specific conversations in individual scenes of these sitcoms, the characters were analyzed for their use of different humor techniques to determine how male and female characters constructed humor for themselves or became the objects of humor. Buijzen & Valkenburg’s (2004) typology of 41 techniques were used to categorize the different humor devices the characters used in each scene (Figure 1). A scene is marked by a change of characters within a room and/or change of topic of conversation among those characters. Each new scene was coded separately for each male and female character and what humor techniques they used. The specific context of the joke or instance of humor was also recorded to determine if the content contained any sexualized language. The unit of analysis was an individual scene, however, each joke or moment of humor was marked by an audience laugh track, signifying what the show wanted the viewer to think was …show more content…
M. Valkenburg. 2004. Developing a typology of humor in audiovisual media. Media Psychology 6 : 146-67.
Crawford, M. 2003. Gender and humor in social context. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9): 1413-1430.
Glascock, J. 2001. Gender roles on prime-time network television: Demographics and behaviors. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45 (4): 656-669.
Legman, G. 1968. Rationale of the dirty joke: An analysis of sexual humor. New York: Breaking Point.
Martineau, W. H. 1972. The model of the social functions of humor. In The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues., eds. J. H. Goldstein, P. E. McGhee, 101-124. New York & London: Academic Press.
Robinson, T., and Smith-Lovin, L. 2001. Getting A laugh: Gender, status, and humor in task discussions. Social Forces 80 (1) (09): 123-58,http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5248852&scope=site.
Rowe, K. 1995. The unruly woman: Gender and the genres of laughter. Austin, TX: The Unversity of Texas Press.
Senzani, A. 2010. Class and gender as a laughing matter? the case of roseanne. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23 (2):
November 22, 2015
JOUR 5260
The Construction of Gender-Based Humor in American Sitcoms
When Gershon Legman first made the claim that women were the “last oppressed group” to demand equality for their inferior gender, he did so without the hindsight of decades of success of female comedians from Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore to Tina Fey and Amy Schumer (1968). As he wrote in his dirty joke handbook, female genitalia and all the constructs of gender were holding us back: “Women are still frozen at the paltry assimilationist stage of hating themselves for the women that they are, and wanting to be what they can never be: men – pants, penis and all the rest of it” (Legman, 1968, 319). And almost 40 years later when the late …show more content…
By looking at the specific conversations in individual scenes of these sitcoms, the characters were analyzed for their use of different humor techniques to determine how male and female characters constructed humor for themselves or became the objects of humor. Buijzen & Valkenburg’s (2004) typology of 41 techniques were used to categorize the different humor devices the characters used in each scene (Figure 1). A scene is marked by a change of characters within a room and/or change of topic of conversation among those characters. Each new scene was coded separately for each male and female character and what humor techniques they used. The specific context of the joke or instance of humor was also recorded to determine if the content contained any sexualized language. The unit of analysis was an individual scene, however, each joke or moment of humor was marked by an audience laugh track, signifying what the show wanted the viewer to think was …show more content…
M. Valkenburg. 2004. Developing a typology of humor in audiovisual media. Media Psychology 6 : 146-67.
Crawford, M. 2003. Gender and humor in social context. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9): 1413-1430.
Glascock, J. 2001. Gender roles on prime-time network television: Demographics and behaviors. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45 (4): 656-669.
Legman, G. 1968. Rationale of the dirty joke: An analysis of sexual humor. New York: Breaking Point.
Martineau, W. H. 1972. The model of the social functions of humor. In The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues., eds. J. H. Goldstein, P. E. McGhee, 101-124. New York & London: Academic Press.
Robinson, T., and Smith-Lovin, L. 2001. Getting A laugh: Gender, status, and humor in task discussions. Social Forces 80 (1) (09): 123-58,http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5248852&scope=site.
Rowe, K. 1995. The unruly woman: Gender and the genres of laughter. Austin, TX: The Unversity of Texas Press.
Senzani, A. 2010. Class and gender as a laughing matter? the case of roseanne. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 23 (2):