Femininity, Humor, and TV Comedies: The Wit of Fran Fine, Lorelai Gilmore, and Mrs. Maisel by Aileen Behrendt

“…In this article, I bring these shifting, often contradictory, gendered meanings of humorous wit into conversation with the often conflicting representational strategies that have informed the construction of femininity in contemporary mainstream TV comedies, such as Fran Drescher’s The Nanny, and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In my readings of the shows’ central characters, I analyze how certain tropes, such as romance, motherhood, self-defense, or deflection reconcile the sharpness of female wit with traditional femininity.…”
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