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

Abstract

Women and wit seem to belong together in contemporary TV comedies. But looking more closely at wit reveals that it has undergone a series of transformations in its cultural value as a type of humor, its moral implications, and its meaning. 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.

Keywords

• Jane Austen
• woman’s wit
• TV comedy
• sitcoms
• Gilmore Girls
• The Nanny