Yael Kohen
More than fifty years of iconic comediennes, unmediated and unfiltered,In January 2007, ,Vanity Fair, published an essay by Christopher Hitchens called â€œWhy Women Arenâ€™t Funny.â€ It was incendiary, much-discussed, andâ€”as proven by Yael Kohenâ€™s fascinating oral historyâ€”totally wrongheaded.,In ,We Killed,, Kohen assembles Americaâ€™s most prominent comediennes (and the writers, producers, nightclub owners, and colleagues who revolved around them) to piece together the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy. We start in the 1950s, when comic success meant ridiculing and desexualizing yourself. Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller emerged as Americaâ€™s favorite frustrated ladies; the joke was always on them. The Sixties saw the appearance of smart, edgy comediennes (Elaine May, Lily Tomlin), and the womenâ€™s movement brought a new wave of radicals: the women of ,SNL,, tough-ass stand-ups, and a more independent breed on TV (Mary Tyler Moore and her sisters). There were battles to fight and preconceptions to shake before we could get to where we finally are: in a world where women (like Tina Fey, or, whether you like them or not, Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler) can be smart, attractive, sexually confidentâ€”and most of all, flat-out funny.,Like all revolutions, itâ€™s suffered false starts and backslides. But itâ€™s been a remarkable trip, as the more thanÂ one hundredÂ people interviewed for this riveting oral history make clear. With a chorus of creative voices and often hilarious storytelling, ,We Killed, is essential cultural and social history.
Nonfiction,Humor,Comedy,Humor,Feminism,History,Biography,Culture,Pop Culture,Womens,Autobiography,Memoir,History,Oral History
We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy