When Comedy Was Queen: The Women of the 1950s Sitcom

This post was written in conjunction with the Funny Lady Blogathon, hosted by Fritzi Kramer at Movies Silently. This article and many more film/feminist-related articles by may be found at margaretperry.org.

“You've heard it before: Women aren't funny. The opinion has been appearing and reappearing in various guises for decades... But few assertions are easier to prove than this one. It's as simple as saying that women make us laugh.” (We Killed 3)

“Women have always been funny. It's just that every success is called an exception and every failure an example of the rule. (We Killed 5)

Women have been active participants in history since the dawn of time (Who Cooked the Last Supper?), and the world of comedy is no exception. When looking back over the history of entertainment, who is the earliest comedienne you can think of? Fanny Brice immediately comes to mind. I am also reminded of Charlie Chaplin's leading lady Edna Purviance. No doubt there are many examples of funny ladies from Hollywood's Golden Age - let's not forget our very own Katharine Hepburn in such films as BRINGING UP BABY (1938) and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940).

But what of television's golden age? Were women funny in an era when the happy housewife was the glorified ideal of American femininity? You bet your bloomers they were!

“The women featured here headlined their own sitcoms and were the top-billed stars of those shows. These actresses and their characters were the primary laugh-getters on some of the most highly rated sitcoms of the 1950s, shows that were noteworthy not only for their popularity, but for their innovation and creativity in the then-young medium of television.” (The Women Who Made Television Funny)

Many of television's first sitcoms were holdovers from radio. Husband and wife comedies like Ozzie and Harriet, Fibber McGee and Molly, and George Burns and Gracie Allen all enjoyed profound success on the airwaves before appearing on the small screen. Despite Beatrice Arthur's later comment that the women of these shows were "just a bubblehead out to get laughs," each earned professional respect as a comedienne in her own right.

This was certainly true of what I like to call "The Big Three" of early television comedy: Lucille Ball, Eve Arden and Betty White. The popularity of these comediennes, obtained independent of their male co-stars, has endured to today.

Epic Fail: Operation IRON PETTICOAT (1956)

 THIS POST IS ALSO AVAILABLE AT margaretperry.org.

“I believe, I hope, audiences have forgotten I ever made that film. I try not to say bad things about pictures I chose to make and took money for making them, but this one doesn't count.” (Katharine Hepburn, Chandler 216)

When THE IRON PETTICOAT was released in the middle of America's McCarthy Era of the 1950s, it failed as a political statement, as a comedy, and as a romance. It failed financially. Scholars have more or less dismissed it as an epic fail in every regard, labelling it one of Hepburn's major flops. However, the film contains an intriguing feminist angle that is not ridiculed and tamed, though the structure of the story is presumed to be headed in that general direction.