The following is a guest post from Alexis Bonari.
On April 12th, Oprah hosted a stunning line of SNL comedians, including Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Dana Carvey,Chevy Chase, and Jane Curtin. It was Jane who turned the tone from laughs to livid on the topic of SNL’s role inbringing American audiences comedy from women.
Jane Curtin, affectionately referred to as the Queen of Deadpan, came to be known by Americans who stayed athome on Saturday nights, of course, via Saturday Night Live. In the ‘80s, she won Emmies for her performance inthe comedy sitcom Kate & Allie. You might also remember her from 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Coneheads.
Sexism on the Set
When asked what stood in women’s way in the 1970s on Oprah’s set, Jane candidly replied, “I think it was aprimarily misogynistic environment.” Although women’s liberation had prompted women across the nation to goout into the workforce to challenge men, the movement wasn’t well-received even by the ‘70s.
“[Men] were threatened by the fact that all these women that were going out into the workplace and they weregoing to have to compete with them as well as the other men.”
When asked if she considered Gilda Radner and herself to be pioneers in the field, she replied, “No, because wewere working too hard to get on the air.” Meanwhile, the women writers for SNL believed themselves to begroundbreakers “because their battle was constant.”
Who did they fight against? Surprisingly, the likes of John Belushi, whom Jane remembers saying that womenwere simply fundamentally not funny.
“You’d go to a table read,” she goes on to recall, “and if a woman writer had written a piece for John, he would notread it in his full voice. He would whisper it. He felt as though it was his duty to sabotage pieces that written bywomen.”
A New Era for Women in Comedy
The idea seems unimaginable in today’s SNL studio or any studio onto which Tina Fey walks. The latterresponds, “By the time we got there [on the set of SNL], our director was a woman, one of the stage directors wasa woman.” She credits Jane, Gilda, other female comedians, and the women writers of the past with the gagstickling the sides of Americans today. Tina herself is an accomplished actress, comedian, writer, and producer forSNL, 30 Rock, and films like Mean Girls, Baby Mama, and Date Night.
See a video of a fairly livid Jane on Oprah here.
Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and researcher for College Scholarships, where recently she’s beenresearching homeland security scholarships as well as housing grants. Whenever she gets some free time, she enjoys watching a funny movie or curling up with a good book
