The latter will get a healthy dose of spoofing during Girls Beware: Are You People?, an all-female improv show at Arcade Comedy Theater on Sat., Jan. 18.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Girls Beware: Are You People? at Arcade Comedy Theater finds humor in sexist advertising
The latter will get a healthy dose of spoofing during Girls Beware: Are You People?, an all-female improv show at Arcade Comedy Theater on Sat., Jan. 18.
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When I first read the title of the article, it seemed to me like a commentary on a show that functions on sexism. However, the moment I started reading the article, I realized that I was totally wrong, not to mention I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article.
The concept of creating an improv show on the absurd sexist standards set for women of the 40s and 50s by an all female group is just such an exciting endeavor to think about because it promises the ability to be a social commentary, laced with humor, informing people of all ages of how bizarre a few of these standards were and how far, we, as a society have come in terms of realizing this absurdity.
It is really a great feeling to see how such diverse and innovative concepts for creating content for people is developing and the enthusiasm that surrounds such creation.
This article was originally hard for me to comprehend; it took a couple read throughs to actually understand. After I got past that though, I really liked this article. I think the overall concept of using a comedy group to address serious issues in the world is fantastic. Personally I tend to use comedy and humor to cope with negative aspects in my life. While many people may not find this to be a healthy coping mechanism per se, it does at least help with the suppression of feelings. Others also say to not bottle your feelings up, but using the element of comedy is a creative outlet for those feelings, particularly negative ones. The fact that this comedy group commenting on issues pertaining to women’s rights is an all female identifying group is really beneficial. I feel like if there were men in the group making the same comments that it could be taken more seriously and not in a joking manner.
I think that this is a very productive way of discussing these issues, especially when looking at historical issues, because it is comical. It's so incredibly ridiculous that, through a modern view, one of the only ways we, as women, can really connect to it is to laugh. The 40s and 50s really were not that long ago, and I think the wound of such blatant and violent sexism is still fresh for most of us. So, using humor to deal with it can be really productive for a lot of us. And I think many women in the audience will feel seen by this. A lot of times, hearing such blatant sexism makes me really uncomfortable, but I think if there were good jokes going along with them, I'd probably feel a lot better and I would find working through the discomfort easier. Usually, improv shows make me nervous, I'm always wondering if they'll run out of things to say at any turn. But, I think a lot of people feel that way about improv, so that makes this an even better format for this content. This subject matter should make us feel uncomfortable and, even though we're laughing, this seems like it could really achieve that. It never ceases to amaze me the number of ways that diverse creators can come up with to work through cultural and generational trauma. I'm so in awe of such creative women who help so many others work through their discomfort and help them talk about these things. I think something truly successful can come from this improv-comedy hybrid.
I love these strong, powerful, comedic women. There is so much shock value in some of the advertisements, phrases, advice, and experiences directed towards women during the 20th century. Luckily a lot of things have changed, which is why there is so much shock value within those advertisements, etc. but a lot of sexism still exists, woven into the fabric of contemporary society. I think there are many forms of activism that one could practice in order to enact social and political change, but I think comedy and theatrics are some of the most accessible for a wide range of people. People love to laugh, and when presented with facts unspoken about in society, laughter helps ease the audience in and feel less uncomfortable. These aspects of our society need to be spoken about in order for them to change, but comedy creates a comfortable space so people can listen instead of simply running away.
Comedy as a way to deal with social commentary and injustices is my favorite thing. To me, I've always thought that laughing about things helps to ease the pain, and giving people a comedic environment to talk about things that are upsetting them allows for a lot more honesty, no matter how brutal. The ad campaigns in the 20th century were very shocking in their depiction of women, and very offensive. I think that a lot of the biases reflected in those advertisements still exist, although they are not so explicit. Something that is interesting about our society is our ability to realize our mistakes in the past, yet never completely fix them. There is always 'progress' in our nations treatment of minorities, but all the things that once were so outspoken and offensive are now just existing biases. They will always be there. I think it is awesome that we are talking about this kind of thing, and since I like comedy a lot (like most people) this is an amazing way to do it. Hopefully things like this can contribute to our society becoming less discriminatory and more respectful towards EVERYONE.
The name of the article successfully click baited me into it. This show sound super interesting and it’s too bad it’s happening tonight so I can’t see it. They producer talks about how people were telling her that people strongly reacted to the old videos she used as a back drop. I’ve found that watching older videos does sometimes make me uncomfortable with the blatant sexism and sometimes racism. It reminds me of watching M*A*S*H and seeing how objectifying the show was even though some people viewed it as very forward thinking, they still treated the women as objects. I was talking to my mother about this and she loved the show growing up and thought it was great, not to mention she still appreciates watching it periodically even though it’s so dated. That just goes to show how engrained all our biases are into our culture that people couldn’t spot them in the past even though now it’s completely obvious.
Having watched a government-produced instructional video of what it means to be a girl in the “good old days,” I can attest they are ridiculous. They are based around the notion all girls need to be trained homeowners so when the mary they can drop everything and mother children (usually with one singular line “boys can benefit from home economics to” while we watch a boy hammer in a nail, before returning to videos of girls learning to cook). These videos are funny but what they represent is the history behind modern sexism. Parents splitting the home and child work is still relatively rare. These expectations are also presented within parental leave differences. When the mother gets significantly more time off, what are you saying about whose responsibility child work is? Women are target consumers because they often do most of the shopping for the entire family, yet they are lesser respected members of society, so it’s definitely clear how some hilarity can ensue.
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