Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes

Maggie Hennefeld

Summary

Women explode out of chimneys and melt when sprayed with soda water. Feminist activists play practical jokes to lobby for voting rights, while overworked kitchen maids dismember their limbs to finish their chores on time. In early slapstick films with titles such as Saucy Sue, Mary Jane’s Mishap, Jane on Strike, and The Consequences of Feminism, comediennes exhibit the tensions between joyful laughter and gendered violence. Slapstick comedy often celebrates the exaggeration of make-believe injury. Unlike male clowns, however, these comic actresses use slapstick antics as forms of feminist protest. They spontaneously combust while doing housework, disappear and reappear when sexually assaulted, or transform into men by eating magic seeds—and their absurd metamorphoses evoke the real-life predicaments of female identity in a changing modern world.Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes reveals the gender politics of comedy and the comedic potentials of feminism through close consideration of hundreds of silent films. As Maggie Hennefeld argues, comedienne catastrophes provide disturbing but suggestive images for comprehending gendered social upheavals in the early twentieth century. At the same time, slapstick comediennes were crucial to the emergence of film language. Women’s flexible physicality offered filmmakers blank slates for experimenting with the visual and social potentials of cinema. Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes poses major challenges to the foundations of our ideas about slapstick comedy and film history, showing how this combustible genre blows open age-old debates about laughter, society, and gender politics.

Available since: 03/27/2018.

Other books that might interest you

Prime Numbers

Unknown

A recording of the first 2000 prime numbers (2-17389). Recommended listening for all math geeks and insomniacs!

Show book

Edinburgh's Festivals - A Biography

David Pollock

In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre.
Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, incorporating events dedicated to theatre, film, art, literature, comedy, dance, jazz and even military pageantry. It has launched careers – from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe to Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag – mirrored the political and social mood of its times, shaped the city of Edinburgh around it and welcomed a huge all-star cast, including Orson Welles, Grace Kelly, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark E Smith's The Fall and many many more.
This is its story.

Show book

Mary Stuart - Two Queens One Empire

Friedrich von Schiller

Elizabeth I of England is threatened by the survival of her Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart. Wrestling with her own conscience, the Queen agonizes over Mary's fate, amidst fears for her own life. Court intrigue has never been more gripping than in this "acute study in the art of double-dealing politics." (The New York Times)
An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Sheelagh Cullen, Kenneth Danziger, Seamus Dever, Jill Gascoine, Matt Gaydos, Martin Jarvis, Alex Kingston, Christopher Neame, Alan Shearman, W. Morgan Sheppard and Simon Templeman.
A new translation by Peter Oswald.

(P)2007 L.A. Theater Works

Show book

Jay Nog: Something From Nothing

Jay Nog

Something From Nothing is a part documentary part comedy special starring comedian, Jay Nog. The film shares the story of Nog and his family during the pandemic. Nog has nowhere to perform so he creates a show in the parking lot of a diner in Queens, NY. Bel Aire diner becomes the only comedy show in the city where people can watch from their car or socially distanced outside. Nog decides to shoot a special there and documents every show interviewing comedians, fans, and diner employees. Something From Nothing takes you on a stand-up comedy tour during the pandemic from a comedians perspective.

Show book

Modern Scholar The: Global...

Michael B. McElroy

Had the Angles and Saxons not purposefully  migrated to the isles of the Britons and brought with  them their already-well-developed use of language,  Angelina Jolie may never have appeared in the movie  Beowulf.Professor Michael D.C. Drout is at his best  when lecturing on the fascinating history, language,  and societal adaptations of the Anglo-Saxons. He  not only presents their storytelling abilities using  their own words; he does so in their own voice—the  incredibly melodious Old English. Drout’s  scholarship and recognized expertise on this subject  is of the highest caliber.

Show book

Lifelike Heads

Lance Richlin

Learn to draw amazingly realistic portraits in seven easy stages—from capturing unique facial features and expressions to different ages and races.   This book is the perfect guide for creating lifelike representations of the human head in graphite. Experienced artist Lance Richlin begins by explaining drawing tools and materials, shading techniques, and the important anatomical structures of the head. Following these basics, he shows how to light the subject, block in and render each feature of the face, and address a variety of expressions—from subtle smiles to toothy grins. Then he guides the reader through four impressive projects, showing how to develop a lifelike head drawing in seven simple stages: the lay-in, plumb lines, volume, outline, tonal pattern, value, and finishing. Readers also will find an in-depth troubleshooting section to help them identify and solve any problems that lessen the realism and accuracy of their drawings. In an age full of technological shortcuts, this book emphasizes drawing from life and seeks to preserve the methods of the old masters.

Show book