Gilda's Gift of Laughter

Gilda Radner would have been 55 years old on the day I wrote this article, June 28 2001. In a retrospective piece we stroll back to the rich, dynamic and rapidly evolving world of the comedy of women in 1970s television that she and a select group of comediennes created for us before our very eyes. Laugher shapes a generation and these were the women who shaped our generational concept of humor.

Happy Birthday Gilda!
Gilda Radner would have celebrated her 55th birthday this week. Ovarian cancer took her from us at far too early an age. Born June 28, 1946, she was one of the oldest boomers and had a tremendous influence on the wealth of female comedic talent that burst onto the comedy club seen in the 80s and 90s. So, today I'm meandering down memory lane of women's humor in the 70s in honor of the wonderful woman who taught a generation of women that riotous free spirited laughter was a "good thing." Just think of the fun she'd have had goofing on Martha Stewart!
"Well it just goes to show you, if it"s not one thing, it's another." To put the comedy of the women, women who actively created comedy and did not just interpret scripts, of Saturday Night Live were doing in perspective is to remember the wasteland into which Jane Curtain, Lorraine Newman, and Gilda Radner ventured. Less than ten years before SNL, Phyllis Diller and Mary Tyler Moore displayed the entire range of the repertoire allowed to women in televised comedy. You could play off a man by being a dingy helpless creature a la Mary Tyler More on the Dick Van Dyke Show, or you could be the ugly witch a la Phyllis Diller (and I have to confess that I absolutely loved her as she was right at the edge of the PC filter.) By the 70s the sterotypes had gained a significant bit of breadth with the good girl Mary Tyler Moore being showcased in her own show that featured several other comediennes such as Betty White, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachmanand Georgia Engel.
Lily Tomlin broke ground on Laugh In1968-73 than did Ruth Buzzy, Judy Carne or Joanne Worley, or even Goldie Hawn who eventually dwarfed the others mentioned her with her comedic, dramatic and production success. Tomlin's character that allowed women a wry, nonconformist voice through a little girl persona of Edith Ann that probably wouldn't have been tolerated from an adult character. But the success of the wacky comedy show was built on predictable characters in predictable situations. The comedic element of the show that is often overlooked in retrospective analysis is its incorporation of a significant number of comediennes in a day where "variety" televisions shows at best featured one female comic. The Smother's Brothers Comedy Hour, while groundbreaking in the depths to which it took political humor, primarily showcased male talent.
The realm of political comedy and satire was not long left to the men once the ball got rolling. Eventually SNL filled the bill in sketch comedy, but before that was Maude, starring Beatrice Arthur, was a groundbreaking sitcom for women which dealt with the issues of divorce, abortion, and a host of other politico-religious issues. This show was also significant in that it gave Esther Rolle a platform to give a woman of color voice to some knee jerk, but fairly well rounded pronouncements on the issues of social idiocy, race and class. And it acted as a stepping stone for Rolle to get her own show in the late 70s. Maude spun off from All in the Family with Jean Stapleton and Sally Struthers playing fairly predictable stereotypic roles but with some of the the best sitcom casting ever done. Other shows that show cased great talent and writing but were not necessarily the offspring of women's creativity included Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in which the dysfunction of the world of the 70s was charicatured in Fernwood by Louise Lasser and crew. And perhaps no sitcom character's growth illustrates the changes in women's roles in comedy and television better than looking at the transformation of Loretta Switt's character Hotlips into Margaret on M*A*S*H* (1973-1983). Gilda wasn't alone in her expansion of women's comedic presence in television, but she certainly personified the integration of a woman comic into the total fabric of televised comedy. She wasn't just in front of the camera, she was the first ensemble cast member selected for the show, so in many ways the selection of the now classic team of The Not Ready for Prime Time Players cast for the original Saturday Night Live were anchored on Gilda's talent. Women focused sketch comedy of the 60s often centered on sex roles or gender based expectations as in Ruth Buzzy's spinster hitting Artie Johnson with a purse, or Lily Tomlin's gossipy phone operator. Gilda's characters, such as Emily Latela or Roseanne Roseanna Danna, were female, sure, but their comedic essence lay in their humanity not in their femininity.
Women's comedy of the late middle 20th century, of course, could not have existed without the classic work of Lucillie Ball and Carol Burnette. These groundbreaking comediennes, really the grandmother and mother of the comedy of the early 70s continued doing comedy through the rapidly changing 70s. In a 1980 article in People Magazine Lucille mentions Carol Burnette, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler as being among her favorite comediennes of the day. Lucille Ball's mention of Bette Midler makes the point that women who could stand a life of constant travel did find venues prior to the 1970s. During the 70s, the queen of the well established nightclub circuit, the venue for comics before the days of comedy clubs, was undoubtedly Bette. In the 70s she took live, adult-oriented comedy out of the clubs and brought it to the attention of a much larger audience, while she in no way submitted to domestication. No discussion of comedy in the 70s would be complete without her. She stretched some very traditional schitck and formats to new limits.
Stretch marks are largely women's territory and our generation certainly enjoyed the liberating mindset of broad ranging comedy that was a trademark of the 70s. Without these great ladies contemporary comedy of Ellen Degeneres, Elayne Boosler, Paula Paundstone, Rita Rudner, Sandra Bernhard and many many other funny women would not have found as many doors open to them as they have. Without Gilda we wouldn't have Rosie O'Donnell who first ventured into stand-up after doing a magnificent impression of Gilda Radner's Rosanne Rosannadana in a high school follies production. Thank you Gilda, your legacy continues to bring us laughter and joy.


Gilda links: If you haven't had enough of memory land those of us that spent most saturday nights at home in the 70s, can read an interview with Gilda from Crawdaddy's pages, or buy her autobiography It's Always Something or find out more about Gilda's battle with ovarian cancer Gilda's Disease listen to her work on cd Live from New York, or watch a video Gilda Live (1980).

Children of the 60s

I used to say, "If I see another Boomer web page with "psychedelic" or swirly pastel backgrounds, a lava lamp, or a cartoonish hippie, I'm gonna lose it!" Now I have to include the "shaggy headed clean-cut boy next door" in the instant trigger for a gut churning response. I swear... "I'm gonna hurl!" as my daughter says, if this 70s retro sentimentality doesn't get more realistic. Oh sure "That 70s Show" is cute, but it isn't quite there. Although the nondescript name of the show does illustrate the fact that there isn't a name for us or our times.

Now one part of me is gagging and retching at the blatant mis-packaging (anything familiar here?) of our generation into a distilled sticky sweet pabulum. While sex and drugs and rock and roll are mentioned, it's all squeaky-clean sex and drugs and rock and roll. Where are herpes, overdoses, and Sid and Nancy? I tell ya, WE are the ones who have to do something about this. We are the only ones who CAN do anything about this. There has never been any balance in our culture's perception of us, the Late Boomers...

But for the moment I just want to wander down memory lane and digress (something I do very well, if I do say so myself) about what I remember as really happening, as opposed to what society is collectively choosing to remember about being a kid back then.

The term "hippie" was buried (I saw it, on TV!, they had a coffin and everything) during the "Summer of Love." I was ten years old that summer. I never was and never will be a hippie. I hate to admit it, but my memories of "the 60s" are mainly from television. I have personal memories of things like reading Nancy Drew books with my best friend, and the like, but those are memories of my life, my memories of "the 60s" really do seem to have come from news broadcasts! People who know me have heard the story about me seeing my brother, the Marine, on the 6 o'clock news when he was in Vietnam, but this goes beyond that to something we all experienced. Well maybe not all, but many of us. While my growing up in a fairly rural not-much-going-on area could explain this "televised" view, it could also be that by the time we were kids, everyone had a television (which wasn't the case in the 50s) and it was still a relatively safe form of entertainment. We were allowed to watch most of what we wanted to see when we wanted to see it -- there was no 24 hour a day Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, or Disney Channel. Parents didn't have to "police" our viewing. Maybe they should have... all the trends we now collectively wonder about got started during our youth.

My childhood wasn't exactly the "Wonder Years," but I didn't live in suburbia either. I remember "Dark Shadows" coming on in the afternoon, just after school let out. I swear this directly translates to some of the vampire/Anne Rice success/Victorian romance novel success the western world is experiencing. Girls thought Quentin was sexy! And "Gilligan's Island" was a hit for similar reasons... Ginger and Maryanne fueled young male fantasy. TV even entered into my non-TV playtime.
I remember closing my toy box lid to get a better view of the Beatles waving and smiling as they came down those plane steps to set foot on American soil for the first time. And my favorite "Barbie" type dolls included a Twiggy doll and a Samantha (Bewitched) doll. Does this relate to the popularity of Wiccan practices today? And then there was H.R. Puffinstuff (actually spelled Pufnstuf) -- wowsa. Was that trippy silliness or what? And for kiddie consumption, no less! The sixties psychedelic life for us was experienced through a children's eyes. Did it set us up for acceptance of giant talking mushrooms? Oh, never mind. I think the biggest single influence of the 60s on me was Rocket J. Squirrel. Bullwinkle and Rocky shaped my political views, my sense of humor, and even my fascination with archetypes in fairy tales.

I doubt that I'm the only one who remembers much of the 60s through television's filter. Now I know at least one person my age who actually went to Woodstock as a child/young teen, but for most of us that was a world away. I think we should get our stories straight and market our memories ourselves rather than letting mass market culture try to reinvent the various stages of our lives.

Enough for now...

I promise that next time's rant will be more "mature."

Systems theory, semiotics, and deconstructing post-modernist bull

Systems theory, semiotics, and deconstructing post-modernist bull: a rambling exposition on the misapplication of seminal academic theory as interpreted by Baby Boomers.

I really planned to write about birth, sex and death this morning, but demography just isn't doing it for me today. Eventually I will write about cohorts, and complete that first paragraph that is hanging out pretending to be article 2. But for now let's get surreal. It's a Gigery day.

Anyway, putting this site together in the last few days has made me reopen files of neat stuff I'd put away, bookmarked, and referenced for this site if it ever came together. The stuff runs the gamet from mainstream to perverse, from stuff labeled to include, want to include, to probably shouldn't include (the best stuff is in that last file). So, for a total mind warp, I'm digging through Dead Kennedy files (Jello Biafra's birthday is in a couple days you know...) 
and my kid asks me about the arbitrary nature of language, "Mom, what if the first people who gave words meaning a really long time ago chose totally different words instead of what they did choose? I mean like flower could mean screwdriver." (I am NOT making this up!) And all this before I'd even had a cuppa coffee. Then within an hour I find myself having to explain to her what a mosh pit is. I pop open my email to find a randy semi-erotic electronic discourse flying between some old high school buddies and I get sucked in. I knew at that point that it would be a sort of a surreal day, filled with juxtapositions of an interesting sort, so I uttered, "why fight it?" I'm going with the flow.

Now hang on, all of this IS related. Today I'm expounding on some of the meta-thematic elements of Late Boomer psychic formation and what it means to the world. (So there!) It was fed by combining thoughts about jello biafra, Giger, reading Interzones, the Walker Art Center, group cyber fliration, and conversations about the arbitrary nature of language with a kid that isn't even in junior high yet, and all of synchronic coalescing occurs within the space of an hour - made me realize that I live in the FUTURE. This is not your father's Oldsmobile. We are here. This is THE future. It's starting as we speak. Everyone is pretending like they know what is going on, and no one has a clue!

As I was surfing through hip sites filled with vulgar cynicism, flash-y graphics, dark colors, lots of two dimensional metallic shine and/or minimalist influence, I realized that all the seminal, thought-provoking post-modernist theory of the 80s has come home to roost in mainstream culture. People have accepted the concept that we all create our own realities. They've accepted the concept of disorder. Well now it is nice to know that we all create our own realities and in fact are damn lucky if bits and pieces of them even overlap enough with anyone else's to be able to communicate. But in my personal way of knowing, I've found that most people simply cannot hold the type of suspended disbelief about their own reality in their heads for the lengthy time period that is required to speak in a somewhat intelligent and cogent fashion about the construction materials of reality. And most people can't figure out the difference between seminal and semen-spewing philosophical constructs (I mean really, what person in their right mind actually wants to spend years and years studying and using words like indexicality and Umwelt?) so people who haven't been trained in the minutiea of philosophy and science are referencing really bad stuff as well as really good stuff.

So what does this mean to you? Run way - do not walk away - as fast as you can, at the slightest hint that someone has internalized deconstructive uber-semiotics. (ooh... see how easy it is to slip into meta-vacuous talk) about post-modernist deconstruction of anything! This is the semiotic stuff I was attempting to decipher in the early-mid 80s. Laurie Anderson did a pretty good job with Let X = X". But now everyone seems to think that dismembering pop culture while metaphoric life blood spills all over the place is child's play. And maybe it is, but it is fairly Chucky-esque child's play, if I do say so myself. All you get is disconnected lifeless bits of flesh. Reality is a process not a thing. Were we listening in college when those academics were telling us that whole is much greater than the sum of it's parts, the map is not the territory, and information is any difference that makes a difference?

Anyway... back at the ranch... there is a reason they keep people with academic tendencies gathered together in institutions -- number one... it is easier to kill them all when the revolution happens, and -- number two... it's a relatively safe environment where they are unlikely to hurt themselves or others and -- three eventually they might figure out how it works and you want to keep track of them so the appropriate feudal lord/corporation can fund them and keep all the information about how it is going to be to themselves.
Most people don't have the breadth of experience to understand what the hell is happening. Late Boomers do. Let me posit a suggestion. We are living at the fulcrum of a Kuhnian revolution. And listen up my fellow cohort members, "We are the ones who will determine the point at which we "tilt" into that Brave New World. A few people to the left or a few people to the right and we can swing the trajectory of the next millenium by a few degrees this way or that. Then take that tiny nudge and amplify it over a thousand years and that is whole lot of change, folks. I suggest we pay attention to what we are doing. 
 
This role is one we are used to playing. We've been poised on one fulcrum or another all our lives. We were born in the old world, but we will die in the new one. Sure our grandparents talked about how much stuff had changed during their lifetimes… "saw horse and buggies change into airplanes before my very eyes… blah, blah, blah." But... and here's the big point of this whole rant (it must be a rant cause I'm too old to go to a rave) the stuff was all that was changing although the rate of change certainly suggested that a qualitative change might ensue. But how we think (that's a paradigm in case you didn't know) is changing as I write. A whole new level of organization to the network is emerging (Hmmm... emergent properties. I always thought that sounded nasty.) While we are inside the system we can't really get the proper perspective on the process to figure out what is happening, so it is pointless to speculate as to what is really going on, but hey, that's what people do. 
 
In my more paranoid moments (really folks, the tin foil does help keep out the theta mind control rays), I suspect that one of the reasons we Late Boomers don't have more recognition is that "the powers that be" figured out what was on the horizon and tried to diffuse the time bomb - that is the peak of baby boom and beyond - after they saw how much trouble our older brother and sister boomers got into. So we were reared with the "if we ignore them maybe they will go away" tactics of a frightened tourist in a unfamiliar neighborhood. So I suggest we fulfill our systemic destiny (how's this for balloon head, Me Generation thinking?) and nudge the puzzle pieces around to our liking... don't get caught up in analysis. It is just a distraction! We need to act but act in an organized, aware fashion.
 
If you can follow all this you have my sincere sympathy and you should probably rush out to the local watering hole and slow the rate of synaptic firing down a bit... But anyway, the change is happening. It's happening in the how and not the same old "the more things change the more they'll stay the same" what type of change. Information is connecting in new ways and that is what drives real change. We second wave boomers have been riding the crest of the boomer wave all our lives, but it is only now that we are beginning to understand that the wave is tsumani in scale and future culture will reside where our surf boards come to rest. 
 
Okay... the next article will be about generations and cohorts and what the US 2000 census says about us. Yawn. One can't expect to have the guide to have the ultimate answer to everything delivered to your doorstep every day, you know.

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Enjoy my LEFT-OVERS: Some fun links I couldn't work in to this article, but are "sort of" related to this article, somehow.
http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/gbus885-00/Student_Reviews/Nikitchyuk/NikitchyukA01-BookReview.htm  
http://www.mcc.commnet.edu/IRP/ConnAIR/Whitehassler/tsld001.htm
http://www.global-vision.org/bateson.html http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/bateson.htm 
http://www.marycatherinebateson.com/ http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem05.html