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Amber Day, "Caught in the Crosshairs: Feminist Comedians and the Culture Wars" (Indiana UP, 2025)
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- [00:00]
Marshall Poe
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- [01:58]
Pete Kunze
Welcome to New Books in Media, a podcast series on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Pete Kunze. My guest today is Amber Day, professor of Media and Performance Studies at Bryant University and the author of Caught in the Feminist Comedians and the Culture Wars. The book was published by Indiana University Press in 2025. Good afternoon, Amber. How are you doing today?
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Amber Day
I'm well, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
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Pete Kunze
My pleasure. I'm glad we get a chance to talk about this book that seems ever timely. But as we get started, I was hoping you could tell readers a little bit about your background and what brought you to this project. Sure.
- [02:35]
Amber Day
So, yeah, I actually came out of a performance studies program at Northwestern way back when. But already as I was sort of doing that work, I was like, edging over into media studies a. A little bit, so perhaps occupying the territory right in between. And I was, you know, I was just really interested in the fact that there was a ton of satire and irony and parody popping up all over the place and was an interesting way being used as a way to enter into the political conversation. And so I think, you know, back when I was doing my dissertation, I was really interested in the why of that. You know, what. What is it about these modes right now that's really attractive to people, and why is it getting traction? And. And so that ended up becoming my first book, Satire and Descent. But I was not, since I probably because I don't actually originally coming come out of Media Studies. I wasn't necessarily focusing on any one media form. So I was looking at, you know, television shows like the Daily show, et cetera, but also satiric documentaries like Michael Moore's and Morgan Spurlock's, and ironic activist groups, too, these sort of like theatrical activism. And so it's funny that, you know, that book doesn't feel like it was that far away. And yet a lot of things have changed since then. Of course, at the time, I felt like I had to do a lot of work to really make the case. And others were doing this, too, around the same time that this stuff was a form of political discourse. It was a way of entering the conversation. And it was interesting. There were some interesting things going on there that it wasn't just trivial because it was entertainment. Right. And, you know, and all of that, which I feel like that obviously has changed now. We see the entertainment sphere and comedy in particular, as we sort of take it for granted that it's political or is that it's another area to sort of do point scoring. Right. So I feel like that has changed a lot since that first project.
- [04:52]
Pete Kunze
And so this one in particular is focusing on feminist comedy. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on kind of parsing all of the language and the care we often take when we think about this issue today. Right. Because I Can, you know, female comedians, women comedian, women identified comedy, feminist comedy. And obviously this is something you yourself have to kind of delineate as you began such a study. So for listeners who are interested in, invested in gender and comedy and humor in this moment, what terms do you kind of utilize and why?
- [05:31]
Amber Day
That's a really good question in some ways. I mean, I think an uncharitable reader might decide that. I'm punting a little bit on that question. But basically I, you know, I decided that. Okay, how do we define feminist comedian? Even the most doctrinaire of feminists probably are not doing feminist material 100% of their jokes, even if it's like a major, you know, I would say a small amount of their jokes. Right. But since this book, which we'll get into, is largely about the discourse around feminist comedians, I almost sort of went to, like, how they were being defined. So it's less about how they are self identifying.
- [06:12]
Pete Kunze
Right.
- [06:12]
Amber Day
And more about how they're being positioned and the conversations that are happening around them. So I don't actually know. I mean, I think the vast majority of people that I touch on would identify as feminists. But I'm not actually sure about Leslie Jones. I haven't seen anything on the record of her talking about it. Yes or no. Right. But I include her in that because that Ghostbusters moment, which we can talk about, I thought was a sort of turning point in public conversation to some degree. And because she was positioned that way. Right. So whether or not she's positioned that way around her other moments in time or other pieces of comedy is less the point. So it's more just around the thing talking about how are those comedians being talked about. And I recognize, of course, that there are certainly male feminists out there and male feminist comics. I'm not writing about them because this is very much about the sort of embodied female experience. So female identified feminist comics.
- [07:20]
Pete Kunze
And I think in fairness to your study, right, Like, I don't think men expressing feminist ideas on stage are getting any kind of blowback similar to what we've seen happen with Jones or Schumer or Wolf or the comedians you're taking up here. Can we talk a little bit then about, you know, obviously feminist comedy studies has a long and rich tradition, Right. Like, we could go back to like Nancy Walker and Zita Dresner and Regina Baraka, some of whom are still working. But it feels like in the last few years we've really seen this kind of revitalization within that area of study. Can you Talk a little bit more. And you were gesturing towards this in your. In your last answer.
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Amber Day
Right.
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Pete Kunze
There's largely a tradition of, like, getting into the routine, pulling the routine apart, thinking about the ideas and the joke work. But you're kind of coming at this from a slightly different angle, perhaps informed by your interest in performance and media studies. Can you talk a little bit more of how you see your work in conversation with those that earlier kind of deep textual analysis, but also kind of broadening out how we study the intersections of feminism, comedy and society?
- [08:33]
Amber Day
Sure. So I think, I mean, all of that work I'm in conversation with, for sure. And I think. And I'm somebody who really enjoys doing textual analysis and I spend some time doing that here as well. But I think this particular project was, again, kind of like that first book was really about, like, what's going on in this moment in time. Right. And trying to get at that and noticing a couple things that, yes, as we can all see, there are a lot more minority voices of all kinds who have broken into the comedy industry over the last 20 years, but especially women at all levels, right. Like showrunner, director, all of the things. So that's one thing. So we have this expansion of voices that's been happening and viewpoints. Right. And sort of topics as well. But then at the same time noticing that there were all of these little flare ups like you gestured to, around female and particularly feminist comedians in particular.
- [09:34]
Pete Kunze
Right.
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Amber Day
That there was all these sort of comedic controversies that tend to be happening far more often around these female comics than they are around others, where everybody is sort of like jumping suddenly, I've heard of this comedian, but everybody but talk about this one joke or this one routine and whether it was appropriate or other conversations too. And so I think, because that was my question, my method really had to be more discourse analysis than anything else. So looking at the conversation around these performers, and it shifts a little bit, I think, depending on the case study, because some of them, it's about one particular thing, Right. Leslie Jones is about the Ghostbusters moment. That chapter, the Amy Schumer chapter, is much more about her work in general, particularly as she was kind of breaking through and the conversation around here. So it does shift a little bit. But, yeah, it meant looking at the discussion in the popular press, but also just like Twitter and The comments under YouTube clips and whatnot, which I only had so much stomach for hanging out there, but I did do it. So that was part of the. And then trying to combine that with my own textual analysis. Of what I see happening in those particular pieces.
- [11:02]
Pete Kunze
Excellent. So let's think too then, about how, when you decide to think about this moment. I guess before we. I ask this question, I need to just ask you to quickly give us a working definition of like, what you see, the culture wars, meaning, like, you know, for. For maybe students who are listening. When you use that concept to kind of frame the specific moment in the public sphere that you're interested in, what does that emblematize for you?
- [11:30]
Amber Day
That's a great question. I think essentially wars over or battling over really morals and ideals and, you know, sort of this social norms and what should be considered the good. Right. And what, what is beyond the pale and what is acceptable in. In this sphere or that sphere. And really, in some ways, philosophical issues. Right. And. And I think it's interesting. I think for a long time or in, in some venues, people, when we hear the term culture wars, there's sort of. There's a little bit of minimizing, right? There's a sort of like, oh, well, that's just like stupid, you know, conversations about a movie, like, who cares, right? What. Why, you know, why is that important? And so I do actually spend some time trying to make the case that, like the culture wars, these conversations are actually really important. They are over, like, material resources and power and all of the things that regular politics is about. But they're also much more accessible to your average person than the political sphere, right? So those guys teaming up to sort of troll people on, you know, whatever forum to give them zero stars here or there and like all, you know, that. That seems very doable for people who otherwise might not be entering into the political world. I don't know if I just answered your questions, but I think that's making the case for, I think, why we want to take these conversations and these spacs within pop culture seriously.
- [13:15]
Pete Kunze
So once you decided to tackle this issue and this issue that's really obviously been ongoing arguably back into the 90s or even into the 80s, how did you destructure it and who did you decide or how did you decide who would be your kind of case studies that you would take up in such a study?
- [13:38]
Amber Day
Yeah, well, the case studies I felt like almost chose me, but I. I mean, I didn't go after like, my favorite comics or, you know, anyone who has some sort of like, objectively best list or anything like that. I really just went for where are, where are these interesting conversations happening over the last, like 10 years, right. Or less, and, and why? So I, I Kind of just went for where those controversies are. So there's a lot of comedians who I'm sort of like, I can't believe I don't really talk about them in the book. But. But there wasn't this sort of singular moment around them that, that I wanted to dig into. And so what I. The way I organized the book was around, you know, each case study or each chapter is named after a particular emotion or an affective state. Because I feel like those are, you know, these, these female performers who are suddenly eliciting all of this intense kind of feedback. It's usually really actually intense emotions being projected on them. And so, you know, one of the chapters is called Revulsion. Another one is disgust. You know, so there's loathing, you know, et cetera. So there's different, you know, there's different sort of emotional registers. And that, again, you know, is where I see there's a difference in the reaction to these feminist comedians versus the reaction to, say, a controversial male comedian, right? There doesn't tend to be the same kind of intensity of emotion projected onto those performers.
- [15:30]
Pete Kunze
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- [15:55]
Amber Day
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- [16:25]
Pete Kunze
And now I have a big question for a comedy scholar, but I think it's one for us to talk about nevertheless, which is, you know, what do you see as the political use and limitations of comedy? Right? In some ways you're focusing on comedy, but in some ways comedy is your vehicle towards thinking about these kinds of political discourses and debates. So what, what value does comedy provide? But also, you know, what are the kind of those sticky areas or those kinds of challenges with comedic discourse in particular, when we're trying to think about politics and particularly about gender and politics.
- [17:04]
Amber Day
Okay, well, I mean, I will say that I guess like, ultimately all of my work is rooted in the sort of cultural studies project, right, of like the, you know, that popular culture is the place where we're working out all our ish, right. All of our battles for, you know, just all that philosophical stuff, right? And how the world should be and, and that stories we want to tell ourselves about ourselves. And. Because I think I'm always interested in that. And. Well, and then there's just personality wise, I tend to enjoy comedy and I come out of a comedy background to some degree. But I do think that comedy happens to be a particularly fertile territory as far as far as that stuff is concerned. Because, you know, as we all know, comedy, the whole, it works by playing with norms, right? By sort of pushing up against social expectations or norms. And it's not always explicitly challenging those things, but it often is, right? Or sort of, or, you know, pushing and then running back, right? But doing something with norms and ideals. So I think there it always, it can be kind of an interesting site for looking at these, at these, the way in which these pop culture discourses are sort of rubbing up against each other. And then feminist comedy in particular, I think is an even, even better, richer site for that. Because at least right now, in time, right, we're still, you know, very much dealing with a lot of long standing cultural attitudes which to some degree are changing, but also not completely changing or we're grappling with the way they're changing, right? All of the old ideals about, first of all, women aren't funny, right? That's the original history. Women aren't funny, particularly feminists. You know, feminists are sort of like equated with humorlessness. All of the baggage around, you know, you can be either pretty or you can be funny, but you know, funny women are sort of suspect and deviant. There's something unwomanly about them. And so I feel like a lot of feminist comics are kind of already transgressing cultural boundaries a little bit by being on that stage. And I know that's less so now than it, than it has been in the past, but certainly that past is kind of a bit of a hangover. Great. That's coming with it. And some of those cultural attitudes are changing, but there's other people like rushing to the ramparts to defend those, those cultural attitudes or to at least, you know, work through what is going to replace them. And there's a lot of, as I said, a lot of emotion around that too, and people reacting very viscerally.
- [19:51]
Pete Kunze
So that inspires two questions, but they're very different questions. So I guess I'll just ask the first one first, which is, you know, you're one of the. A strain of contemporary comedy scholars who either is a performer or has a background in performance. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts because this came up recently when I was talking to Jay Finley about being a kind of practitioner and a theorist. I'm wondering how your background in performance and your interest in performance shapes your analysis of it.
- [20:21]
Amber Day
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I have to admit that I have not been doing much performance lately, but I do, yeah, I came out of first in acting background, just theater background, and then spent a lot of time in sketch comedy and improv. And so I think on a. This is a very sort of like knee jerk response to that question. But I think on some level I'm a little bit more sympathetic than other scholars towards the position of the joke writer or the joke that, you know, giving them a little bit of grace in terms of like, you know, in that moment you're sort of trying anything that works. Right. And then, you know, not all of those, those jokes might be ones you want to stand by afterwards, but, but, but so that, that's, you know, that's one of the things. But I think also just the understanding of the, the audience performer dynamic, I would like to think that I bring that in as well.
- [21:20]
Pete Kunze
Yeah.
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Amber Day
And the, I guess the desire to say something funny or ironic or sardonic or whatever, that also comes out of a place of like a way to engage and a way to say something.
- [21:38]
Pete Kunze
For sure. For sure. And then to follow the strain of your, the investment in your work in cultural studies. I think that comes through in the title of your first chapter, Ambivalence. When we think of comedy, we often, and we see this in some folks work in the field as well, you know, this kind of celebration of joy and laughter. But obviously ambivalence is a little different than that. So how is ambivalence a generative affect for you in this kind of project or at least an affect for you to consider critically?
- [22:16]
Amber Day
I think that's definitely. I think the ambivalence I was locating around female comedians in general and just sort of all of that kind of cultural history.
- [22:25]
Pete Kunze
Right.
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Amber Day
And the way in which that, as I said, you know, there are people are. Female comedians are already kind of transgressing boundaries. So in some ways that makes it an area where they can really kind of challenge the culture in some ways or push it a little bit. But it also means that they're going to give very strong reactions and get people upset too. Right. So there's a sort of that ambivalence of like, we're not sure, you know, the culture is not really sure how it feels about, about feminist comedy. I mean, you know, there are some people who have very strong opinions that, that will just come in with those opinions. But. But I think the sort of vast majority of folks, yeah. Come in with some ambivalence.
- [23:11]
Pete Kunze
And so let's go back to that mention earlier of Leslie Jones. What is it about the kind of response to Jones in particular that you think is worthy of closer analysis and study for the scholar of comedy, of feminism and of public discourse?
- [23:31]
Amber Day
Sure. So I think that moment. So it was the reaction first. It wasn't directed at Leslie Jones first. It was just directed at the idea of there being a female led Ghostbusters remake. And that, that the reaction to it came right on the heels of the Gamergate controversy, but sort of in combination with gamer Gamergate sort of rose to the attention of, of general people in the culture. But not a. Not really. Like they didn't really. They're sort of like games, I don't know, Nerds. Right. But, but I feel like the, the controversy or the reaction to the Ghostbusters film and then which, which turns, you know, right. As the film is coming out to a kind of full scale deluge of trolling at. Directed at Leslie Jones and really, you know, ugly, terrible stuff. I don't know how much I should recap for people probably remember it, but essentially, you know, it goes from just why remaking this film with women that sucks, they're ruining my childhood to Milo Yiannopoulos coming out with this review and mentioning that Leslie Jones is the worst of the lot. Right. And having some kind of racially loaded descriptions in there as well. And then just this fire hose of attacks come her way. Right. Just like Deluge on Twitter. And I think it's the fire first moment in which we really see the manosphere coming together and asserting itself within popular culture. Or it's the first moment in which that registers in popular culture. And so I think it's important because it was kind of a test case, Right. And a test case that maybe we failed because I think, you know, the way I'm really interested in the way people were sort of grappling with what was happening there. And there was a lot of sort of confusion over it. But Again, some sort of ambivalence around, like, well, we don't like it. It's kind of gross. But at the same time, you know, she's a celebrity. Like, isn't this. That's kind of par for the course. Right. It just comes with the territory, which kind of belies the fact that, you know, a male celebrity like Timothee Chalamet might get hate mail, but he probably doesn't get pictures of himself with semen on his face delivered to him regularly.
- [26:10]
Pete Kunze
Right.
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Amber Day
So it doesn't acknowledge the specificity of what was going on there. And I talk about it both in terms of race and gender and misogynoir, but. And it doesn't, I think. And people didn't sort of adequately really respond to it. And I think it sort of set the stage for, like, this. That becoming a new normal.
- [26:31]
Pete Kunze
Right.
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Amber Day
So that's one thing. And, you know, it sort of shows the ways, going back to that. That question about culture wars in general and me trying to make the case for like. Well, they're important is it demonstrates the way that something like a very loosely networked, you know, sort of. What do you even call it? Loosely networked, like just collection of aggrieved men online who aren't otherwise connected with each other can really set the terms of debate. Right. So they went. And that's not to say that there weren't other voices, but they set the terms of how it was being discussed. And so that's not the case with all of my case studies, but I think in some of the other ones, like in the Hannah Gatsby one, I talk about how you might think that was going to happen. And then, interestingly, it was actually the feminist and queer press that kind of set the terms of the conversation in a really interesting way. So perform can do that work, too, if they sort of hit the moment at the right time and whatever. But we see the way in which those voices are really shaping our understanding of what's happening there.
- [27:43]
Pete Kunze
Yeah. I'm wondering if we could take this a step further, because I thought one of the most generative aspects of that discussion was your emphasis on visibility and the ambivalence of visibility in some ways, on the one hand, we see these kinds of activist pushes for greater representation and feeling seen, but on the other hand, there are vulnerabilities, there are downsides, there's stress and suffering that can come with this kind of increased visibility. And so I'm curious about how you're kind of working through that, where on the one Hand, we're seeing perhaps more prominent female comedians in the public sphere. But on the other hand, with that visibility comes liability, or there's risk there. Right. It's not without consequences, unfortunately, in a sexist society.
- [28:45]
Amber Day
I think you're absolutely right. And sort of belies the kind of simplistic thinking of representation is all that matters. Right. Like, as long as we have, you know, we have women or black people or whatever just being represented in the media, then we're all good.
- [29:00]
Pete Kunze
Right?
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Amber Day
Well, no, that's, you know, there's like, what are we doing with those representations? What are those representations? You know, all of that stuff. Right. And so, yeah, I think it does, you know, in terms of some of the effects there, like, around Leslie Jones, obviously, you know, it did not tank her career, which is great. She's, you know, she goes. Has gone on to do other things. And interestingly, of all the folks that I write about, is probably the least political in terms of, you know, in terms of the rest of her comedy. And so it hasn't attracted that kind of. That same sort of focus trolling since that moment. But, you know, it absolutely, like, has this sort of chilling effect on. Or. I don't know about chilling, but just like a shaping effect on, you know, how we were talking about issues, how we were talking about female media. I'm sure it had effects on, you know, the projects that were greenlit going forward. Right. I mean, I don't know, whatever feedback was sent, it was definitely like, those boys don't like female remakes. I mean, that was there. Right. So whether or not in 20 years we even remember that Ghostbusters moment, I think it still will certainly be, like, reverberating in its way across the culture.
- [30:15]
Pete Kunze
And I was hoping we could transition now into talking about Amy Schumer, because I feel like your analysis of Schumer is kind of an interesting kind of combination of, like, earlier you mentioned the sympathy you have for performers, and I feel with. With Schumer, you offer this kind of negotiated critique. Right. Where it's like, on the one hand, you kind of acknowledge what she's doing and how what she's doing is. Is relevant and. And significant politically. But on the other hand, you. You talk about the political limitations within that work. What does Schumer kind of encapsulate for you as a. As a public presence within this kind of conversation around gender in our society?
- [31:00]
Amber Day
Yeah, I find she's just such a fascinating object. I think I probably say this in the beginning of that chapter, which is just Like, I'm fascinated by her because she's hated by so many different types of people, you know, and what. What's that about? And so I, you know, for those who are not as familiar with Schumer, she's hated by that sort of the bro y manosphere type on the one hand. Right. And that's probably more understandable or, you know, we would assume that given some of the other stuff and, like, the Leslie Jones stuff that I was describing. But then she also has made some poor choices around her comedy, especially her early comedy around race. And I want to be clear in that chapter that I do think those were bad jokes or bad ways to sort of set things up. And she sort of plays this ditzy white girl character, and the joke is sort of on her, but there's ways in which it's sort of unclear how we're reading particular jokes. And so she got a lot of flack as well from folks who were unhappy, you know, folks on the left who were unhappy with her with her work on race. And again, you know, those reactions are probably warranted, but there's a way in which, you know, I argue, and this is also drawing on my work with Vivica Green a little bit, that she ends up not by her own sort of do, like, not by. By choice, but she kind of ended up as this representative face of white feminism. So. White feminism. And so we can kind of see all the ways in which people react to white feminism, right? So one is sort of the bro y way, right. And not, you know, just. And calling her a big fat pig because she's not pretty enough or she's not, you know, she's sort of marketed as a sex symbol, but then she's. Whatever, right? Maybe she isn't. And. And then. And that she's trying to sort of push some feminist politics, right. That are threatening. But then on the other hand, you know, she's been sort of held up as well as the face of the sort of. Well, the failings of white feminism, Right? The failings of. Of sort of assuming that that version of feminism is going to appeal to everybody and is going to be representative of everybody's needs, which, you know, it often wasn't or hasn't been. But, you know, I think what's interesting about it is, like, she becomes this figure despite the fact that she is certainly not the most radical or doctrinaire of feminists, nor is she the most. The worst, most egregious, entitled white person. Right? But she sort of becomes the kind of convenient scapegoat for all of it in some ways. And that's not to say that she doesn't deserve any of the critique, but it's just interesting that she becomes sort of like the bad objects that it's so easy to just kind of revile. Right. For a whole variety of reasons and. Yeah. And that sometimes it's hard to pull apart the, like, legitimate critique from the just like, she's so fat she makes me want to barf kind of commentary. Right.
- [34:30]
Pete Kunze
I'm wondering if we can pull back for a second, right. And think about, say, you know, it seems inevitable that, say, Phyllis Diller or Joan Rivers in their time were subjected to sexist vitriol. What do you see as kind of qualities or traits of this political moment, this social moment, maybe even this cultural and technological moment that are really kind of defining the structural and cultural conditions that these comedians are operating within? Does that make sense? It's a very long and pretentious question, but, like, what is shaping this moment and therefore the discourse? Right.
- [35:19]
Amber Day
I think that makes sense to me. And I would say that some of that even sort of has shifted a little bit from the beginning of writing the book to, like, right now. Right. But, you know, I think part of it is, of course, just shifts in how we access media. You know, all of the usual kind of media study stuff about the sort of niche ification of, you know, of what we consume. And that to some degree, that really helped usher in this variety of other voices. So that's, you know, that's obviously a big one. But also, you know, then there's the sort of background of the MeToo movement, and on the one hand, but also on the other hand, the ascendancy of the sort of MAGA worldview and the mainstreaming of what was more of a kind of extreme. Right, the mainstreaming of the sort of manosphere perspective. Not to say that there's only one perspective there, but, you know what I mean, this sort of more extreme, like, feminists or oppressing men kind of position. So I think there's sort of all of that swirling around. And in an interesting way, right, like, on the one hand, you can sort of find your people more easily as a comedian or because you can speak to just the people who like you and who get you. But then every once in a while, of course, that spins out of control in some ways in that it crosses over that other people notice or, you know, and get upset about it. And then there's sort of this wider, you know, conversation about It. And it's interesting. Although I think many of these moments are really ugly, I do close out the book by saying, actually I also think they're kind of important.
- [37:10]
Pete Kunze
Right.
- [37:10]
Amber Day
Like, I. Yeah, I do think it's important that we actually do have these moments in which we're having wider cultural conversations. Right. Even if they're messy and whatever. And that's the thing that I feel like is shifting even over the course of just working on the book for a few years, that more and more I feel like these sort of dust ups are actually becoming less and less common. And that's problematic, actually. You know, that on the one hand, it's great that, you know, sort of like Lithuanian trans comic can find their people.
- [37:51]
Pete Kunze
Right.
- [37:51]
Amber Day
That's great. But at the same time, those little, like, Patreon bubbles exist very happily next door to the white supremacist bubbles. And it is, you know, I'm not the first person to note that the shrinking public sphere is a problem. Right. For demonism.
- [38:09]
Pete Kunze
Sure.
- [38:10]
Amber Day
Ultimately, yeah.
- [38:12]
Pete Kunze
I mean, I think that this is. This leads me into my next question. Excellently. Because I think in some ways people could read or listen to our conversation and think like, man, this book sounds like a bummer, but you are actually pointing to the positive nature of the discourse, but also the comedy itself. And particularly in your discussion of Hannah Gadsby's work, where you see hope. So I'm inviting you to explore that a little bit more with me. What do you see in their work, particularly in Ninette, that gives you hope as a scholar and as a comedy fan?
- [38:57]
Amber Day
Yeah. Thank you for that. Yes. I do find that moment very hopeful. And I partially. Gatsby is a very talented comedian and does something very interesting in that special, so I want to give them credit for that. But then also just that alchemy of hitting the moment at the right time. Time. Right. That it happened to be that Netflix special came out right at the height of the MeToo movement. And I feel like people were really not all people, but many people were really hungry to hear that critique made in a more personal way at that point. We'd been hearing about Hollywood actresses and Harvey Weinstein, but we hadn't sort of necessarily heard the sort of more personal take on it from a person, just an everyday person, but. And also a sort of structural analysis as well. And I think Gatsby does that so well in Nanette. Right. And in some ways, you know, the setup for Nanette is like, I'm burning my bridges, and so I'm quitting Comedy. Because I bet you all are going to hate this, right? And, and we didn't. I mean, some people did, but it turned out that, you know, it's like they should have been trolled out of this place, right? Like they're not conforming to gender ideals, they're angry and they're making us uncomfortable about it. They are clearly feminist. So all the things that usually get attacked. And that's not to say that there weren't any of those attacks, but they were totally drowned out by this moment of people being like, oh my God, this, right? And people wanting to hear that critique made and sort of forwarding it to others and all these sort of, in some ways hyperbole perhaps, but you know, other comics sort of saying like, this changes everything. And you know, it was reportedly the most talked about special on Netflix at that time of all time. And it really kind of licensed this moment for, I think, the feminist press and the queer press and others to step in. And all of a sudden you had all these think pieces coming out about something, sometimes about sexual assault, sometimes about comedy and power and voice and like all of these different things that I don't think would have been written otherwise.
- [41:28]
Pete Kunze
Right.
- [41:29]
Amber Day
And that's not to say that that Gatsby single handedly kind of create, you know, did, did that themselves. Like they did. They, you know, they created the special, but. And other people wrote those pieces, but they did so in response to. And, and I talk about it a little bit as a kind of the way in which we need cultural touchstones sometimes in order to kind of push, dislodge a stuck bit of conversation we're having. Right. So it was a thing that everybody could sort of hold onto and have in common and use in order to talk about issues or create new terms with which to talk about those issues that we hadn't had before.
- [42:10]
Pete Kunze
So as we head into the homestretch, I'm curious where you see feminist comedy today. I mean, obviously you finished writing this book over a year ago and discourse kept discoursing. But also what may lie ahead for feminist comedy?
- [42:27]
Amber Day
That one's hard. I mean, I think. Yeah, it is hard. I mean, I think that in terms of where. In terms of where this sort of cultural work of sort of pushing the conversation is happening, I would imagine that you're going to have some breakthrough trans comedian doing something really interesting. Right. That's not to say that there haven't already been trans comedians. There are, and there's some really good ones out there, but none were sort of at the level of fame that they became controversial in this way. Right. So I'm thinking that, that, but those comedians will be push, are pushing all the same buttons that feminist comedians are in terms of pushing people around gender and power voice and all of that stuff and norms. So I mean, that would be somewhere interesting to, to look to. And yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'm particularly interested in some work that I haven't figured out how to do yet, which is like, you know, which is really look at like, as I said, you know, these, these dust ups are actually becoming fewer and farther between in some ways or it's becoming harder and harder, as we all know, for particular performers or writers or whatever to break through into wider conversation. And so I guess the, you know, my big questions are like how to do that, right? How to, how, what's the, you know, can we study when that happens and how it happens? And what are the, what are the conditions for making that happen? Maybe, and maybe that comes from like a super naive, almost Pollyannish wish of like, you know, I, I do want to sort of go back to a kind of a public sphere in which we are all kind of dealing with some of the same things and having to actually talk about issues in a substantive way rather than, you know, assuming that the other team, it's all about conspiracy theories or what. Anyway, but that, that would be my interest in studies going forward of how is that stuff happening?
- [44:48]
Pete Kunze
So I'm going to follow up that big question with a bigger question and one that's slightly immodest, which is who are you hoping will read this book and how do you imagine or hope it might be taken up within media studies or performance studies?
- [45:04]
Amber Day
I don't know. That's a hard question. I mean, I hope, I hope folks are, I mean, I would love for it to be read as widely as possible, of course, but.
- [45:19]
Pete Kunze
How about this? What kind of work do you hope to see going forward? Right? Because obviously anytime we write a book, we have to delimit what we're doing and what we're not doing. But what kind of work? You know, let's say there's a graduate student listening who's looking for a PhD project but hasn't found it yet. Where do you see the field heading and what areas do you see worthy of investigation in the spirit of your project?
- [45:50]
Amber Day
Well, I think the stuff that I don't touch at all, but along the same lines of this discourse analysis, I think if you had somebody who could do that kind of digital Humanities work that I am not skilled in but of actually sort of just mine is a sort of very qualitative look at discourse analysis. Right. I think it might be interesting for people to go in and literally sort of scrub Twitter for two weeks and look for particular terms and how things are being discussed and really kind of be able to, to see what words come up around particular performers. That kind of stuff I think could be really interesting.
- [46:37]
Pete Kunze
Yeah, it's almost like taking more of a content analysis approach. Right. Where we see the statistical way in which this is unfolding.
- [46:43]
Amber Day
Right. Or sort of using all of those AI tools which people keep telling me aren't going to be great.
- [46:50]
Pete Kunze
And yet. Can you ask finally, what are you working on now? Are you continuing in this vein or are you pursuing new avenues?
- [47:01]
Amber Day
You know, I haven't started another big project, so, you know, taking suggestions, dear listeners. But yeah, I mean, right now I think I'm just sort of seeing through some of the work that didn't make it into this book. I know you and I have been at a couple conferences, but where I was playing with some of this. But, you know, looking at. So this book is all about real life comedians, but I was doing a little bit of work on fictional versions of feminist comedians and some, you know, some shows that have popped up lately, like Hacks or the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And just seeing that it's interesting that sort of feminist comedians, the results of that. I'm blanking on the name, but that movie that came out with Emma Thompson in it, that there's, there's suddenly we're seeing more fictional characters in this realm. And so what are we doing with those fictional characters? And what, what are the stories that are being told through them? And yeah, what are we working through with, with that media? Because it's slightly different. Right. We don't, we're not, we are not constrained by reality, but of course it tells us, you know, the stories we're telling ourselves about ourselves are interesting.
- [48:24]
Pete Kunze
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Amber. It's been a pleasure talking with you about this. The book is Caught in the Feminist Comedians and the Culture wars, available now from Indiana University Press and other online booksellers. This is Pete Kunze, and this has been New Books and Media on the New Books Network Work. Thank you for listening and we hope you'll join us again next time.