We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy
by Yael Kohen
- Used
- as new
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- As New/As New
- ISBN 10
- 0374287236
- ISBN 13
- 9780374287238
- Seller
-
Camarillo, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Book appears to be untouched/unread. Binding is tight.
Dust Jacket in mint condition and protected in Mylar.
Signed by the author, Yael Kohen, on the title page.
First Edition print.
No matter how many times female comedians buck the conventional wisdom, people continue to ask: "Are women funny?" The question has been nagging at women off and on (mostly on) for the past sixty years. It's incendiary, much discussed, and, as proven in Yael Kohen's fascinating oral history, totally wrongheaded.
In We Killed, Kohen pieces together the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy, gathering the country's most prominent comediennes and the writers, producers, nightclub owners, and colleagues who revolved around them. She starts in the 1950s, when comic success meant ridiculing and desexualizing yourself; when Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller emerged as America's favorite frustrated ladies; when the joke was always on them. Kohen brings us into the sixties and seventies, when the appearance of smart, edgy comedians (Elaine May, Lily Tomlin) and the women's movement brought a new wave of radicals: the women of SNL, tough-ass stand-ups, and a more independent breed on TV (Mary Tyler Moore and her sisters). There were battles to fight and preconceptions to shake before we could arrive in a world in which women like Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, and Tina Fey can be smart, attractive, sexually confident—and, most of all, flat-out funny.
As the more than 150 people interviewed for this riveting oral history make clear, women have always been funny. It's just that every success has been called an exception and every failure an example of the rule. And as each generation of women has developed its own style of comedy, the coups of the previous era are washed away and a new set of challenges arises. But the result is the same: They kill. A chorus of creative voices and hilarious storytelling, We Killed is essential cultural and social history, and—as it should be!—great entertainment.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Casa Pacifica (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 0089
- Title
- We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy
- Author
- Yael Kohen
- Format/Binding
- As New
- Book Condition
- New
- Jacket Condition
- As New
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0374287236
- ISBN 13
- 9780374287238
- Publisher
- Sarah Crichton Books
- Place of Publication
- Qd16
- Date Published
- 2012-10
- Bookseller catalogs
- Comedy; Non Fiction;
Terms of Sale
Casa Pacifica
About the Seller
Casa Pacifica
About Casa Pacifica
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...