Becoming creators of comedy, not objects of humour: Subtle sexism in 2016 comedy films

This paper explores the use of subtle and indirect sexism (Lazar, 2005; Mills, 2008) in a selection of 2016 comedy films, and how this language use impacts the characterisation of the female gender identities in those films. Sexism is heavily underpinned by humour as humour often exaggerates certain features associated with a group, or plays on stereotypical knowledge for comedic effect (Mills, 2008). Recently, this correlation between sexism and humour has been challenged as women are being encouraged to become creators of comedy, rather than being the objects of humour (Finney, 1994). The data presented is a small selection of written film scripts of some of the highest grossing comedy films released in 2016, such as 'Bad Moms', 'Central Intelligence' and 'Ghostbusters'. The analytic approach taken here largely follows the framework of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, which aids in the exploration of how the screenwriters demonstrate the characters' gender identities through the characters interactions with one another. It is expected that evidence of sexism will be identified in these comedy films, particularly as a source for humour, which will impact the characterisation of the characters gender identities. Further, whilst we must consider the films light-hearted entertainment purposes, the use of sexism as a source of humour is linguistically important to explore, especially as a reflection of how language use research and common gender stereotypes have progressed.