Objectification of Women Through Metaphors in Stand-up Comedy. From Cars to Banana Bread

Justyna Wawrzyniuk

Abstract


This paper examines metaphorical expressions labelled under the conceptual metaphor A WOMEN IS AN OBJECT originating from 30 performances by female North American stand-up comedians. By combining the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003) and stand-up comedy research, this corpus- and the dictionary-assisted study examines how women and womanhood
are conceptualized in terms of objects such as buildings, food, houseware, or vehicles. The multilevel analysis of the expressions shows that the interplay between the subversive character of stand-up comedy and gendered metaphors allows for reclaiming the power over stereotypical language under the guise of humour.


Keywords


metaphor; stand-up comedy; humor; gender; identity

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ahrens, K. (Ed.). (2009). Politics, gender and conceptual metaphors. Palgrave Macmillan.

Altman, M. (1990). How Not to Do Things with Metaphors We Live by. College English, 52(5), 495. https://doi.org/10.2307/377538

Achugar, M. (2022). Piropos as metaphors for gender roles in Spanish speaking cultures. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 127–137. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.11.2.02ach

Baider, F. H., & Gesuato, S. (2003). Masculinist Metaphors, Feminist research. Metaphorik.De, (5), 6–35.

Brodie, I. (2014). A vulgar art: A new approach to stand-up comedy. University Press of Mississippi.

Bussey, K., & Bandura, A. (1999). Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation. Psychological Review, 106, 676–713.

Buteau, M. (Writer). (2020). Welcome to Buteaupia [Film]. Netflix. http://netflix.com

Butler, J. (2006). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.

Cummings, W. (Writer). (2019). Can I touch it? [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80213715

De Fina, A. (2007). Code-switching and the construction of ethnic identity in a community of practice. Language in Society, 36, 371–392.

Deignan, A. (2003). Metaphorical Expressions and Culture: An Indirect Link. Metaphor and Symbol, 18(4), 255–271.

Evans, D. (Ed.). (2015). Language and identity: Discourse in the world. Bloomsbury Academic, An imprint of Bloomsbury Pub. Plc.

Fernando, C. (1996). Idioms and idiomaticity. Oxford University Press.

Gibbs, R. W. (2011). Evaluating Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Discourse Processes, 48(8), 529–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2011.606103

Gilbert, J. R. (2004). Performing marginality: Humor, gender, and cultural critique. Wayne State University Press.

Gilbert, J. R. (2017). Response: Stand-up and Identity. Laughing at others: The Rhetoric of Marginalized Comic Identity. In M. R. Meier, & C. R. Schmitt (Eds.), Standing up, speaking out: Stand-up comedy and the rhetoric of social change (pp. 57–67). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Goatly, A. (2007). Washing the brain: Metaphor and hidden ideology. John Benjamins.

Hart, C. (2020). Cognitive Linguistic and Experimental Methods in Critical Discourse Studies. In A. De Fina, & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of Discourse Studies. Cambridge University Press.

Hines, C. (1999a). Foxy chicks and Playboy bunnies: A case study in metaphorical lexicalization. In M. K. Hiraga, C. Sinha, & S. Wilcox (Eds.), Cultural, Psychological and Typological Issues in Cognitive Linguistics: Selected papers of the biannual ICLA meeting in Albuquerque, July 1995 (Vol. 152) (pp. 9–24). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.152

Hines, C. (1999b). Rebaking the Pie: The WOMAN AS DESSERT Metaphor. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang, & L. A. Sutton (Eds.), Reinventing identities: The gendered self in discourse (pp. 145–162). Oxford University Press.

Horowitz, S. (1997). Queens of comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the new generation of funny women. Gordon and Breach Publishers.

Jones. L. (Writer). (2020). Time Machine [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/81060049

Kant, L., & Norman, E. (2019). You Must Be Joking! Benign Violations, Power Asymmetry, and Humor in a Broader Social Context. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1380. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01380

Koller, V. (2002). “A Shotgun Wedding”: Co-occurrence of War and Marriage Metaphors in Mergers and Acquisitions Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 17(3), 179–203. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327868MS1703_2

Koller, V. (2004). Businesswomen and war metaphors: “Possessive, jealous and pugnacious”? Journal of Sociolinguistics, 8(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9841.2004.00249.x

Kon, H. (1988). Standup Comediennes: Killing us with Laughter [Master’s thesis, McMaster University]. McMaster University’s Institutional Repository. https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/handle/11375/13742

Koplitz, L. (Writer). (2017). Hormonal Beast [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80185322

Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Kövecses, Z. (2017). Levels of metaphor. Cognitive Linguistics, 28(2), 321–347. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2016-0052

Krefting, R. (2014). All joking aside: American humor and its discontents. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. University of Chicago Press.

Linares Bernabéu, E. (2019). The role of humor discourse in the construction of gender identity. Pragmalinguistica, 27, 112–132. https://doi.org/10.25267/Pragmalinguistica.2019.i27.06

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.ldoceonline.com/index.html

López Rodríguez, I. (2014). Are We What We Eat? Food Metaphors in the Conceptualization of Ethnic Groups. Linguistik Online, 69(7). https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.69.1655

MacArthur, F. (2005). The Competent Horseman in a Horseless World: Observations on a Conventional Metaphor in Spanish and English. Metaphor and Symbol, 20(1), 71–94.

Macmillan Dictionary Online. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.macmillandictionary.com

McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1141–1149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073

Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954–969. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.9.954

Mittal, B. (2006). I, me, and mine – how products become consumers’ extended selves. Journal of Consumer Research, 5, 550–562.

Nilsen, A. P. (1996). Of Ladybugs and Billy Goats: What Animal Species Names Tell About Human Perceptions of Gender. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 11(4), 257–271. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms1104_2

Notaro, T. (Writer). (2018). Happy to be here [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80151384

Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752

Ryan, K. (Writer). (2019). Glitter Room [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80238020

Schildkraut, D. J. (2007). Defining American identity in the twenty-first century: How much “there” is there? The Journal of Politics, 69, 597–615.

Schumer, A. (Writer). (2019). Growing [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/81037077

Sedikides, C., & Brewer, M. B. (2001). Individual self, relational self, collective self. Psychology Press.

Semino, E., & Koller, V. (2009). Metaphor, Politics and Gender: A Case Study from Italy. In K. Ahrens (Ed.), Politics, gender and conceptual metaphors. Palgrave Macmillan.

Shlesinger, I. (Writer). (2016). Confirmed Kills [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80106966

Shlesinger, I. (Writer). (2018). Elder Millennial [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80213658

Steen, G., Dorst, A. G., & Herrmann, J. B. (Eds.). (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. John Benjamins.

Talebinejad, M. R., & Dastjerdi, H. V. (2005). A Cross-Cultural Study of Animal Metaphors: When Owls Are Not Wise! Metaphor and Symbol, 20(2), 133–150. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms2002_3

Taylor, D. M. (1997). The quest for collective identity: The plight of disadvantaged ethnic minorities. Canadian Psychology, 38(3), 174–190.

Tomsett, E. (2018). Positives and negatives: Reclaiming the female body and self-deprecation in standup comedy. Comedy Studies, 9(1), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/2040610X.2018.1437167

Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.urbandictionary.com

Vignoles, V. L., Schwartz, S. J., & Luyckx, K. (2011). Introduction: Toward an Integrative View of Identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of Identity Theory and Research. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7988-9

Wolf, M. (Writer). (2019). Joke Show [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/81036542

Wong, A. (Writer). (2016). Baby Cobra [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80101493

Wong, A. (Writer). (2018). Hard Knock Wife [Film]. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/80186940

Zeng, H., Tay, D., & Ahrens, K. (2020). A multifactorial analysis of metaphors in political discourse: Gendered influence in Hong Kong political speeches. Metaphor and the Social World, 10(1),

–168. https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.19016.zen




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2023.47.2.61-78
Date of publication: 2023-07-19 13:53:55
Date of submission: 2022-11-08 09:48:38


Statistics


Total abstract view - 870
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 609

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2023 Justyna Wawrzyniuk

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.