Funny Women
By Kathy Harlan
Oprah Winfrey tops almost every list celebrating women - richest, most influential, and most powerful, among others. Actually, there wasn't much to celebrate until the 1960s. Before the "women's lib" movement, the influential women were mostly dour; ridiculed and isolated. Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Clara Barton, and Marie Curie made significant contributions to society, but were not honored and given their due recognition at the time. Today many women of accomplishment are publicized, respected, well compensated - and funny.
Honoring women with a sense of humor is a relatively new phenomenon. I'd like to recognize a few funny women who influenced my life and made me laugh.
When I was twelve years old (many, many years ago) two female comediennes became the rage on the new medium of television. Betty White was a young, vivacious star of Life With Elizabeth, and an exuberant redhead named Lucille Ball began a career that took her to the top of the "influential" and "rich" lists. Lucy created some of the funniest episodes ever seen. She was also a smart and innovative businesswoman who broke barriers all the way to the top, to the consternation of studio executives. She showed young girls that you can be funny, and smart, and successful although she often said, "I'm not funny; I'm brave." In a tribute to Lucy's universality, many 21st century girls replaced their wristbands that read WWJD to WWLD (What Would Lucy Do).
The Australian Magazine once ranked Roseanne Barr as more powerful than Mother Theresa. Roseanne, a raunchy stand-up comic, changed forever the image of a television mother. Her hair wasn't perfect, dinner was rarely ready on time, she scoffed at paying the bills, and the kids didn't solve their problems in a 30-minute episode. Her actions ranged from awful (butchering the National Anthem at a Major League Baseball game in 1990) to honored (Emmy and Peabody Awards; the Eleanor Roosevelt Award of the American Democratic Association, and two Humanitas Awards for programming that communicates human values). The Roseanne Barr Foundation is a powerful organization helping the neediest people, ranging from Native American women to establishing a building materials cooperative in the devastated New Orleans. Throughout her chaotic life, Roseanne has remained funny. I never identified with June Cleaver's perfect grooming and vacuuming in high heels, but Roseanne I could live with.
Erma Bombeck regularly made the list of the most influential women until her death in 1996. She was my inspiration. "No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed," she wrote. And "If an item doesn't multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be." Erma set the standard for mothers who valued their real children and husbands - not the idealized and perfectionist models. America's funniest mother helped us cope with the real world. I carried several of her columns around for years. She published more than four thousand syndicated columns, wrote 15 best-selling books, and was never mean.
Two of my favorite inspirations are not real women - well, they would fight you on that.
Roseanne Roseannadanna was the alter ego of Gilda Radner who appeared on early Saturday Night Live episodes. Roseanne Roseannadanna would give a commentary that never ended with the same thought that it began with, but at the end she'd tie it all together with, "It just goes to show you….it's always something." Gilda was younger than I, and got cancer before I did. She fought it with courage, grace and humor. "I wanted a perfect ending," she wrote. "Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what is going to happen next."
Gilda's legacy is Gilda's Place in New York City, where women with cancer can come for help (free) in navigating the tricky areas of social and emotional needs. It has now expanded to other cities and includes services for men. "It's always something."
Some folks say that she is just a sock puppet, but those of us who love Miss Piggy beg to differ. When my children were small Sesame Street was an infant also. I watched the program as intently as they did and its characters became part of the family. Miss Piggy never doubted that she was sexy and destined for greatness. She could sing an operatic aria, karate chop, dance gracefully or give an antagonist a kick in the pants. I adopted her dietary rule, "Never eat more than you can lift," and put on weight along with her. But she sees herself as beautiful no matter what anyone says. What an example of great self-esteem.
Humor has carried me through "many dangers, toils and snares." This Women's History Month, I salute those who helped along the way.
