"Women explode out of chimneys and melt when sprayed with soda water. Feminist activists play practical jokes and lobby for voting rights, while overworked kitchen maids dismember their limbs to finish their chores on time. In early slapstick films with titles such as 'Saucy Sue,' 'Mary Jane's Mishap,' Jane on Strike,' and 'The Consequences of Feminism,' comediennes exhibit the tensions between joyful laughter and gendered violence."
In her new book, Maggie Hennefeld, assistant professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities explores the comedic potentials of feminism through close consideration of hundreds of silent films, arguing that comedienne catastrophes provide disturbing but suggestive images for comprehending gendered social upheavals in the early twentieth century.
The book was released by Columbia University Press in March 2018, and you can purchase your copy directly from the publisher here: Columbia University Press
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