ABSTRACT
Comedy uses humour in a disruptive way in order to attack not only men and sexism, but also heterosexually defined lesbianism, everyday homophobia and patriarchal romantic fantasies that subjugate women. In Spanish comedies authored by women, there is at least one established comedienne figure, Marta Balletbo-Coll, who has been dubbed the 'Catalan Woody Allen'. More importantly, and in common with other women filmmakers, she symbolically recovers that female laughter present in the origins of Western culture, as attested to by Bakhtin's terracotta figurines. It is from within the very discipline of philosophy that feminist theory reclaims the transgressive force of laughter, rescuing two female figures: the priestess Diotima of Mantinea and an anonymous Thracian slave. Feminist studies have demonstrated the relationship between magical realism and the feminine. There are precedents in female-authored Spanish films to the revelation by an older woman of sexual dissatisfaction.
