ABSTRACT
This chapter examines issues of gender in popular British comedy. In particular it considers the preponderance of female comic stereotypes: the ingenuous curvaceous bimbo on the one hand and the nagging unattractive wife on the other, across a range of comic forms from cinema, stage, TV and radio to seaside postcards. Although it is impossible to talk in absolutes, for comic traditions are multifarious and shift across forms, history and social context, the recurrence of a particular and narrow range of female comic stereotypes is striking. However, every examination of the feminine must also acknowledge its opposite, so comic representations of masculinity must also be considered, particularly as comedy is often derived in the pairing of gender and sexual opposites.
