Language, gender, and identity in a British comedy panel show: Research by Dr.Robert Lawson & Dr

Women In Comedy gets an insight into the interesting research conducted on gender and language on the popular show "Mock the Week"

Women In Comedy: What motivated you to conduct a study on gender bias in comedy?

Dr.Lawson & Dr.Lutzky: Back in 2009, Jo Brand quit Mock the Week, a popular British comedy panel show that has been running since 2005, claiming that she found it difficult to contribute as a female comedian to ongoing talk and jokes. As a high-profile public figure, Brand's comments were picked up by a number of media outlets who started a mainstream conversation about the extent to which institutional sexism exists in modern day comedy programmes. It was surprising, then, that there had been almost no empirical research on language and gender in this context/genre until we did our project, even though linguists had done quite a lot of work in other spheres of interaction, such as conversations, online forums and so on. We wanted to apply contemporary methods of linguistic research to investigate the claims that Brand and other comedians had made about possible gender bias in a show like Mock the Week and to try and provide some sort of empirical basis that would either support or refute the idea of male conversational dominance in television comedy shows.

Women In Comedy: Can you tell us in brief about your research?

Dr.Lawson & Dr.Lutzky: For our research, we analyzed one full season of Mock the Week. We transcribed of the episodes in season 5, highlighting features such as interruptions, overlaps, and audience laughter. Once we had completed the transcriptions, we analyzed who contributed the most/least, how many words and turns panel members had in an episode, who interrupted and who was interrupted and so on. From there, it was a case of sorting our results by gender, by number of appearances on the show, and by panel member status (permanent or guest panel member) to allow us to examine patterns of interaction.

Women In Comedy: What were the key findings of your study?

Dr.Lawson & Dr.Lutzky: Our key findings included that female panelists contribute far less than male panelists on the show. In total, they only spoke about 4% of the total number of words forming part of series 5 of Mock the Week and only contributed 5% of all turns at talk. At the same time, we found that in addition to the gender of the participants, their status on the show had to be taken into account. This is because we discovered that guest panelists speak less than permanent panelists, with female guest panelists getting the least speaking time.

Concerning interruptions, our study revealed that both male and female guest panelists had a tendency to disruptively interrupt other panelists most frequently, which is an indication that it may be more difficult for them to be heard than for permanent panelists, who are familiar with the show. When considering the panelists who get interrupted, it turned out that female panelists were disruptively interrupted the least, when compared to male permanent and guest panelists.

Women In Comedy: What was surprising about the results of your study?

Dr.Lawson & Dr.Lutzky: It was surprising to find how little female panel members contributed to the episodes in series 5. Based on the total number of six panelists, divided into two teams of three, we would have expected a more balanced distribution of contributions. However, our results for female comedians are well below what might be expected when considering the total number of female participants across not only all episodes but also within a single episode.

Additionally, it was interesting to see that, despite common assumptions about the position of women in the comedy industry, the amount of interruptions on the show was actually influenced by an interplay of social variables. Thus, we found that both male and female guest panelists had a tendency to interrupt more than permanent panelists. At the same time, our analysis showed that it was male and not female guest panelists who were interrupted the most.

Women In Comedy: What in your opinion will help address the inequality in comedy?

Dr.Lawson & Dr.Lutzky: First, it's great to see that mainstream commentary on institutional sexism in comedy has led to a number of steps being taken to address these inequalities. Perhaps one of the biggest announcements in this regard was by the BBC, who made a commitment in 2014 to increase the number of female comedians involved in shows like Mock the Week. That said, our research suggests that such a move is unlikely to solve issues of under-involvement in talk, since even when a female panel member was on the show, they tended to have the lowest rate of participation. So the main change that we think would help address inequality in comedy is for script-writers, producers, editors and comedians themselves to look at how much space panel members (both male/female and new/established) are given to contribute to ongoing talk. It's no use having a female panel member involved in a show if they don't say anything, and so the industry needs to look at finding ways to facilitate interactional involvement. Another point that should be considered, especially by production companies, is how a show is edited and how much attention is given to male/female panel members. For example, if a show is edited with the assumption that male comedians are 'funnier' than female comedians (and this is still a well-worn trope even today), then this might colour the way that editors and producers approach a show to potentially foreground the contributions made by male comedians and background those made by female comedians.

Read more about their research here