Let me start with this: like most online gender wars that don't go anywhere and not a single soul walks away from as a better person, I think the "who's funnier? Men or women?" debate is a psyop if I've ever seen one. However, I'll open this can of worms and take the bait anyway: this might be a bit of bias on my part, being of the fairer sex myself, but I think women can be just as funny as men and vice versa.
To be honest, most people I've seen stuck in the "women aren't funny" camp only base that observation on hate-watching Amy Schumer clips like it's still 2016. Some of the most memorable episodes of beloved sitcoms such as South Park, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Modern Family, Community, The Simpsons, and Seinfeld have been written by women. MADtv, the edgier (and in my opinion, much funnier) sister show to SNL wouldn't have been half as entertaining without its talented female cast members (Nicole Sullivan, who plays the hilariously reprehensible trash-talking Vancome Lady is a personal favorite of mine). Fran Drescher in The Nanny had the perfect mix of rapid-fire wit and Lucille Ball-esque physical comedy that made the show such a success (btw, The Powers That Be, if you're reading this, PLEASE don't make The Nanny into yet another generic bland reboot). Some of the biggest influences on my own writing have been wickedly witty women such as Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz, Camile Paglia, Anna Khachiyan, Joan Rivers, Ali Wong, and Alison Bechdel.
To some, that last name might sound familiar. You might have heard of the Bechdel Test, a tool to analyze the depiction of women in film and other media. To pass the Bechdel Test, a piece of fiction must contain all three: 1. have at least two women in it, 2. have the women talk to each other, and 3. have the women talk about something that doesn't involve a man.
“Oh my God Becky, look at her butt”: a suprising example of the Bechdel Test in action
Sure enough, the test is named after Alison Bechdel, who introduced the concept to the world in a 1985 comic strip (pictured below). Although she admits that her friend Liz Wallace actually came up with it first, the name “the Bechdel Test” ended up sticking.
Besides the Bechdel Test, Alison Bechdel is also known for Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, a 2006 graphic novel and autobiography about her life, and Dykes to Watch Out For, a weekly comic strip. Maybe I’ll read and review Fun Home in the future, but for now, I’ll be focusing on Dykes to Watch Out For, the work of Bechdel which I am most familiar with.
DTWOF follows the everyday life of a tight-knit group of lesbian friends, lovers, ex-friends, and ex-lovers. Many strips revolve around the characters working at Madwimmin Books, a women’s bookshop based on the now-defunct Amazon Bookstore Cooperative in Minneapolis (no relation to Amazon.com). Themes such as dating, marriage, sex, politics, identity, family, parenting, breakups, and mental health are also prominently featured throughout the story.
Some reading this description might think, "Oh great, another bland and hopelessly PC piece of fiction that comes off like it was written by joyless HR managers, just what we need". But Bechdel's comics aren’t like that at all. They’re smart, nuanced, lively, and pretty damn funny.
I first heard the name Dykes to Watch Out For as a youngin browsing TV Tropes. I'm not going to lie, little me was a bit taken aback by the title: "Dyke?” I thought, “Isn’t that a mean word that you're not supposed to use?" (11-year-old me was not very knowledgeable about the concept of reclaiming slurs). But it wasn't until almost a decade later when I was searching for some good fiction aimed at the ladies-who-love-ladies community that I rediscovered it.
As soon as I started reading DTWOF, I was hooked. I fell in love with the characters that seemed more real than some real people, the social commentary that was sharp without being preachy, and the dialogue that was both snappy and authentic. I have the Essential Dykes to Watch Out For edition downloaded on Apple Books, which contains almost every strip from when the comic started in 1983 to when it ended in 2008. It’s really interesting to see Bechdel’s art style evolve throughout the decades, as well as how the strip reflects on the changing cultural climate from the Reagan administration to the election of Barack Obama. To me, it’s one of those books that you can open up on a lazy day and be just as invested in as you were when you first read it.
The main protagonist of the series, Mo, (pictured below) is a bespectacled neurotic that the official website describes as a “worrier and kvetch extraordinaire”.
In my opinion, Mo is a rare example of the moralist Lisa Simpson character actually done right. At the beginning of the comic, Mo is constantly teetering on the edge of self-righteousness, and, for a self-proclaimed progressive, is pretty damn closed-minded. You know, a very “I’m 18 and read A People’s History of The United States by Howard Zinn for the first time and now think I’ve figured everything out” attitude. But as the strip progresses, so does her character development: Mo gradually mellows out and opens her mind, and her once narrow view of the world changes as experience proves her wrong.
Mo was, in part, inspired by Alison Bechdel learning to laugh at herself, as well as an creative outlet for her to express her stance on the ever-changing do’s and don’ts of the LGBT community.
Comedian Norm Macdonald said that the key to a successful parody is to make fun of something or someone that you genuinely respect. Likewise, DTWOF avoids the mean-spirit bashing of men or other groups for cheap "clapter". Alison Bechdel has no qualms poking fun at politically correct lesbian feminist yuppies throughout the strip. And yet, Bechdel herself would be the first to admit that she herself is a politically correct lesbian feminist yuppie, and has nothing but love for the community that formed who she is today. I think the dichotomy of “laughing with” vs “laughing at” is a bit juvenile, but Bechdel aims to humanize people from all walks of life while also finding the humor in them.
Other characters include Sparrow, a bisexual woman married to a man who’s described as “more lesbian than most actual lesbians”, Clarice and Toni, a lesbian couple raising a son together, Lois, a stone butch drag king performer, Harriet, a former lover of Mo who’s now a single Mom by choice, and Ginger, an English professor at a local college. Additionally, there are several side characters who appear throughout the story.
What I admire the most about this ensemble is that Bechdel made sure to include gay and lesbian characters from a variety of backgrounds as a way to emphasize that there's no one way to be gay. Some gay people are happily married with children and live in the suburbs, and others aren't. Some gay people are heavily involved in leftist and feminist causes, and some aren't, some have supportive families, and some don’t, and some are committed monogamists and prudes, and some aren't. In an era where it feels like all “queer” characters are legally mandated to be hip zoomers with plenty of ‘tude, it’s refreshing to see a more grounded approach to gay characters.
With so many great options to choose from, it might be hard to pick a favorite Dyke to Watch Out for (can I say that?) of mine, but in the main cast I’d have to go with Lois, and for side characters, I’d have to go with Cynthia.
As mentioned previously, Lois is the butchest (butchiest?) one of the group. Her laid-back demeanor usually acts as a comedic foil to Mo’s high-strung tendencies. She does drag king performances inspired by early 2000s “fuckboy” personalities like Fred Durst and Eminem. She has no issues embracing her masculinity while accepting her femaleness. In other words, Lois represents the old-school, stylish kind of androgyny that’s not only fun and subversive but also cool as shit.
I love all the character designs in the series, but I especially love Lois’. As a casual doodler, whenever I see a cool butch lesbian character in fiction my first reaction is usually this:
Cynthia was a minor character introduced in the 2000s. She’s one of Ginger’s students at the college where she teaches. Cynthia has a secret: not only is she a lesbian, but she’s a Bush-supporting neoconservative Christian lesbian who aspires to work at the CIA! (oh my stars!)
As mentioned previously, Bechdel was adamant about including gay characters from all walks of life. In real life, not all lesbians are ultra-progressive, Birkenstocks-wearing, granola liberals, so why should the comics be any different?
Like Mo, Cynthia’s character evolves overtime. However, the strip doesn’t treat her more conservative views as something that needs to be “redeemed”. Although Bechdel obviously disagrees with Cynthia, she still humanizes her instead of just portraying Cynthia as a joke or Satan incarnate.
Overall, Dykes to Watch Out For is a classic that still resonates with people as much as it did when it was first published in the 1980s. Although I find a lot of “queer comics” today to be tacky1 and generic, DTWOF is a fresh, heartfelt, and smart take on the genre. Although I’m no one special, Alison Bechdel has definitely earned her place on my list of talented female creatives that are also pretty damn funny.
To understand what I mean by “tacky”, one of my friends coined the term “Fisher Price Exhibitionism” to describe the garish contrast between adult sexual themes and cutesy, saccharine imagery done without a hint of self-awareness or irony. An example of this would be Genderqueer: A Memoir or the webcomic Oh Joy Sex Toy. Who knows, maybe that’ll be the subject of my next Substack!