Humor, Gender, and Sex(uality) in Text and Film: Incredible Shrinking Men from Mark Twain to Lorrie Moore

Abstract

This article compares The Diaries of Adam and Eve (Twain, 1904-1906), The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold, 1957), and “You’re Ugly, Too” (Moore, 2008) from the perspectives of humor, feminism, and queer theory. It examines how humor interacts with the changing representations of gender and sex(uality) at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the twentieth century; furthermore, it argues that humor is a valuable means of questioning binary patterns, which in this way may contribute to a life of equality-in-difference (my term). I also discuss certain types of comicality, e.g. sarcasm, the results of which can be detrimental or simply conformist. The article concludes that humor can help us to pull down hierarchies, find affinities, and build ethical relations among genders, sex(ualiti)es, and beyond.