The Girl in the Show: Three Generations of Comedy, Culture, and Feminism

"I’m not funny at all. What I am is brave." - Lucille Ball

The Girl in the Show explores how comedy and feminism have grown hand in hand to give women a stronger voice in the ongoing fight for equality. From I Love Lucy to SNL to today’s rising cable and web series stars, Anna Fields’s entertaining, thoughtful, and candid retrospective combines personal narratives with the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the feminist movement.

With interview subjects such as Abbi Jacobson, Molly Shannon, Mo Collins, and Lizz Winstead as well as actresses, stand-up comics, writers, producers, and female comedy troupes, Fields shares true stories of wit and heroism from some of our most treasured (and underrepresented) artists. Creating a blueprint for the feminist comedians of tomorrow using lessons of the past, The Girl in the Show encourages readers to revel in - and rebel against - our collective ideas of women’s comedy.