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Abstract
This essay positions the work of comedian Maria Bamford within the feminist and disability-justice traditions in which situated storytelling is a form of resistance and world-making. By narrativizing the process by which she came to terms with her neurodiversity within the context of stand-up comedy, Bamford also challenges transcendent and transhistorical definitions of comedy and capitalist notions of comedic success to make space for a diversity of voices and perspectives. Bamford’s work, particularly the 2017 special Old Baby, represents both the individual and social work necessary for—and the pleasure of—living a fully realized life regardless of both diagnostic status and the persistence of misogyny and ableism. By beginning her performance in front of a mirror and gradually expanding the audience, Old Baby dramatizes how the personal acceptance of neurodivergence can extend fractally to larger familial/social contexts to disrupt normativizing discourses, stigma, and the tendency to feminize mental illness by conflating it with weakness.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Bamford, “Maria Bamford in Conversation.”
2 brown, Emergent Strategy, 27n22.
3 Lorde, A Burst of Light, 57.
4 McRuer, Crip Times, 92, 93.
5 Couser, Signifying Bodies, 33.
6 McRuer, Crip Times, 93.
7 brown, Emergent Strategy, 53.
8 Berlant, “The Predator.”
9 Bamford, “Maria Bamford in Conversation.”
10 brown, Emergent Strategy, 94.
11 Bamford, “Maria Bamford: The First Time.”
12 Bamford, “Oh-CD.”
13 Wynter, On Being Human, 49.
14 Lorde, A Burst of Light, 117.
15 Bamford, “Oh-CD.”
16 Brady and Ross, “Knife Feelings.”
17 brown, Emergent Strategy, 194.
18 brown, Emergent Strategy, 142.
19 Holladay and Price, “Mediating Minds,” 35.
20 Holladay and Price, “Mediating Minds,” 36.
21 Bamford, The Special Special Special!
22 Bamford, “Maria Bamford—Lunchtime Keynote.”
23 Bamford, “Maria Bamford in Conversation.”
24 brown, Emergent Strategy, 146.
25 Brady and Hurwitz, “White Trash.”
26 Couser, Signifying Bodies, 47.
27 Bamford, “Maria Bamford: The First Time.”
28 Bamford, “Maria Bamford: The First Time.”
29 McRuer, Crip Times, 217.
30 brown, Emergent Strategy, 158.
31 Bamford, Weakness Is the Brand.
32 Couser, Signifying Bodies, 49.
33 Bamford, “Maria Bamford—Crazy Meds.”
34 Bamford, “Exit.”
35 Krefting, All Joking Aside, 4.
36 Brady, Hurwitz, and Statsky, “Pilot.”
37 Flanagan, “That’s Not Funny,” 56.
38 Silman, “10 Famous Comedians”; qtd. in Berlant and Ngai, “Comedy Has Issues,” 234.
39 Bamford, Weakness Is the Brand.
40 Bamford, Old Baby.
41 Krefting provides a helpful history of this discourse in chapter four of All Joking Aside, “When Women Perform Charged Humor: The Gendered Politics of Consumption.” For many years, Bamford kept a list on her website of “Funny Women in Comedy” to combat notions that women were not funny.
42 Bamford, “Boredom.”
43 Bamford, “Oh-CD.”
44 Berlant and Ngai, “Comedy Has Issues,” 233.
45 Bamford, The Special Special Special!
46 Brady, Hurwitz, and Statsky, “Pilot.”
47 Bamford, “Maria Bamford in Conversation.”
48 Bamford, “Maria Bamford University of Minnesota.”
49 Brady and Hurwitz, “Bisexual Because of Meth.”
50 Brady and Hurwitz, “White Trash.”
51 Brady, “Little Manila.”
52 Lorde, A Burst of Light, 130.
53 hooks, “Choosing the Margin.”
54 Brady, Hurwitz, and Statsky, “Pilot.”
55 Brady, Hurwitz, and Mulligan, “Loaf Coach”; Brady, Hurwitz, and Cantor, “Wet Raccoon.”
56 Brady, “Little Manila.”
57 Goldberg, “‘Lady Dynamite’ Canceled.”