The Soup vs. The Dish

Okay, so I plan on posting about some of the stuff we watched in class regarding female comedians and gender sometime today; however, because I've been thinking about some of the career discrepancies between the two genders, I wanted to point out two examples from my good friend, cable TV: E!'s The Soup vs. Style's The Dish.

The Soup's host, Joel McHale, is, in my opinion, one of the most hilarious hosts on television. (He also does a comedy tour and was recently in STL, but, sadly, I couldn't go.) Part of his success, undeniably, stems from the creative writers on his show, who find absolutely ridiculous clips from reality television and give McHale a few lines commenting on their absurdity. They also rely heavily on repetition from week to week: viewers can always count on a clip from an unknown TV cooking show called Dutch Oven (viewers can run with that reference without much help...), a year-old clip from Oprah, where the talk-show host swings from a mini bungee cord and complains of her aching female anatomy, an excerpt from one of Tyra Banks' million shows where the model/hostess inevitably makes some exaggerated self promoting/egotistical comment, and (my personal favorite) some sort of clip from The Hills or The City that reminds viewers just how ignorant and fake the stars (and the plots) are.

But McHale's facial expressions, self-deprecation, and timing really make the humor. He raises his eyebrows often, has a deadpan voice, and makes room for a lot of pauses. In comparison, The Dish (with an annoying emoticon before it which actually reads The :Dish), host Danielle Fishel explores similar clips; but, she also comments on clips from bridal shows, excerpts from women's magazines, and makeover shows. Clearly, her target audience is much more female. As such, her delivery is also a bit more gendered: she often uses a high pitched, "valley girl" voice (similar to Caroline Rhea's), fluffs her hair, and makes references to dieting.

In my opinion, her show isn't as funny--even though the basic material and premise is much like The Soup. Its target audience is just too targeted. I mean, as a female in her mid-twenties, I'm part of the target audience, and I think it's too girly. Perhaps my observation, as a female, harkens back to what we were trying to figure out in class regarding the success of female comedians: their hyper-feminized approach can be overkill. Sure, Danielle Fishel may be simultaneously mocking this sort of behavior, but, week after week, it gets too repetitive, the voice gets too squeaky, and the fluffed hair gets, frankly, too fluffy. By contrast, Joel McHale seems to target a broader audience by merely making fun of what's on every TV channel...not just the bridezillas from WE Tv or the strange female celebrity quotes from Cosmopolitan headlines.