Broad City is a television program that began as a web series on Youtube, and is now in its second season on Comedy Central. The show is written by and starring comedians Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, who are two 20-something women living in New York. In their show, Abbi and Ilana use comedy to show the everyday lives of educated young women trying to make it in the city, without much aim or money, and how everyday moments can manifest into a program that toots a feminist horn. I will be discussing several elements of Broad City that makes it a feminist text, using examples from their Youtube account.
Unlike the majority of media starring women, Broad City does not focus on giving audiences falling-in-love plotlines to cheer for between Abbi, Ilana and the men that they sleep with. Instead the primary and most important relationship is the friendship that they have with each other. Abbi and Ilana are truly casual about sex, forming very few or no emotional attachments to the men that they are intimate with.
Abbi and Ilana seem to do everything together, and if not, they are skyping each other. These two women are so relatable for young women because they remind female viewers of their own relationships with their best friends and how silly and serious, crazy and dull, complicated and simple these relationships can be. This portrayal of female friendship reminds me of buddy films where two men have amazing adventures together, with a few women hanging around on the way, but at last the roles have reversed! Interestingly, similar to buddy films, there is an element of the homoerotic in their relationship which I have yet to see in other portrayals of female friendship, but I would happily be proven wrong.
Broad City may not tackle feminism head on, but it does represent and challenge the everyday sexism that women face, which sometimes is even harder to speak about because it can be so ordinary. Abbi and Ilana also talk about ‘women’s issues’, but not in any serious or didactic way with some sort of moral outcome, which allows it to remain funny and lighthearted whilst still representing feminist perspectives. The Wall Street Journal dubbed this as ‘sneak-attack feminism’ (Winston 2014), because the program is so funny and crass and real that you almost forget how extraordinary it is for television.
Reference List
Blair, E. 2014, ‘ Broad City, TV’s Best Comedy, Is a Post-Feminist Barrage of Bathroom Humor and Romantic Flubs’, New Republic, viewed 11 August 2015, <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117702/broad-citys-post-feminist-sensibility-tvs-best-comedy>
Winston, J. 2014, ‘Broad City Knows What Real, Everyday Feminism Looks Like ‘, Arts.Mic, viewed 11 August 2015, <http://mic.com/articles/80547/broad-city-knows-what-real-everyday-feminism-looks-like>
All videos are from the Broadcity Youtube Channel
