Starring raunchy Jewish women, Comedy Central’s Broad City (2014–2019) invites feminist comedy theory to better address race and ethnicity. Feminist comedy theory has long used Kathleen Rowe’s model of the unruly woman, which neglects racial/ethnic dimensions of unruliness. When discussing Jewish comedian Roseanne Barr, for instance, Rowe does not mention transgressive stereotypes about Jewish femininity like the “beautiful Jewess,” a historical stock figure depicting Jewish women as racially exotic and masculine-yet-seductive. Likewise, studies of the Jewess have not yet integrated Rowe’s lens of unruly womanhood. Broad City highlights these gaps: the series calls its stars “Jewesses,” and tropes of the beautiful Jewess fuel their comedic boundary violations between femininity/masculinity, whiteness/nonwhiteness, and racism/antiracism. By analyzing Broad City, I clarify how racial tropes of unruliness shape plotlines and social critiques in women’s comedy. This article also invites feminist studies more broadly to address Jewishness as a salient form of difference.
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