Tucked within the delightful mayhem of Howard Hawks' 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby is a scene so absurd it feels like pure magic. Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) and David Huxley (Cary Grant) stand side by side, a scrappy little dog named George squirming between them as they belt out “I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby.” Their audience? None other than Baby, a full-grown leopard on the loose, who happens to be perched on a nearby roof. As the singing intensifies, the scene grows louder with George’s barking and Baby’s howling. In the next beat, the leopard dashes off the roof, leaving everybody, including George, scrambling. David immediately runs off to investigate, leaving a frightened and soon-to-be-kidnapped Susan wide-eyed and alone. Upon hearing all the commotion, David dramatically emerges from behind a bush to see what all the fuss is about. With George now tucked neatly under his arm, David cartoonishly crouches down, peering through the neighbors door, desperately searching for the missing Baby and Susan. Just as he settles into his awkward stance, the camera snaps to a police car slowing to a stop outside. In an instant, the nonsense hits like a slap to the face. How did we get here? But the film doesn’t relent—it doubles down on the ridiculousness. 

The two cops step out of the car, mistake David for a peeping tom, and, without hesitation, arrest him on the spot. The men comically scoop up David—who has of course, immediately surrendered—hauling him inside and lifting him up over their heads as if he were a sack of potatoes. 'Hey, wait!” He shouts. “Let me get my dog!” (Bringing Up Baby 1:20:58)

Comedy holds immense potential to influence societal norms and perceptions, particularly in its ability to simultaneously critique and reinforce ideologies. The innate sensitivity found in comedy, as argued by Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai in their 2017 essay “Comedy Has Issues,” lies in the fact that what makes somebody laugh today, can make another sneer tomorrow. Thus, when considered historically, comedy occupies the ambivalent position of sharing the same stage as the not funny, sometimes coexisting interchangeably, though not at the same time. Comedy’s capacity to explore the tension between the adversarial and the enigmatic highlights the genre’s uniquely ambiguous boundaries, but what makes this ambiguity so dynamic is its ability to get into trouble, to “disturb without moralizing for or against it” (Berlant, Ngai). This propensity enables comedy to be an ever-present catalyst for danger in challenging societal norms, provoking thought, and dismantling systems of power through humor—thus, making it all the more necessary to understand the varied purposes in which comedy can fulfill. Comedy that is unassuming or escapist by nature is not required to be didactic or morally instructive to hold cultural value, however, our current entertainment landscape risks overindulgence in this form, crowding out space for the kind of comedy that allows critical thought. 

As asserted by Berlant and Ngai, comedy is bred “…as both an aesthetic mode and a form of life, [comedy] just as likely produces anxiety: risking transgression, flirting with displeasure, or just confusing things in a way that both intensifies and impedes the pleasure” (Berlant, Ngai). Given that social media has granted nearly everyone the ability and platform to create and consume humor, the daily barrage and pervasiveness of comedic “content,” a term coined by cultural theorist Mark Fisher in his 2009 book Capitalist Realism, has increased consumption patterns that suppress meaningful engagement. This suppression raises questions about the responsibility of the viewer to recognize that not all comedy is meant for passive consumption. If it is unrealistic to demand critical engagement between text posts or ten-second video clips on social media, to what extent can we acknowledge the contrast between, for example, screwball comedies of the 1930s, which were designed to challenge social norms, and today's comedic output, which can often sacrifice tension for algorithm or profit-friendly humor? 

Following Berlant and Ngai, this recognition exists within the realm of understanding that humor is entirely subjective and that, naturally, humor and its expression are constantly evolving. However, that does not imply that in a period marked by an excess of, typically unregulated online comedic content, and the industry’s prioritization of profit, driven by the commodification of art informed by said online content, that those engaging in comedy do not bear a role in carefully analyzing the intentions, implications, and targets of jokes. In this regard, it becomes increasingly imperative to examine and scrutinize all forms of humor, not just as a consumer but as an active audience capable of gleaning more than just a laugh from the medium. Therefore for one to scrutinize and contemplate a deeper meaning, one must approach humor with the willingness to interrogate its underlying messages. The marriage of humor and commentary through film and art respectively, seeks to remind us of the often overlooked forms of interconnection and meaning that are rediscovered through our very human impulse to laugh and evaluate. Similarly, it means to seek out comedy that induces anxiety, humor that forces us to reckon with the proximity of the unsettling, the revealing. By its nature, comedy tests the boundaries of our society—challenging and towing the lines to help understand which beliefs define “us” and which ones we are willing to accept, reject, or push further, rather than allowing it to devolve into a stream of thoughtless entertainment. 

In one of his earliest films, a young Cary Grant, playing as Captain Cummins, sits across from Lady Lou (Mae West); she is looking up at him through mischievous eyes, a hand firmly planted on her hip as she coyly takes drags from her cigarette. He leans before her with a sort of sparkle in his eye and asks, “Haven't you ever met a man that could make you happy?” To this, West cheekily saunters in her seat, “Sure, lots of times.” This level of sauciness permeates She Done Him Wrong, the 1933 film directed by Lowell Sherman that follows Lady Lou, a promiscuous nightclub singer who enjoys playing the black widow in a spiderweb harem of male admirers. Throughout the film Lou sings and sizzles in diamonds, she stands poised in a grandeur dazzle; the swivel in her hips, and the archness in her come ons, this is a woman who searches for pleasure with an unforeseen determination, a woman that allowed many movie-goers to catch their first glimpse of a comedic female character who was not only provocative, but powerful. 

Feminist thought, especially in film, has long lacked laughter. Beginning in the 1980s, a specter began to haunt feminist film critique, an ennui that Kathleen Rowe theorized to be attributed to the, “… long-standing hold of melodrama on the female imagination” (Rowe 4). She continues, “for many women, the social contradictions of gender have been played out most compellingly in artistic forms centered on their victimization and tears rather than on their resistance and laughter …” (Rowe 4). Enraptured by this void of laughter, Kathleen Rowe in her 1995 book The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter, conceived the concept of the “unruly woman.” Women who position themselves as subjects of laughter, such as Lady Lou, who express anger and resistance, who refuse to conform to societal expectations through their body and sexual assertiveness—these women embody a certain quality—they employ a power found in spectacle, in excess. In the most explicit sense, they are unruly. The defiance of the “unruly woman,” who, following Rowe, is “too fat, too funny, too noisy, too old, too rebellious,” holds the power to unsettle social hierarchies—she not only makes a direct attack on the purity of the melodrama, but on traditional gender norms and patriarchal authority (Rowe 19). Her existence is hyperbolic, an assault on the status quo and the rational—through unapologetic humor, she is able to pose a danger. 

Per Rowe, the “unruly woman” works in congruence with Berlant and Ngai’s idea of the unique power found in comedy. The “unruly woman” is a comedic yet anxiety inducing figure, one who reclaims her agency by using humor as a tool of opposition. In an attempt to subvert conventional comedy, the laughter of the “unruly woman” is both an act of defiance and a method of exposing the absurdity of gendered power dynamics. By operating in spaces typically reserved for male comedic authority, the “unruly woman” forces audiences to reconsider the rigid boundaries of gender and the structures of control that maintain them. Through film, the unruly woman’s presence challenges the notion of the safe laughter, comedy as lighthearted escapism; instead, it transforms laughter into a mode of critical engagement with systems of oppression. She forces us to engage with comedy’s deeper purpose: to challenge societal boundaries and provoke critical reflection. The “unruly woman,” with her grotesque and exaggerated defiance, ensures that comedy does not merely entertain but also questions, unsettles, and exposes the underlying structures of patriarchal power.  

The Hays Code, which restricted the explicit depictions of sex, violence, and other “immoral” content in Hollywood films, was enacted in June of 1934 (Soffe). Faced with these new constraints, filmmakers found ways to cleverly sidestep censorship, birthing the screwball comedy, a genre that not only subverts conventional narrative structures but also challenges traditional gender roles. Screwball comedies, known for their slapstick chaos, snippy fast-paced dialogue, and witty banter, often capitalized on similar forms of humor, such as the innuendos found in their pre-Code counterparts. However, they arguably do so in ways that are sharper and more inventive. The reliance on subtext and suggestion added a new level of sophistication to comedy, making screwballs into a powerful vehicle for progressive ideas.

Bringing Up Baby, to use the language of journalist and critic A. O. Scott, is the “screwiest screwball of them all” (O’Malley). Similarly to She Done Him Wrong, the film follows a loosely tied together narrative structure, opting instead to allow audiences to follow the characters as they navigate increasingly absurd scenarios. David Huxley, in want of a million dollars from benefactor Elizabeth Random for his museum, becomes embroiled in the schemes of Susan Vance, the niece of Mrs. Random, and her leopard, Baby. 

The humorous world of Bringing Up Baby, is driven by two powerful facets, Susan’s position as an unruly woman and David’s emasculation. Susan embodies an energy that destabilizes the polite, orderly refuge David inhabits. She exists in a world with little to no rules—in one of the film's funniest scenes, Susan steals David’s golf ball—humiliating him and reducing him to the image of a frustrated toddler. Looking around the empty fairway and the camera for help, David declares, tripping over his own words in the process, “Well my dear young lady you don’t seem to realize you’ve placed me in a very embarrassing position!” (Bringing Up Baby 5:52:03) Susan can only laugh to herself and apologize as a reply, unashamedly reveling in her position of power. Susan’s refusal to adhere to decorum is not just comedic—it is revolutionary. 

David’s fragile masculinity, along with the absurdity of the film’s plot becomes a useful mechanism in creating Hawks’s perfect landscape, one which he uses to “…play out his fantasies of the battle of the sexes” (O’Malley). David’s profession and preoccupation with finding the missing intercostal clavicle, a crucial bone for completing his dinosaur skeleton, carries a sexual innuendo. The "bone" becomes a symbol of his fraught masculinity, repeatedly displaced and rendered insignificant by Susan’s chaotic schemes. If David’s masculinity is ossifying in his fossil, then Susan’s unruliness is rife and alive through Baby, the furiously elusive leopard. The constant physical and emotional humiliation David endures suggests a deliberate subversion of patriarchal ideals, as Rowe puts it, “the film acknowledges the latent danger in sexuality David has repressed and through Susan links it with women,” exacerbating the male hero who is stripped of his authority by the unruly woman and left at the mercy of her whims (Rowe 150).

The unruly woman did not just pose a symbolic threat to societal norms—she was perceived as an actual danger during the periods in which She Done Him Wrong and Bringing Up Baby were released. Mae West’s provocative performance as Lady Lou in She Done Him Wrong, was so shocking to moral and religious sensibilities that it is widely credited with provoking the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934. In the words of author Leslie Wilson in her essay, "Mae West, She Done Him Wrong, and the Code," revolutionary work that women like West were producing would, "...upset a certain balance of power in America." The film’s depiction of a woman who openly defied patriarchal control, combined with its saucy innuendos and subversive gender dynamics, pushed Hollywood to impose strict censorship standards to maintain societal “decency” (Wilson). Similarly, Bringing Up Baby's refusal to conform to conventional norms was also a source of controversy, contributing to Howard Hawks’ firing from RKO Pictures (O’Malley). The film’s bold depiction of gender reversals and its embrace of chaos likely struck a nerve in a society grappling with the early stages of feminist movements and evolving perceptions of masculinity. The interventions by Hollywood’s higher-ups reveal that these comedies were not just harmless entertainment but instead volatile forces capable of undermining social order. The fact that they provoked such extreme responses underscores their cultural significance, and reflects broadly on the power of comedy that unsettles and challenges established societal norms and gender ideologies. 

Comedy, which was once a space for genuine human connection and critical engagement, is now at the risk of being reduced to a product designed for fleeting attention spans, in a world described by Mark Fisher as, “... collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer-spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics” (Fisher 3). While this is not to say that there is no culturally rich comedic content online, many of us today are attempting to navigate through the algorithmic bombardment of artistic remnants, essentially treating every video, post or essay as just another commodity to be consumed. In the jungle of online entertainment, a forest where one is trained to give each post only a fraction of attention, what are the odds of coming across content that is not only worthy of the time of day, but that one would actually grant it that valuable time? Thus, the necessity of comedy that embraces discomfort and tension becomes clear as it resists commodification by demanding active participation from its audience. By embracing comedy’s power to create tension, we preserve its potential as a form of resistance and cultural critique, ensuring it remains a vital tool for social and artistic progress rather than another casualty of capitalist efficiency. 

The failures of 1930s audiences to embrace the “unruly woman” does not speak as a failure on her part, but instead exemplifies the fundamental belief that, as argued by Berlant and Ngai, comedy continues to evolve. The success of Phoebe Waller Bridge’s 2017 show entitled Fleabag speaks to that evolution as the unnamed female protagonist is a striking example of a modern, unruly woman, who navigates life with biting humor, open defiance of societal expectations, and self-destructive tendencies. Instead of embodying a flamboyant sex-positive image (á la Mae West), Fleabag instead revels in her messy entanglement of sexual conquests, which, she later recounts to the audience through breaking the fourth wall. When Fleabag looks at the viewer, she looks at the audience as a co-conspirator of her unruliness; by continuing to watch, you are, by nature, an accessory to her “crime.”

Furthermore, by never being given a name, Fleabag asserts that anyone can be a mirror image of her unruliness. Unlike the screwball heroines of the 1930s, who often exist in a dance with romantic partners, Fleabag’s unruliness is entirely her own, reflecting the evolving nature of gender and comedy in a modern context. Engaging with complex comedic figures like Fleabag ensures that comedy continues to flourish as a vehicle for social progress. When comedy is approached critically it transcends mere entertainment and becomes a powerful tool for challenging oppressive systems and sparking collective reflection. The “unruly woman,” whether found in screwball comedies or contemporary series, reminds us that laughter can disrupt the status quo, urging us to see humor not as an escape but as a mode of resistance. As time becomes an increasingly commodified resource, deliberately seeking out and analyzing comedy that challenges us, rather than indulging in content that soothes us, becomes an act of defiance.

Historically, unruly women have served important roles in challenging patriarchal structures in comedy. The organized chaos of Bringing Up Baby then, with its leopard chases and absurdities—mirrors the disruptive power of the unruly woman herself through the wild unravelings of order. Her provocative force invites us to laugh while unsettling the structures we take for granted. Just as Susan’s antics leave David racing to piece together his fractured world, comedy rooted in excess and defiance challenges audiences to step back and reconsider the ways in which society confronts comedic content. In this way, the unruly woman transforms comedy from a seemingly harmless spectacle into a leopard of its own—slippery, untamed, and always slightly out of reach, daring us to chase after meaning amid the comedic mayhem.

Berlant, Lauren, and Sianne Ngai. Comedy Has Issues. University of São Paulo, edisciplinas.usp.br

Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009.

Hawks, Howard, director. Bringing Up Baby. RKO Radio Pictures, 1938

O'Malley, Sheila. "Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls, and Butterflies." Criterion, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7454-bringing-up-baby-bones-balls-and-butterflies.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag, Two Brothers Pictures, 2016. Amazon Prime, www.primevideo.com.

“Pre-Code Follies: She Done Him Wrong (1933).” Pre-Code.com, https://pre-code.com/pre-code-follies-she-done-him-wrong-1933/. 

Sherman, Lowell, director. She Done Him Wrong. Paramount Pictures, 1933. 

Soffe, Ethan. "Pre-Code Hollywood: A Pioneer of Exploitation Cinema." Film Cred, 2023, https://film-cred.com/pre-code-hollywood-a-pioneer-of-exploitation-cinema/.