Works Cited

Vancil-leap, Ashley. “Resistance and Adherence to the Gendered Representations of School Lunch Ladies.” Gender Issues, vol. 34, no. 1, 2017, pp. 67-85. ProQuest, http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login? url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1867885669?accountid=11107,  doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12147-016-9170-9.

This article talks about the portrayal of lunch ladies in popular culture as “the witch” or “the mother” and how that hinders our understanding of the position of lunch lady. Lunch lady is often a low status, low paying occupation with female workers in need of finances. In the article, it’s mentioned how over the last two decades popular culture of lunch lady didn’t change very much and doesn’t show the fostering relationship lunch ladies often have with the kids that they serve the food to. The research seem to show that the negative image many lunch lady receive on television is used to justify the subpar pay and benefits they receive in the real world. This article has some value as it is a peer review source that had collected data across 20 years of popular media along with a year and a half of field research including working as a lunch lady and interviews. However, this article does not serve to have direct purpose as it talks of their portrayal across general media and not specifically Saturday Night Live, but could still serve to a useful resource.

Reincheld, Aaron. “”Saturday Night Live” and Weekend Update: The Formative Years of Comedy News Dissemination.” Journalism History, vol. 31, no. 4, 2006, pp. 190-197. ProQuest, http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/205356448?accountid=11107.

The article argues that Saturday Night Live has been pivotal in creating a culture of American television satire. In the past thirty years, SNL has mainly targeted politics and politicians allowing for an evening of the political field. The SNL news parody segment, Weekend Update, helped to expand restrictions from censors by offering two different point of views of an event that week; which slowly started to restarted to look like a real newsroom overtime. The article intends to illustrate the impact that SNL had on the lives of its average 30 million viewers per week. The article has a good bit of value studying the inner workings of Saturday Night Live. They examine the development of the newscast over the first five years with the use of interviews as primary sources. The source is peer reviewed and seeks to understand the impact that Saturday Night Live and it’s Weekend Update segment has on not only the lives of its viewers, but also on the media and political landscapes. However the mistrust in the article does arrive, as the article seems to attempt to promote a point throughout the article.

Wagner, Kristen A. “”have Women a Sense of Humor?” Comedy and Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century Film.” Velvet Light Trap, no. 68, 2011, pp. 35-46. ProQuest, http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/896625651?accountid=11107.

Women for a long while were considered unfunny in the world of comedy. This is because of the feminine ideal of the twentieth-century. That women are naturally delicate, morale, spiritual, and passive. And thus they are unsuited for the rough world of comedy. This cause women, that enter the comedy world, to have to adapt with one such way as downplaying their femininity and appearing more masculine. This also lead to the development of “feminine” comedy; which is considered to be more sensitive and emotional. It argues that women are very capable of comedy with several examples of successful female comedians. The old idea of the ideal woman not fit for comedy is outdated. The article holds some value as it’s written by Dr. Wagner, with PhD in critical studies, and copyrighted and upheld by University of Texas in Austin and seems to be providing a good bit of history. The article does not directly provide insight into women in SNL, but does give a history of women in comedy.

SHEFFIELD, ROB. “Saturday Night Live. 40 Years. 141 Cast Members. We Rank Them All. (Cover Story).” Rolling Stone, no. 1229, 26 Feb. 2015, pp. 30-43. EBSCOhost, prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=100950742&site=ehost-live.

This a compiled ranking list of all SNL cast members in the last forty years; the authors rank them based on who they believed were the best to the worst. The entire list is as they describe it. “A passionate, definitive, opinionated, subjective, irresponsible and indefensible breakdown of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.”  They ranked them purely based on their onscreen acts, both actresses and actors alike. They rank big names to even some small names in hopes of being inclusive, but the ranking only values their onscreen impact and not any of the offscreen effort they may of had to put in. I believe this will be a valuable resource, as although it’s on the opinionated side, it lists all the cast members which will allow us to sort out the male and female cast members of SNL over the 4 decades that they have aired. The article is, however, 3 and a half years old, so it may not list any recently new cast members. It does give us a fairly extensive list of who can be considered as a cast member of SNL.

Meadows, Susannah. “LADIES of the NIGHT.” Newsweek, vol. 139, no. 14, Apr. 2002, p. 54. EBSCOhost, prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=6416808&site=ehost-live.

More women deserve to be on the staff of Saturday Night Live. It argues that the good ratings from about 2000 to 2002 for SNL were mainly achieved by three funny women in the SNL writing room. Saturday Night Live started out with equal opportunity with about 3 women to 3 men in 1975, but that changed as time went on, by  1993, the ratio changed to 3 women to 8 men. By 2002, the ratio was around 3 women for 19 men. Though as SNL Michaels said, it isn’t because of a quota system, but rather the reason is due to the fact that SNL performs parody and the news is filled with more men it would lead to a system that required more male staff. The article though trending on pushing a point does provide insight to the ratio of men to women at SNL if for nothing else then for writers. It may not prove to useful being so short.

Leano, Jessica. “The Agenda-Setting Power of Saturday Night Live.” Www.elon.edu, Elon University, 2014, www.elon.edu/u/academics/communications/journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/2017/06/09LeanoEJSpring14.pdf.

The article is effectively peered reviewed via two doctorates: Dr. George Padgett and Dr. Byung Lee. The article involves great value on Saturday Night Live relying on a historical perspective in order to avoid bias. It tries to study the effect that SNL has on its audience and their actions in politics. It attempts to analyzes the political power of SNL. It attempts to answer the questions: “How, and to what extent, did Saturday Night Live set the political agenda?” Even though SNL uses jokes and makes light of reality, it does have a heavy influence on the political world, especially through its political satire, by influencing the thoughts and perspectives of its viewers. The influence on people’s opinions and perceptions, termed “SNL Effect,” is expected to increase as time continues. The articles makes use of previously acquired data and research to bolster itself and attempts to include both sides of the argument to increase its reliably. The article can be made of use to double check facts on other articles that have received less review.