Spanning several decades and a slew of networks, the figures behind the wooden desks of late night television have touted raspy voices and well-kempt, combed-over hair while detailing the latest in news and popular culture for the masses. It was a silhouette solidified in American media facets—the informed, polished American man—but with her beehive hair and string of pearls, Joan Rivers became the first woman to break into the boy’s club of late night with just as much crass and intrigue as the rest.
In 1965, when Rivers first appeared on ‘The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson’, the American ideology of television front liners hardly included the female voice, let alone her opinion and individualism. In contemporary sociology, the term ‘ideology’ encompasses the images and standards to which individuals and groups make sense of what they encounter in a culture. What this indicated for Joan Rivers and her unabashed one-liners was that the American audience was left to re-think the ideology of the worthy faces of television, as Rivers would soon chalk 80 guest-hosting gigs next to the man she deemed her mentor, Johnny Carson, on ‘The Tonight Show’.
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| Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson during Rivers' second appearance on 'The Tonight Show' in the '60s. Wenn Photos/ Newscom |
"Johnny was the one person who said, 'Yes, she has talent; yes, she is funny.' He was the first person in power who respected what I was doing and realized what I could become,” Rivers said in an interview with People Magazine in 1991. What is important to note about the mentor-mentee relationship of Carsons’ and Rivers’ is not that this man and woman duo made late night television a laugh-loaded and honest viewing experience, but that Carson—the power holder for the show—had welcomed the change.
With a considerably modest beginning, the dirty dialogues from Rivers lent greatly to the ideology of able and quick-witted women. Rivers stunned Carson and the masses with innumerable insults and star-studded slurs in order to ultimately stir the ideology of hegemony in America.
Hegemony, which works to frame and promote the identities, values and normative actions of a culture’s power holders, is in itself an exclusive concept. Exclusivity, however, was not a deterrent for Joan Rivers and her pathway for a career in comedy. Rather, exclusivity of women was an opportunity she felt was befitting of her talent.
Now, the archetypal male in media and the hegemonic role in which he fits remains challenged by today’s femme forerunners. But if not for Rivers’ pioneering footsteps and cheeky choice for words, the non-gendered silhouette of media platforms today may not have transitioned into the state it has, though there are plenty more screens befitting of the modern maven—’60s bouffant not required.
Watch Joan Rivers on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, 1986
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Thank you for sharing this article with me. As the writer states, Rivers' created many identities for herself in the public eye. And in the name of defying modern hegemonic patterns in society, I think it is perhaps more crass than the jokes of Joan herself that her stance as a maven should be questioned or criticized at all. We should not feign confusion over her capability as a comedian, a humanitarian, a businesswoman or a commentator on current events whether they were political or international. Rather, paying homage to Joan Rivers should take an alternate form where we not only recognize, but appreciate the many hats--quite literally-- she was able to wear in the public. even after her ban from The Tonight Show and the divide that was made between Joan and Johnny Carson, she left with a following of viewers, readers, and live audiences. This speaks greatly to the fact that Rivers was a pioneer in the ideology of media faces in the 1980's, because she was a woman capable of creating an event that the public deemed worthy of consuming for decades. From 1960 to 2014, Joan re-invented herself time and time again. In the conceptual map that is entertainment, Joan painted her own, rhinestone-rimmed sign to indicate that innovation and male-dominated media was not the only method that America willed for. So it would seem that her many platforms and roles in our media rolodex are not confusing, nor are they forgotten like this article offers. Instead, they have opened the gate for continual revision of the media conceptual map because she was bitter and bold enough to throw hegemony into a whirlwind for decades on end.
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