Persistence and Resilience: The Unyielding Drive of Comedy’s First Women

The Thematic Claim: Relentless Drive Against All Odds

In In On the Joke, Shawn Levy argues that the women who built stand‑up comedy from the 1940s onward succeeded not because of luck or privilege but because of an almost superhuman degree of persistence and resilience. Each woman entered the field without role models, faced rejection and discrimination, and often endured personal tragedy—yet they kept working. Levy writes of “oceans and oceans of persistence” in connection with Jean Carroll, and the same phrase could apply to every major figure in the book. This analysis traces that theme across three key narratives, explains how characters and symbols reinforce it, acknowledges the painful complexity of their struggles, and ends with study questions that deepen understanding.

Persistence in Three Lives

Phyllis Diller: Believing Her Way Out of Despair

Phyllis Diller’s story is a textbook case of resilience. Married to a chronically unemployed “agoraphobic sex tyrant,” she raised five children in poverty, once throwing her treasured music scrapbook into the fireplace out of hopelessness. Yet she refused to stay defeated. After discovering Claude Bristol’s The Magic of Believing, she began to envision a different life, annotating the book and pledging to “think big.” She took a job as a newspaper copywriter, then as a radio publicist, and finally, at age thirty‑seven, she quit her safe job to perform at the Purple Onion. “It was my grand affirmative gesture,” she recalled, adding that she had to “go as an unemployed comic” to force herself to succeed. That leap—backed by eighty‑nine weeks of four‑show nights—launched a fifty‑year career.

Joan Rivers: Bouncing Back from Catastrophe

Joan Rivers’ path was equally grueling. After an eight‑year grind of rejection, she finally broke through on The Tonight Show in 1965. But her resilience was tested most severely after the suicide of her husband Edgar Rosenberg in 1987 and a public fallout with Johnny Carson. Levy notes that Rivers returned to the stage “within months” of Edgar’s death, continuing to perform and reinvent herself for decades. She hosted Saturday Night Live only once, despite being one of the few women from her era still active, and she kept working well into the 1990s and beyond. Her ability to transform personal disaster into material—and to keep performing through grief—personifies the theme.

The Collective Persistence of the Pioneers

The book’s conclusion frames persistence as a collective force. Levy contrasts a 1970 Bob Hope special where women played stereotypes with a 2016 Forbes list that included only one woman (Amy Schumer) in the top ten earners. Yet the women profiled in the book—Moms Mabley, Jean Carroll, Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, and others—had already, as Levy writes, “laid out a path—rocky in some places—that future generations could follow.” Their persistence created “cracks in the glass ceiling” that later comedians like Lily Tomlin and Rita Rudner walked through. The chapter ends with a call to remember these women every time a modern female comedian makes us laugh.

Character Connections

Persistence is not an abstract trait; it is embodied by every major figure. Jackie “Moms” Mabley, born in 1897, was raped as a child, lost her father, and ran away to join a minstrel show forced to wear blackface. She developed the “Moms” persona in 1941—a wise, salty grandmother—and recorded groundbreaking comedy albums in her sixties. Jean Carroll, the first modern female stand‑up, fought gender discrimination and low pay; she retired in the mid‑1960s, decades before her contributions were recognized. Totie Fields, though less detailed in the evidence, is known for performing through health crises (she had a leg amputated and continued to tour). Each woman’s biography reinforces the idea that comedy was not a comfortable career choice but a battle fought with humor as armor.

Symbolic Expressions of Resilience

The symbols in the book directly mirror the women’s persistence. Moms Mabley’s grandmother persona allowed her to speak bluntly about race and sex under the cover of a loving elder—a resilient mask that protected her while breaking taboos. Phyllis Diller’s fang was a prop she used to bite into jokes, visually representing her aggressive, unstoppable style; it became a trademark of a woman who “bit back” against the assumption that women couldn’t be funny. Rusty Warren’s “knockers up” catchphrase reclaimed female sexuality at a time when such talk was scandalous. Minnie Pearl’s grinders switch (a comedy bit about playing a musical saw) emphasized her rural roots and ability to turn a simple prop into a signature. These symbols are not merely props; they are tools of survival that allowed these women to carve out space in a hostile industry.

Complexity and Contradiction

Despite herculean persistence, many of these women did not achieve lasting fame or financial equality. Jean Carroll—the only woman in her era to do straight stand‑up in top venues—was “largely forgotten” by the time of her death in 2010. The book’s conclusion admits that “women are still struggling… to be paid as equals of men” more than a century after Moms Mabley began. Persistence alone could not dismantle systemic sexism; it only made small dents. The contradiction is that these women’s relentless drive did not guarantee them a comfortable old age or a place in history. Some, like Joan Rivers, stayed in the public eye; others, like Jean Carroll, chose family over fame and faded. Levy does not romanticize their persistence; he shows that it was necessary but not sufficient. The legacy of their resilience, however, lies in the trail they blazed for later generations, even if the battle for equality continues.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Question: How does Phyllis Diller’s use of The Magic of Believing illustrate the theme of persistence?
   Answer: Diller treated the book’s principles—such as “thought gives rise to action”—as a practical guide. She annotated it, set specific financial and career goals, and quit her secure job to perform. This self‑programmed optimism enabled her to endure poverty and rejection and to keep working for fifty years.

2. Question: What role did personal tragedy play in Joan Rivers’ career, and how does it connect to the theme of resilience?
   Answer: After her husband Edgar’s suicide and her break with Johnny Carson, Rivers returned to the stage “within months.” She turned her personal pain into material and reinvented herself repeatedly, performing into old age. Her ability to continue after devastating loss exemplifies the book’s focus on resilience.

3. Question: Why does the conclusion argue that the pioneers’ persistence created “cracks in the glass ceiling”?
   Answer: By being the first and only women in their fields—for example, Jean Carroll as the first solo stand‑up, Moms Mabley as a crossover Black comedian—they challenged assumptions and opened doors. Even though gender inequality persisted, their work made it possible for later women like Lily Tomlin and Rita Rudner to be judged “just funny” rather than as anomalies.

4. Question: What contradiction does the book reveal about persistence and lasting fame?
   Answer: Some pioneers, like Jean Carroll, worked as hard as any man but were forgotten after retirement. Persistence did not guarantee recognition; Carroll’s contributions were only remembered by a few (e.g., Lily Tomlin). The book acknowledges that resilience alone cannot overcome systemic invisibility.

5. Question: How does the symbol of Moms Mabley’s grandmother persona reflect resilience?
   Answer: The persona—a wise, loving elder—allowed Mabley to deliver frank commentary on race and sexuality without being silenced. It was a protective layer that enabled her to persist in a segregated industry. The persona itself became a tool of resilience, helping her survive decades of racism and sexism while continuing to make audiences laugh.