Feminist comedian Sarah Haskins has won a devoted internet following for her biting and uproarious commentary on American consumer society, especially marketing campaigns aimed at convincing women they need to buy the right yoghurt, cleaning products, frozen foods and contraceptives in order to be content and happy.
The Harvard-educated Haskins, 29, appears on Infomania, a satirical news programme on Current, a cable network co-founded by former vice-president and Nobel laureate Al Gore.
For the show, the Chicago native writes and stars in Target Women, a recurring feature in which she pokes fun at advertising and consumer products aimed at women.
After wiping away the laughter-induced tears, Guardian America called her up for a chat about women's progress in society, how to crack jokes on Barack Obama, advertising targeted at men and other matters.
Since the mid-20th century women have made great strides in American society, rising to the top ranks in business and government, so why do we still see media images that rely on dated gender stereotypes?
The jobs side of the equation has changed but the idea of what is femininity hasn't changed. Now, we have to be a great mom and be good at our jobs, but have to continue to be pretty and feminine and together and with it and cheerful. [But] there's generally more acceptance. Women sort of know that you don't have to be [Sex and the City character] Carrie Bradshaw. You don't have to be that. There are other options.
It's fine to be into weddings and shoes and whatever as an individual, but the reason those things are still there is now, instead of having one role specifically to fill, we have a number of roles we're expected to fill. Even as we move on and have careers and [are] more economically independent and self sufficient, there's still an underpinning of what the ideal woman is. Instead of doing a few things we have to do everything.
In Target Women: Wedding Shows, you cite a segment from one programme in which an attractive 27-year old woman struggles to shed pounds so she can fit into a wedding dress that the show's narrator acknowledges is a size too small. Why do you think the woman doesn't just buy a dress that fits, instead of trying to adjust her body?
It's sort of a terrible, intensifying feedback loop between ideas of what the perfect woman should be and how TV shows are able to both pick up on those ideas and intensify them. People want to be pretty and skinny for their wedding day, I totally get that, and look nice, and then the shows take that and intensify it to the point where she looks perfectly fine in her dress, but she thinks she has to go out and buy a size four or size two to make herself look absolutely perfect.
Some comedians have complained that Barack Obama is a poor subject for humour writers because he is so straight laced and sober-minded, compared to recent occupants of the White House. How will you do it?
Obama will be the straight man. He'll have this cast of characters around him. If I was looking for jokes about the Obama administration, I think his reactions to the normal craziness of Washington is where you're going to get the humour. He himself I don't see as someone who's going to make a lot of mistakes or gaffes. It'll be him, watching the world around him. He's at the centre of a world of eccentrics.
Target Women takes on marketing campaigns aimed at women that rely on dated stereotypes about women's values, habits and consumer preferences. Why don't you do a Target Men? I see plenty of ads directed to men in an analogous fashion.
They also play off certain gender stereotypes that obviously don't apply to every individual within their target demographic. But the difference is one of agency: For guys it's more by men, for men, as opposed to by guys, for women.
This ad for Coor's Light is really negative toward both genders: stereotypes of women depicted as these clingy creatures who can't handle it if their boyfriends go and hang out with other men, and it's guys who are willing to lie to their girlfriends to go see their friends.
You take a humorous tone, but don't you get angry at these media campaigns that, to my male ear at least, seem to talk down to the women they court?
Comedy is anger and irritation put to good use. I'm not a super angry person.