Word: maleness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...then, does the Pudding year after year remain all-male? Three arguments have been consistently put forward: for the sake of tradition, because its success depends upon this and because integration would cause alumni to withdraw financial support...
...mark as important the fact that the Man of the Year Award, although 16 years its junior, now outshines the Woman of the Year Award, and has been incorporated into opening night. Though the Pudding has lost (perhaps) its focus on promoting High Society, it still celebrates the male, and specifically the straight white male...
Defenders of the Pudding frequently make the mistake of claiming an audience finds males in drag funny, but not females in drag. The humor arises from the supposed "lowering" of the male and from a ritualized disgust with male-male love. Examples of these prejudices abound in recent scripts, as do examples of racial prejudice, unshakably welded to sexist and homophobic discourse...
...current format of the Pudding, celebrated as "traditional" and linked erroneously to a 150 year history, was actually only solidified in the mid-1970s at a time when all-male Harvard felt threatened by an influx of lower class and non-white students and was beginning a reluctant merger with Radcliffe. The current form was one of protest, in which cross-casting moved from a reluctant necessity to the central tenant...
Which brings us to the argument that the show's success is somehow dependent on all-male casting. Believing instead that the show's attractiveness is based largely on the polished talent displayed, I suggest that its humor arises chiefly from six elements: transvestism, sight gags, word play, non sequitors, wit and sexual humor...