Lucille Ball was one of the Media and drama good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion
I noticed that the occupation "comedian" or "comedienne" was removed from Lucille Ball's list of occupations in both the article's lead and Infobox. While my knowledge of Lucille Ball is primarily limited to watching I Love Lucy and a few televised interviews, it is widely recognized that she was highly regarded as a comedian – almost as much as she was recognized as an actor, and definitely more than she was recognized as a studio executive or model. The Emmy Awards website describes her as an "actress, comedienne, model, film-studio executive, and producer." Other sources include:
Agreed. Immediately when I noticed, I reverted the change that you're talking about. Its removal did not even have a note and the information that was removed is confirmably accurate. Blurnk (talk) 19:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree the change in the lead was totally inappropriate based on the published literature. American Comedy Awards were officially renamed after Ball as the “Lucy” in 1989 after her death. She is the quintessential American comedian with a major comedy award named for her. Not to mention, Ball is widely recognized as the first important woman executive in the history of American television, so removing that was not ok. @FMSky There are three editors here who disagree with your changes to the lead. WP:CONSENSUS opinion is to keep the lead sentence with all three descriptions, actress, comedian, and television executive. Please do not revert this again. 4meter4 (talk) 02:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Update, I added a biographical reference that source that describes her as an "actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive." I therefore added producer as well to the lead sentence and added the book as a citation. That seemed entirely un-necessary since the WP:MOSLEAD requires we summarize the article, and a citation really shouldn't be necessary. See Damico, Amy M. (2022). "Chapter 4: Profiles; Section Lucille Ball (1911-1989)". Women in Media: A Reference Handbook. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN9798216166740..4meter4 (talk) 03:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
As an aside, of course the term "comedian" is appropriate. "Comedienne" is an outdated term and one that I personally consider somewhat pejorative since it is "othering" the genders/sexes. After all, we don't have the terms "doctor" for men and "doctorette" for women or "lawyer" & lawyerette"...Etc. - Shearonink (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Shearonink I don't find it perjorative simply because comedian and comedienne are the masculine and feminine endings of those words in French which genders nouns as a matter of grammar. Those words come to us from the French language. English doesn't really use gender in nouns the way Romance languages do as a matter of grammar, so we tend to notice it more and read into it something that wasn't intended from the language that we borrowed it from. That said, comedian works just fine for me. On a side note, there are two very offensive old words "doctoress" and "lawyeress" which were in wide use for the rare women lawyers and doctors practicing in the English speaking world during the 19th century into the early 20th century. Those do come from the English language and are derogatory.4meter4 (talk) 21:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree that the term "comedienne" is outdated and should be avoided whenever possible. In the topic heading, I used the term just to provide context, as she was initially referred to as a "comedienne" in the lead at some point, and "comedienne" is most likely how the media, press, and public would have described her during the peak of her career. However, "comedian" is a more appropriate. Changedforbetter (talk) 12:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)Reply