Actually, I was hoping you guys could tell ME. I realized today that I can’t name a single woman magician. Which is a little odd, because women are well-represented in pretty much every other performing art. I’m sure there ARE female illusionists, but for whatever reason, none of them has ever become famous.
So I ask you, what is it about magic that makes it such an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession? Is it that women don’t wear top hats? Perhaps audiences aren’t comfortable with girls bossing around cute male assistants and volunteers? Or is it repressed cultural memories of the Salem Witch Trials?
My theory is that the ceiling is not merely glass, but invisible glass.
Shot in the dark, but is it maybe because the modern magic tradition comes mostly out of vaudeville, and that gender roles in vaudeville were pretty rigid?
Because I also can’t think of history’s greatest female slapstick comic (although Lucille Ball comes to mind as a contender), or a male stripper with the same kind of cultural capital as Gypsy Rose Lee.
Mind you, there’s plenty of female standup comics, and that tradition is just as vaudvillian as the others I mentioned. So I dunno.
If you google “female magician,” one of the hits is a Japanese woman who performs under the name Princess Tenko, who was a pretty big deal in the 1990s, and maybe still is in stage-magic circles.
I suspect it has something to do with the hierarchy of performing arts, as described by Family Guy:
“Legitimate theatre, musical theatre, stand-up, ventriloquism, magic, mime.”
Womens, with their baybeez and crippling perfectionism, aren’t going to waste their time trying to be good at professions that are neither lucrative nor celebrated. Why else would there be more and more women as you move up the hierarchy?
Or maybe it’s just ’cause nobody expects a female stage magician?
This is an excellent question and now that you’ve brought it up I have the sudden urge to run out and attempt to become a great illusionist just to fill the void. (Which, appropriately enough, sounds a bit like the name of a magic trick.)
I think your point about vaudeville is well made but I do believe that it took one great comedienne, namely Carol Burnett, to sort of break the ice and make way for other female comedians. So perhaps the issue is simply that there has not been a dynamic female who had an interest and talent for magic to make it happen in recent history. I certainly do not think audiences would be opposed to the idea. Maybe it is just a matter of one of us picking it up and running with it.
http://www.chroniquesduweb.com/2006/08/04/magicienne-nue/
How about this one:
http://www.conceptmagic.biz/performers/ning.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAFWMmNFSrQ
I listed my YouTube channel page as my homepage because it most likely is the closest I’ll get to actually having my own website. The reason why I did so is to invite you to browse through what I believe to be the largest collection of videos of females performing magic tricks. Right now I have well over 6,300 female magician videos. I invite you, Matthew, and anyone else who is interested in female magicians, to come by and take a look.
Thank you,
George Waldman
[email protected]
I am not sure there will ever be an answer to this question be it male or female. This is because what make one “Great’ or the “Greatest’ is a matter of opinion to the viewer.
Hugs and Hissessss,
Maria
Hy guys……jsut wanna say…..i would love to see more girls doing magic……
my favourite female magician is Angela Funovits….shes hot,shes on a high level……perfect;-)
maybe it´s……meeeee
the greatest female magician is Chris angel …. see the trick is to make you think he’s a guy , but in fact she was born Christina Sarantakos in 1967 …
Zatanna Zatara
Pioneer magician Dorothy Dietrich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dietrich