I can't fully work this out tonight but I do want to note this clip and a sketch I saw on TV today.
I was searching for Plein Soleil (Purple Noon or The Talented Mr. Ripley to you, bub!) to add to my Italy collection and stumbled upon the Porter clip below. Early in the semester each year I show What Happened On 23rd Street to students to talk about a myriad of issues related to our Lab class including NYC, film-making in NYC, urban space and architecture, weather, women, clothes, the development from actualities to film narrative, and movie comedy. But I have always wanted to show this short, ever since I saw it in Antonia's city films class. Wait for it!
What Happened in the Tunnel (1903) d. Edwin S. Porter
To be unsubtle, this plants the seed of a long flowering history of racialized (female) film comedy.
I saw this fantastic-ness on The Daily Show with Wyatt Cenac (whose performance in Medicine for Melancholy I hope to get to soon) who conjures up the male comedic twin perhaps...