Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.
–Tina Fey, BossypantsWhen a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch.
–Bette DavisWhy are women so humorless?
–random unfunny men
The other day, I watched a documentary about women in comedy, and why women are not considered as funny as men.
They started with Jerry Lewis, who is infamous for finding women unamusing. They also talked a little about Christipher Hitchens’s Vogue article about women and humor.
He talks about the “fact” that women don’t need to be funny because it isn’t important to men but that women do think it is important. He also says that men like to make women laugh because it’s a little like an orgasm.
He takes it as a given that women are not as funny as men, or rather that women are less frequently funny than men. Moreover, he claims that the few funny women out there are funny because they are lesbians (ie like men, they need to be funny because women think it’s hot),because they are Jewish and inherently like men (uh, what?) or because they are big/fat/crude like men.
Or then there’s the hypothesis that men don’t want women to be funny because humor is a sign of intelligence and they don’t want rivals for that. Which doesn’t say a lot for either their own intelligence or self-confidence if it’s true.
It’s not really even worth a rebuttal. Yes, there are a lot of women who are not funny. A lot of men, too. Of course, men’s opinions about that, like everything else, were the only ones that counted for several centuries.
The saddest thing about that is that people, including women,believe what they read in books, newspapers. What they see on TV or films. For too many years, those voices have been disproportionately male. So even a lot of women believe that female comedians are not as funny as the men are.
There is not a thing wrong with men or their opinions, but when only their voices are heard it gives all of us a distorted view of everything. We need everyone’s perspective.
From my own anecdotal and entirely unscientific point of view, I would say that the women I know are every bit as funny as the men. Of course, according to Hitchens, I am pre-programmed to find that attractive. It might indicate that I am a bisexual who sees that sexy humor in everyone regardless of their gender.
I like boobs. I am fat and have been known to be crude. Does that mean I am qualified to be funny? Should I consider a part-time career in comedy? Probably not, since I was honestly not sure when I first read the article if Hitchens was being humorous. I kind of want to Google around even now and see if other people think he is.
Is that a sign that he isn’t funny or that I don’t have a sense of humor?
Comedy is tough.
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