why women aren't funny...

[nadine]

well, the feminist blogs are all over this one.

article from vanity fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... ntPage=all

it's fascinating.. is it me, or has there been a lot of articles lately in the pop media trying to figure out women and comedy? this vanity fair article says that "funny" is to men like "pretty" is to woman.

apparently good female comedians are either "hefty or dykey or Jewish".

[Aden]

Woot woot! Go Jews!

[kbadr]

"Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about."

They apparently neglected to interview me when they polled the "whole male world" coz that is pure shit.

Ah...this explains it

"Also, humor is largely aggressive and pre-emptive, and what's more male than that?"

And that, my friends, is why we've got a long road ahead of us if we want to make improv accepted and understood. So sad.

[Jules]

We've got the whole male world at our mercy? Try telling that to the women of the Sudan.
People are funny. All of us. If we weren't we wouldn't have comedy, improv, standup or sex faces. Sex is funny. Poo is funny. And intellect is also funny.

and this?

"And as the little ones burgeon and thrive, do you find that their mothers enjoy jests at their expense? I thought not."

I do. But perhaps at this point I'm the un-mother. God, Hitchens come to my house and have a goddam drink with me.

[acrouch]

Women might not be funny, but that guy is a shitty, self-indulgent writer, which caused me to bail on the article/editiorial/provocation half-way through. I'm betting I'm not missing much.

[arthursimone]

Christopher Hitchens has always been something of a creature, and it's sad to see him spiral into the world of anecdote-supported theory that currently only has enough room for Andy Rooney


but I will say:

Men are the pretty ones. It's our hard-wired biological salvation. Anyone who thinks the other way around is absolutely deluded. Look at pretty, powerful male lions. Look at the absurd plumage of a peacock. Look at the blue bower bird who goes to great lengths to build a beautiful nest to attract a mate. Look at the male hairless monkey known as human, who spends all his time trying to be special enough to attract his lady...

he spends so much time showing off, obsessing about being a potential provider, being the strongest of the tribe, building the biggest bomb, pulling trains on ESPN2. In addition, he compensates for the baby monkey's undeniable need for its mother by making silly faces because he wants to be immediately wanted in a way that's different from being abstractly needed.

That being said, women's liberation in western culture has definitely changed the landscape, and has opened the door for female comedians and artists (that we most definitely haven't seen in Sudan yet.) Here and in the industrialized world, single women, single moms can do it on their own, they don't have to accept-or-reject every show of power and prettyness that men feel compelled to show off...

I think the more people become empowered, the more they can appreciate the absurdity of it all and laugh at the biological imperatives and insecurities that still cling to us like lint. In our culture, in this century, men aren't any less or more funny than they've always been, I just think women have the privilege of being more.

[shando]

God, Hitchens come to my house and have a goddam drink with me.

Be careful what you wish for. Dude can put 'em away.

[Jules]

I feel certain Hitchens wasn't concerned in the least with the development of humor in the non-western world in his earlier statement, it just struck me as such a false thing to say on so many levels.

His remark about mothers being unfunny also pissed me off. I hate, hate, hate the opinion that parenthood (especially maternal) automatically means you've entered a boring world where fun and humor and artistic striving doesn't exist, that one's children are the TOTAL universe and its all about sanitizing everything and working to buy more stuff and that to deviate from that means you've done something.....not quite right.
I've met a lot of parents (more moms than dads) who have totally bought into that and they are dying inside. Its horrifying. And they wind up not being very funny.

Of course, you have to pay the bills and all. It just takes a little more work and creativity to keep living and doing the things you love. And you love your kids and try to teach them to live well and strive for creativity too. You protect them, I think, by being funny, by not giving up.

I rant, therefore I am.

Anyway, it was an article designed to poke and provoke. There you go. Awesome job, Andrew. I decline my earlier drink invitation.

[Jules]

"Also, humor is largely aggressive and pre-emptive, and what's more male than that?"

And that, my friends, is why we've got a long road ahead of us if we want to make improv accepted and understood. So sad.

and agreed! Yes anding, supporting other players, group mind? That's just wrong!

[York99]

Amen, Brother. Hey Bob, is there a way that I can turn off all female posts on this forum... like make them invisible on my computer?... a burka program or something?

I feel liberated.

[deroosisonfire]

most of the 4 years i did college improv i was the only female in the group and i have thought about this a lot.

i used to believe that women are less funny then men. i do still believe that fewer women than man are funny. i also still believe that comedy is not equally accessible to both sexes - there are jokes and characters that i will never be able to pull off because of my gender. never say never, blah blah, but it is hard hard hard to play a scene in which it is funny (for the audience!) to see a man punch a woman in the face.

Men are the pretty ones. It's our hard-wired biological salvation. Anyone who thinks the other way around is absolutely deluded.

yes! it is a by-product of how we define male and female - males have the smaller, motile gametes and females have the large, immobile gametes. it takes much less energy to make a sperm than to make an egg, so already at the moment of conception the female has put more energy into the offspring than the male has. this is an inescapable fact. and it leads to females being choosier, and males having to work to impress females. so we get blue bowers and peacock tails and moonwalk-like dances from birds of paradise. the classic biological paradigm is female as observer and judge with no need to prove her worth.

i believe that people are funny for a reason. they learn to be funny to be liked, to be picked on less, etc. for guys funny is an easy road to acceptance. for women there is make-up and eating disorders. for reals. funny ladies are a rare breed. rare and awesome.

[kbadr]

and it leads to females being choosier, and males having to work to impress females. so we get blue bowers and peacock tails and moonwalk-like dances from birds of paradise. the classic biological paradigm is female as observer and judge with no need to prove her worth.

Is this true culturally, though? For years, men possessed everything. Money, land, power. And they could, and would, cheat on their wives...because they could. And women were expected to just accept it, and for a long time they did.

I don't think "looking pretty" should be confused with traits that are used to attract a mate. In fact, I would argue that men have historically relied on their power and wealth to attract a female, and their looks weren't valued nearly as much. On the other hand, since women were barely encouraged to read or become intelligent, they had little more than their looks to attract the power-hungry males.

Also, there are all those studies that claim that men are more visual than women, which means they will respond to physical beauty more than the woman.

[Jules]

Rare and awesome, yes indeed.

I tend to wonder if there are fewer funny women than men because humor isn't always "appropriate" and girls are often taught from a young age to be nice, to be good, to be appropriate, so maybe its harder to learn to let that go and let the funny fly. Women who are outsiders, who are openly sexual, brash and unafraid are not often considered well behaved or easily controlled. In our culture anyway, though that is changing little by little.

I agree we learn to be funny for a reason. Humor can deflect conflict and diffuse tension. It can bond people over unreasonable circumstances. Of course it can also mask aggression and pain. It can be a coping mech.
And it feels good to laugh, brings in oxygen and endorphins so it makes sense we'd all partake in in to some extent.

[kbadr]

I think that the article, as shitty as it is, makes a good point.

For a long time humor, and being funny, is seen as a way of lowering someone else and elevating yourself. In childhood, it's often associated with being mean.

I'd like to make some statement regarding women being 'nicer' and more compassionate, but then I remembered that girls are pure evil to each other in middle school and high school. Maybe they move beyond humor and onto the juicy shit that can do actual serious psychological damage.

Meh, this had no point.

[nadine]

I tend to wonder if there are fewer funny women than men because humor isn't always "appropriate" and girls are often taught from a young age to be nice, to be good, to be appropriate, so maybe its harder to learn to let that go and let the funny fly.

Yes, I tend to be skeptical of biological based differences to explain things like humor and intelligence. Or the almost accepted theory that men are better then woman in spatial geometry. There's a study of three young girls, who's father loved playing chess with them ever since they were young. Their brains developed differently, and two of them are world grand masters... this in a field where Gerry Kasporov said "women by nature are not exceptional chess players." Ah.. the Polgar sisters.. their father wanted to experiment on their growth, because he believed geniuses were trained, not born: http://www.answers.com/topic/judit-polg-r

ps: Judith Polgar even defeated Kasparov in a rapid chess game.

Here's a longer version of the article, but definitely worth reading for people interested in gender studies, and on how to raise geniuses...
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... 00002.html

If young girls play with legos and chess, and are taught to be outspoken, and vy for popularity the same way men are.. they may be more like "boys". I think the "passive" part play a huge role on how women aren't funnier. I know for me, improv has helped me speak out more, have more confident inserting silly comments ...

I was definitely a stereotypical passive, quiet asian girl growing up. It took me years to become the outspoken bitchy female that I am now.