I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but:
When idiots like Adam Carolla or Christopher Hitchens say “women aren’t funny,” they say it as if they’re ending an argument. They’re speaking from the mountaintop. In reality, they’re starting an argument, not ending one, because nobody thought women weren’t funny until idiots started saying it. People laughed at women for thousands of years – probably the entirety of human history – and thought nothing of it.
And the problem with the argument that these idiots are trying to start is that it fails to meet the basic criteria for an argument. It avoids, with the blithe ignorance of Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff, the glaring empirical evidence against it. If women aren’t funny, then why is it I find female stand-ups hilarious? What, am I laughing at their tits?
Unspoken in the assertion of these idiots is the idea that Kristen Wiig and Roseanne Barr and the like owe their jobs not to their merits but to, y’know, feminism. That some exec gave them a job, and some writer invited them to a brainstorming session, and tens of thousands of people watch them every week, because of a quota. And that argument has just enough merit to be engaged in any other venue. People assert, for instance, that liberal males are only into feminism because it helps them score with women. If you live in Brooklyn, San Francisco or Boston, that certainly seems plausible.
But nobody laughs as a posture. Not a gut-busting, eye-watering, copy it, paste it, put it in a GIF, repeat it to your friends at work the next day, helpless laugh. Nobody fakes that. I’m sure that, if you’re an embittered male who feels threatened by women, you believe that there’s a conspiracy working to promote women beyond what they deserve (as opposed to the meritocracy that held true for the last ten thousand years). But to believe that this conspiracy filters down to the biological level – that fellow-traveler males are not just saying women are funny, but actually laughing at their jokes, as a front – is deranged.
If it were so obvious that women weren’t funny, no one would have to assert it. It’s never a mystery whether someone is funny or not. But there’s a breed of idiot who thinks asserting ideas that fifteen minutes in a comedy club could contradict is bold. Or edgy. They stand athwart history, yelling “Tits.” We can comfort ourselves that, if the decline from Vanity Fair to the New York Post is any indication, they’re getting crappier platforms.
(P.S. Sorry this post isn’t very funny; I’m leaving that for the ladies)
|
Phanatic |
“Unspoken in the assertion of these idiots is the idea that Kristen Wiig”
Sorry, you lost me there. Kristen Wiig isn’t funny. They gave her a huge sendoff on SNL, but can you point to a single thing she did in her tenure at that show that is even remotely as funny as just about anything Chris Farley did, or Eddie Murphy did, or Andy Samberg did? I can’t. “Schlitz Gay,” Matt Foley, and the Chippendales audition are still fucking hilarious, and Wiig does a movie that’s marketed as “The female _Hangover_” but which almost completely fails to deliver on something that was a pretty crucial part of _The Hangover_: being funny.
I dunno, maybe the writers just kept giving her unfunny shit to do, and I’m not saying “women aren’t funny.” But Kristen Wiig isn’t.
Perich |
Yeah. Her Gloria Swanson impressions. Her Bjork impressions. Her weird-hands musical sister character. And I laughed embarassingly loud at Bridesmaids.
(I wouldn’t compare her to Chris Farley, but how many SNL performers, male or female, hit that bar?)
But “I don’t find Kristen Wiig funny” is a perfectly reasonable opinion. Hell, it’s pretty common!
Joel |
But nobody laughs as a posture.
Of course they do! A huge amount of “humor” is thinly-veiled, not-particularly-funny ideology. Laughing at it is a way of signaling affiliation. Think of not-particularly-clever Sarah Palin imitations, or lame Obama-is-from-Kenya jokes.
Now, I’m sure that the relevant people actually find these things funny, so perhaps they’re not really laughing as a posture; rather they’re finding things funny as a posture. Most people will never laugh at even the most genius cripple-rape joke, because cripple-rape is one of those things that’s not allowed to be funny, even when it really is.
Jewish people are “allowed” to find really offensive Jewish jokes funny, while non-Jewish people are not. And so on.
If it were so obvious that women weren’t funny, no one would have to assert it.
Isn’t this the same argument as “If it were so obvious that the emperor weren’t wearing clothes, no one would have to assert it.”?
–
All that said, I find some women funny and some women not so funny. I also find both Adam Carolla and Christopher Hitchens very funny. (I don’t know who Kristen Wiig is, but if she’s affiliated with SNL my bias is that she’s probably not very funny.) But I think your arguments here are pretty wrong-headed.
Perich |
1) The fact that you draw a distinction between humor you’re “allowed” to find funny and humor that you actually find funny (e.g., cripple-rape jokes) suggests to me that you believe, as I do, that what’s funny is reflexive and irrepressible, not a posture. I’m not particularly interested in chasing this further, as this isn’t the argument that either Carolla or I were making, but this non sequitur is more non than usual.
2) The “emperor has no clothes” analogy isn’t analogous.
3) “I find some women funny and some women not so funny.” Excellent! Then you agree with me and disagree with Carolla.
laural |
Hitchens does say that women aren’t humorless. He’s explaining why there are fewer of them, not that there are none. But I’m not even going glance at the other, as I havd read the CH article before and figured you were defaming him. I will concede that there’s no way of knowing which is a larger factor in not giving us more female comics/comic actresses. I’m seeing a lot more on BBC tv, though. Like, twice, which is still not many… pardon the typos, mobile phone.