Garrison Keillor (who some think of as funny) once said to George Plimpton (who thought of himself as funny) "humor is the only literary genre labeled by the effect it is supposed to have on people." Well, humor and horror and bedtime stories and morality plays and sermons… But it's true that successful comedy is easy to measure: Does it get laughs? So here's my overall point: When we say that there aren't as many successful women stand-ups, we really have to blame the audience for a lot of that. Because once a woman chooses to be funny, I'm convinced she's just as likely to craft a potentially humorous line as a man is.
And it's amazing to me how many people still say there are no good female comedians. Looking around for comments on YouTube videos, I found some gems. The dumbest voices are obvious: "point proven, women are not funny." No argument necessary apparently. Whatever this guy thinks, is the way it is. And on the same video, the voice of reason could only muster such damning praise as "shes ok… good for a women." Nice compliment… for a children.
On another video we find a charming defense of the female comic: "I'd hit it....." The more temperate voice tones it down a bit: "sexy dress, nice figure... milf...." and just barely over the line of patronizing: "…so cute -- and funny". Some people just insist on thinking that the nicest thing you can tell a woman is that she's cute as a fuckable button.
You even hear arguments trying to explain why women just can't be funny. And it's from otherwise thoughtful and logically meticulous people.
Christopher Hitchens wrote an essay a few years ago for Vanity Fair, defending something close to this view. To be fair to his point, he does not say that women can't be funny. He doesn't say no women are funny. And, as I read it, he focuses a bit on what people think is funny once they hear it, not just on what comes out of her mouth funny (which, frankly, requires really strong abs.)
But I don't buy his early claim about how guys talk about girls:
There is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: "She's a real honey, has a life of her own … [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] … and, man, does she ever make 'em laugh."
First, women really don't say "and, girl, does he ever make 'em laugh" either. And his broader point, that guys don't notice or comment on a girl's sense of humor, isn't convincing. But I accept his argument to a point: society has different expectations of behavior for men and women. And the role of humor is shaped by those expectations. And Hitchens is a smart guy, so when he asks "Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women?" I'm willing to assume that he recognizes that being funny is largely determined by being thought of as funny. And also choosing to be funny. And that's a fair observation: In my experience, in a room full of people, the one trying to get laughs is typically a guy, and the one trying to steal his spotlight is another guy.
But Hitchens really steps in it when he looks to the data to make a point about women's neural ability to process, recognize, or create humor actually being handicapped. Summarizing (sloppily) the findings of a Stanford study, he writes:
Slower to get it, more pleased when they do, and swift to locate the unfunny—for this we need the Stanford University School of Medicine? And remember, this is women when confronted with humor. Is it any wonder that they are backward in generating it?
These studies can often be summed up in a really boring way that proves very little about men and women being hardwired differently. Findings about what parts of the brain light up and how much "brain activity" is measured often conclude, admitting that we really have no idea what "brain activity" translates into, or why different areas of the brain make any difference. But Hitchens thinks he knows enough to call women humor-retards.
First, we can throw out his ridiculous claim that "There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians." Seriously? Has he been to a comedy club? An open-mic night? Has he watched Premium Blend? On a typical night you'll see more awful male comedians than the total number of female comedians.
But let's not resort to an easy retort that we think will obviously take down Hitchens' "nature" argument: 'Look at all the funny women out there!' To such a bit of evidence thrown at him, that some women are good at a specific type of humor, he writes that they are "so rare... the surprise is that it is done at all." No matter how many hilarious women we mention, in order to defend his point, all Hitchens has to say, is there are still more men.
The point can't be that counting the numbers on each side proves something about natural ability. And even tho I lean towards sociological influences, some of those arguments fall apart too easily. Such as the following point made by Alessandra Stanley for her own Vanity Fair piece, written partly in response to Hitchens.
Comedians have to dominate their audiences and “kill,” by common metaphor. …
Women either had to compete—head-on, in the aggressive style of Paula Poundstone or Lisa Lampanelli—or subvert the form and make themselves offbeat and likable….
Paula Poundstone is aggressive? Have you seen her cat video? I'm pretty sure the panels on Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! are equal parts estrogen, and suede elbow patches.
But on this silly point, Hitchens and Stanley seem to agree. He writes
There are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.
"Most of them" is such a useless group when you divide it into three non-opposing subgroups. So women comics have to choose a character but men comics don't? Women are either "aggressive" or "likable" while men are just funny guys being normal? The way guys naturally are?
Yeah, comedy can be aggressive. But is Steven Wright dominating his audience? Did Woody Allen grab his audience by the balls? Did you see that set where Emo Philips ripped his audience a new one? Jimmy Carr is a madman! Or maybe they too, had to "subvert the form" to compete. How about this: Every comedian has to choose a style and earn an audience. Not just the women. The men do too. And it doesn't just come naturally to the men. I'll grant that for social reasons fewer women choose to do stand-up. But once they make that choice, both sexes range from caricatured to more natural delivery. Both men and women have to choose how they'll perform.
The foundation of this stereotype about women comics being worse than men comics, is the assumption that every guy who takes the stage is pretty good. I looked at a list of more than 200 comedians with Comedy Central half-hour specials. About 12% of them were women. So think about the last 30 comedians you saw perform. Let's say 8 of them were women. That's a generous number of around 25%. And how many of those 30 comedians were any good? Let's say one third. That gives us 10 decent comedians. And if the proportion is the same between men and women, that means that only 2⅔ of the women are any good.
Out of 30 comedians, it's inflating the numbers to say that 3 of them are likely to be women who don't suck. Going with these numbers that favor the women, out the last 100 comedians you've seen, women are doing better than men if 9 of them are decent.
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