So, I was thinking about comedy while listening to the latest Bill Burr podcast and, like many times before, I wondered why it is that female comedians don’t really cut it in the same way as men. This is stand-up I mainly refer to, because there is an exception or two in the wider world of comedy.
I don’t have the time to go into this to any great degree, but I think it comes down to the same thing that it always comes down to when looking at the relative abilities and achievements of men vs women: it comes down to the element of risk.
As part of some new work, I recently interviewed the headmaster of a boys-only school in London. I was interested in how he might outline the differences between boys and girls and how best to educate them. In other words, what made boys tick? He confirmed what I already knew and added some new perspectives. It isn’t the Handmaid’s Tale; it isn’t getting in touch with their emotions, it isn’t empathising with the supposed plight of women down the ages.
Boys like risk. They like action. They like competition. And they like to win.
As we all know, to pursue victory, you risk defeat and defeat is typically more likely than success. But this has no impact, in the main, on boys willingness to risk failure. The rewards for success are often intangible and sometimes even seemingly pointless, but they matter all the same.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve raced my young son to the front door of our house for no reason whatsoever. I’ve also lost count of the number of times he’s ‘won’. It’s important to me that he wins and enjoys winning, just as it was important for me growing up. Nobody instructed me to do this sort of thing with him, it’s just that I know, like every man knows, that winning and losing is an essential part of boyhood and manhood. I also think that winning is a habit and I want him to develop that habit.
The issue then becomes, of course, how we define ‘winning’ when it gets a little more complicated than getting home first. That’s the real challenge of fatherhood, I suppose, particularly with a son and particularly under Feminist governance.
Why ain’t she funny?
Anyway, as I’ve wondered for a long time, why do I not find female stand-up comedians funny?
Some years back, long before I had any explicitly defined concepts of men and women as I do now, I found it pretty uncomfortable to watch female comedians do their thing on stage. There was something forced and ill-fitting and simply unfunny about the women I saw trying to make the audience laugh. I could detect it in the audiences too. They wanted to laugh, they were there to laugh; they’d paid good money to get some laughs. And yet, here were these women in the trade as stand-up comedians, but who were not really able to do the business.
In the time I’m talking about, there were only a few female comedians like Jo Brand, Sandra Bernhard and Joan Rivers. There were also some others, but I can’t remember their names and neither, I suspect, can you.
In the comedy of these women, men were very much the target of comedic abuse. It was all they had and they went with it even when it wasn’t funny; a sort of snatching, abrasive desperation. Back then, I thought the same thing I think now, although I didn’t have the advantage then of the framework of male psychology I’ve developed now. What it was then, as it is now, is that female comedians do not generally take risks.
What we look for in comedy is a line and edge and direction that may not work, but the guy puts his heart and soul into the attempt. It works or it doesn’t. You love him and you buy his DVD, or else you forget his name as soon as he walks off stage.
These men put themselves in the firing line. He’s saying: “this is me, take it or leave it”. Women don’t like to put themselves in a win or lose situation like that and they don’t like to put themselves in the fierce light of scrutiny. That’s why they wear make-up and push-up bra’s and high heels; she wants to maximise the field of those who will accept her. The idea of being rejected for who she is anathema to her. She expects and needs to be accepted on her terms and comedy doesn’t much allow for that.
Women don’t like these consequences and they definitely don’t like the odds. Further, women don’t like to be laughed at and you need to be impervious to that before ever stepping foot on the comedy stage. Perhaps more importantly, we don’t like to laugh at women, but we are very comfortable laughing at men. Add to this the sheer amount of work one needs to put into a comedy career just to put beans on the plate, never mind the few that eat caviar, and it becomes clear why so few women enter comedy at all, why so few end up staying and why so very few could genuinely be called funny.
Let’s be honest; in our world, women don’t have to work that hard. They don’t need to take risks in order to achieve; in order to attract a mate; in order to procreate (and practice it frequently) etc etc. After all, no woman is selected by a man because of her achievements in her chosen career. Life is quite short , particularly if you’re a man, and people tend to go with what works to get along or to get ahead.
For women, that means concentrating on herself to make herself attractive. Climbing the slippery career ladder does not add to her attractiveness . For men, achieving means concentrating on doing something outside of himself to accomplish the same goal.
As I’ve said before, men are human doings first, and human beings a distant second. In contrast, women are not human doings at all. They are what they are and what they are is everything. They don’t want to be success objects and men wouldn’t care if they were. This is so well established now, it’s almost becoming old hat.
There can be only one
In my experience, I can only point to one female comedian who I think is genuinely worthy of the description. There are many nearly-funny women, but only one who I categorise in my mind simply as a comedian, the same way I class Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Bill Burr, Ricky Gervais, Russell Peters, Dave Chappelle, Doug Stanhope, etc.
She’s Catherine Tate and as far as I know, she is specifically a character and sketch artist and is not a stand up comedian. That means she is automatically in the second tier of comedic achievement, as far as I’m concerned (at least in the recent era of comedy, who can say about the old time greats whom we only know from the character-based comedy?).
Catherine Tate, excellent comedienne.
Nevertheless, this woman is simply funny and she is a very good comedian (I’m speaking specifically about The Catherine Tate Show, I’m not familiar with her other work). When I think of why that is, it comes back to risk and what she is willing to do to get laughs. She is not precious, she does not aim for the female market only, she has no fear, she does not take herself too seriously and she succeeds as a result. This is behaviour only rarely demonstrated by women; they do not need to go there and very rarely make it if they try.
It could be that she has a male-patterned brain (See Simon Baron-Cohen), but this might be a bit misleading. A good comedian isn’t funny because he’s male, he’s funny because of what it means to be male. I’m not sure if male-brain patterning would go far enough because her experiences in life are still those of a woman. So, we’ll just call it great talent and leave it there.
I also have to say that I recently watched a film called Bridesmaids (research material, honest) which has elements of self-abasement humour that suggests that more women can achieve real comedy at last, at least when it’s written for the screen. The scene where the bride-to-be ends up taking a dump in the middle of a busy road in a wedding dress is hilarious and is simply not how women generally behave in order to get laughs. This is traditional male comedy being successfully delivered by women. Rare, but perhaps on the increase.
To sum up, men succeed in comedy because the nature of men makes it possible. Women generally don’t succeed in comedy because they are not accustomed to risk and simply don’t have the trial-by-fire experiences of being a man to forge any comedic potential.
Let a woman walk a mile in his shoes, or maybe 3000 miles to represent his life, and then maybe she’ll be funny. But typically? To borrow from the mindset of all too many women: stand-up comedy needs a woman like a fish needs a bicycle.
“I could detect it in the audiences too. They wanted to laugh”
I have had the same feeling by watching the crowd of female comedians. You can clearly see that they are putting a strong effort to laugh at the fem-comedian jokes.
Especially the female crowd gets almost hysterical when laughing, as if it is some sort of “empowering” trip in which they “as women” feel their self-esteem growing by pretending that the fem-comedian is funny.
ps. are you going to cover the latest man-hating video by Katie Perry ? That crapola in which she pretend to be a “woman soldier” ?
No plans re Perry. Don’t even know what she looks like and never seen her stuff.
Wanda Sykes – the only woman who’s mastered stand up.
Controversial – yep
Self depreciating – yep
Don’t give a shit what you think character – yep
Downright funny – yep
Catherine Tate? Useless.
lol. To each his own.
Haven’t heard of Wanda, but I’ve no doubt that I’ve missed some worthy women.
Even then Wanda is a lesbian and pretty much plays by male comedy rules.
I enjoyed ” Smack the pony”. Perhaps it’s that American women in particular are not funny. All that prickly defensiveness.
thats so true.
not just american women btw, over here in northern europe it is maybe even worse.
Hi MWM,
Another insightful post as usual. I was an aspiring comic in San Francisco in the 80s and found what you say to be predominantly true. The feeling I came away from watching most female stand ups was “Why are you here?”
Some would just ape the male attitudes, which of course was ridiculous, others seemed to see the whole thing as an excuse to doll up and talk about themselves.
When you spend most of your waking hours thinking about comedy, you do come up with a philosophy of what good humor is, and I’d like to share with you what I think is important in standup and why so few women seem to achieve it.
I agree with you that women seem unable to share their take on life and just accept the consequences, as this is for the most part a masculine trait, but I don’t believe that it is because they want to be liked. But maybe I am just more cynical than you are.
The most successful comics in my book had a few traits in common. Beyond the obvious (being funny and original) pretty much every comedian that I admired had the quality of giving voice to uncomfortable truths. And this is an extremely uncommon quality even among comedians, where there are plenty of guys making good money just reaffirming common beliefs and making the audience feel superior and good about itself.
As such, the best comedians all had the quality of being an outsider speaking truth to power. You seldom see a great comedian who is not an outsider of some sort. There are hardly any great ones who are good looking or macho or successful in superficial ways.
Most men try just to get along in life, and not to make waves, and to let all the little stuff go and just persevere. So a comedian plays against that type by observing the world around him and stating his opinions forcefully and openly, which allows men at least to take a break from being so damn patient and good and just look at things for how they are for once. It can be extremely cathartic.
If someone is too good looking or too much of the dominant class or whatever, this won’t work because unless you are one of life’s losers, you don’t have the right to criticize or complain, you are instead just griping and gloating.
You see where I am going with this? The problem with women comics is that as women they are already too spoiled, too catered to, too whiny anyway. For a woman to get onstage and complain about things doesn’t play against type, it isn’t cathartic, it is just more of the same old female bullshit.
That is not to say that there aren’t a couple of great female comics out there; it is just that for a woman to be funny she has to do something different than a man does, and it is something few women are willing to do.
I think that for a woman to be funny, she has to be willing to give up all vanity and all artifice and simply and openly be honest about how insane, desperate, and twisted women really are. And most women will never do that.
As you have mentioned, often men, even before their eyes have been opened about the true nature of the male/female dynamic, get these little insights that something is not right about the way women go about things, just as you felt watching female comedians years ago.
It is almost too much for us to take in, the epic badness these little glimpses of the true female nature afford us. So we try not to think about it. If a woman is to truly be successful as a truth teller, she won’t go about it by exposing the lies of men or society, but she will have to go about it by exposing her own lies.
And if she does that, it will drastically reduce the amount of power she has over men in her life. She can’t very well be honest onstage, and then in her personal life go back to her normal mode of subterfuge. It will tip her hand.
So I don’t believe that women fail as comedians because they simply want to be liked. I think it is because, if only on a subconscious level, they understand that honesty is a threat to them, and can only lead to a loss of power in their own lives. And it is the very uncommon woman indeed willing to do anything that lessens her power.
Think of all the mileage she gets from pretending to be the morally superior sex, and from playing dumb, and playing helpless. Why would she ever give all that up?
That’s my perspective anyway. It is the loss of power, not fear of being disliked that drives them.
That said, I do think some female stand ups and comic actresses are pretty amazing. Though I am in the U.S. now, I did live in the U.K. for a while and I second your opinion about Catherine Tate. I would also like to include the female cast of Green Wing who I thought were hysterical.
The women of Green Wing would be my positive example of women willing to forgo vanity and power in search of a laugh and a little honesty along the way. I have never in my life, onstage, in a film, or on TV seem a group of women acting so openly twisted, petty, power hungry, sex mad, and scary in my life.
That kind of honesty was as cathartic and satisfying as anything men can do, but, as you have mentioned, all too rare. (I could probably dig up a few clips if you think your readers would be interested.)
Keep up the good work.
Debeguiled
Excellent comment, thanks for this perspective based on your experience.
Never watched green Wing but saw ads for it. Seemed like it had potential. Any clips you could point to would be welcome.
The “loss of power” angle is very interesting and I’ll need to think about it. The question is, could a woman feasibly talk herself out of sexual power? I don’t think men are interested in honesty regarding women whether fed to them from women themselves or anybody else (note how most men have never even heard of the ‘men’s movement’).
The pedestal suits most men fine and any attempt to dismantle it will be met by a team of men with cement and marble to make speedy repairs. And you thought you were more cynical than me? lol
Great comment, I learned a lot, tks.
Awesome comment.
One of the things that I notice from a lot of local female commediennes is how antagonistic it seems they can get. The best commedienne I ever saw made fun of herself in ways that, to this day, make me laugh. Luceille Ball.
And it makes me laugh to see modern ladies say they pay homage to her, but not one of them learned a damn thing from her. Amy Poehler maybe, but not Julia-Louise Dreyfuss, who’s tried numerous times to do her own show post-Seinfeld but unsuccessfully. Not Tina Fey, who I find annoying.
Luceille Ball was funny because she didn’t take anything seriously. She made fun of herself, of women in general, and indirectly, men’s desire to keep them safe and/or under control on some level. I see a lot of her in a lot of women I meet; their vanity always getting the better of her in all her attempts to get famous. The Vitameatavegamin thing she did (look up on YouTube) is classic. I laugh my ass off every time I see that.
Seems to me that most female comics try too hard to be men.
Good point, MWM.
I have found Tina Fey at times funny when she is a political satirist making fun of politician Sarah Palin. But apart from that, I agree.
Sarah Silverman is the world’s worst and most unfunny comedienne. Her religious jokes – “I’d crucify Jesus myself” – are unfunny and un-empathetic. Her jokes on rape are even worse. Compare them to Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld, and it’s a no-brainer.
Never liked Jo Brand…she comes across as a major feminist, and I agree that she was always having a pop at men in order to gain attention. I was surprised to learn she’s married; god help the husband.
The only female comedian I have had time for in recent times is Sarah Millican. I admire her because she can take the piss out of herself and in my opinion that’s commendable.
I don’t naturally warm to female comedians it had to be said. I prefer Billy Connolly and the American Bill Burr, who is a modern day version of the great man in my opinion. Chris Rock certainly rocks and you can’t leave out the great Eddie Murphy.
MWM:
Very surprised you didn’t mention Christopher Hitchen’s Vanity Fair article / video: “Women aren’t funny”.
Maybe update your post with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7izJggqCoA
His basic premise as to why women aren’t funny is that:
Women don’t need to be funny like men need to be funny (or verbally sharp) because men use humor to attract women.
Didn’t know about this, so you’re right, I probably should have referred to it.
That said, this is my own observation rather than a researched piece. Nothing wrong with a little wheel-reinvention on occasion
No intention with it, just figured you would have seen that piece before as it’s notable.
What did you think of the video?
There is a lot I think is valid. Perhaps most things men do could be said to be about getting women – that’s the source of misandry right there.
As I said in the article, women have no need to be funny as that is not an important attribute that men seek.
Some women will still try to be funny however, in the male-arena of stand-up. But almost all will fail for reasons that are quite obvious when looking at the differences between the sexes.
I don’t know about the west but back here female comedians do not speak their own materials. Except for one, the only other well known comedienne’s monologues are written by men. It may be strange to hear but this is what happens.
source:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9434.00285/abstract
It’s down to the difference between male and female brains again.
Men’s brains are more creative. Which they’ve had to be throughout the ages. Men were the hunters. Their job was to go outside — perhaps far away — and bring back food. And that wasn’t going to be straightforward. An animal isn’t going to make it easy for you to kill it. And animals can be smart.
Man has needed inventiveness for his very survival: to outsmart clever animals. Through the millenea this inventiveness has evolved into technology, art and literature. And comedy is an art.
That’s why women are not funny. They are not creative. And it’s why modern day male comedians appearing regularly on channels like the BBC are not funny: they’re politically correct. They think like women.
Wow, I have to respectfully disagree with a lot of what you say. Creativity isn’t based on gender, it’s based on the individual. And while you can argue that perhaps society has pushed men and women into different positions you cannot argue that these creative differences are biologically based.
Perhaps I take it a bit personally, seeing as I am a woman myself. I can see your point about the female brain, but I think that has to do with more of what the author pointed out, that women aren’t conditioned to take risks like acting crazy or not looking attractive. I think women have it in them to be funny on stage and on screen, but society doesn’t encourage revealing that side of them since it’s not the typical female role.
Hope I didn’t make it sound like an attack on you personally, that wasn’t what I was going for at all. Have a wonderful day.
no my friend, men are clearly more creative than women. Women are good at following directions but men are much better at thinking outside of the box. Thanks to men’s ability to think outside the box is why our world has advanced so much
On the contrary, women are free to explore their non typical feminine side or ‘other side’ as you say in todays feminist world.Rather it is the men who are encouraged to follow feminine behaviour and leaving their natural masculine nature(which is demonized).If we assume your comment to be correct, even then men have contributed more…And hey! women are good at some things too like multitasking..and so on.Men too can do but ratio of women and men able to multitask is more.But we aren’t complainig,are we?& we do not take personally too..
Green Wing is definitely worth watching and it can be very funny. It’s certainly different and the women are just as absurd and flawed as the men so it’s a refreshing change in that regard. It reminds me of Absolutely Fabulous because the women are politically incorrect and are actually funny because they’re not above looking ridiculous.
I think women can be quite scathing in their depictions of other females because they know the games they play. They are not always inclined to be as chivalrous or naive as men can be regarding female behaviour.
One reservation I have about Green Wing is that there are some scenes which are quite misandrist. To put it another way, if the roles were reversed the reaction would be cries of misogyny. We are all familiar with this double standard so I’m not saying Green Wing is unique in this respect. There is one scene where a man is basically raped while he is unconscious for example.
On the other hand I still watch the Simpsons and Futurama despite cringing at the obvious misandry.
Basically I think some female comedians can be funny, but not the agenda driven political variety.
Finally, I know the name of who I’m 99% sure was the comedian in a stand-up I caught on television perhaps four or five years ago, and loved. It was the first time I’d heard a comedian slate feminism, and it was quite the breath of fresh air. If it was the same guy, which I’m pretty sure it was, he said how feminists didn’t want to be equal with men, but rather that they wanted the BEST parts of a guy’s life. He went on to suggest that, were feminists to find themselves in a modern-day-Titanic situation (rather ironic, now, given this year’s ‘Concordia’ incident), they would squeeze their short hair into pigtails, and play the ‘helpless female’, in order to get off the ship first. Can anyone confirm this is definitely the same guy?
Anyway, yeah, female comedians……hmmm, can honestly say I’ve scarcely found a single one funny. I actually see Joan Rivers and Jo Brand as exceptions to the rule; alas, the latter relies heavily on misandry, to get laughs from misandry-appeasing audiences. Sarah Millican, as someone else mentioned, is another exception. I had never thought about the disparity in male and female comedy standards, as you have here, but it adds up. A few comedy classes can’t outweigh years of different conditioning.
Eleventeen different kinds of yes.
Modern females are receiving the paycheck for male sacrifice. “Equal Pay for No Sacrifice” It’s fucking disgusting.
If you want to understand women better, i can recommenend you Schopenhauer´s “about the women”
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/schopenhauer02.htm
This reminded me of a reality comedy show where contestants compete to become the best comedian. It is a good thing that 8 seasons of the show has ended with every single one of having a male winner raises little complaint.
Laughter is a submissive gesture, in the grand scheme of things there arent that many fellas outside of an Essex hair salon who enjoy sitting for an hour or two in complete submission to a woman.
Hi. I would say that I’m open to ideas about misandry, and have been re-shifting my perceptions and recognizing the memes that have been fed into my head since birth (I was born in the 70′s).
But to call the entire female race “stupid” as I’ve seen in the videos is very unfair.
Mind programming is very difficult to (a) recognize & (b) resolve.
It’s a process that took some years for me to accomplish. Most women, upon being called “stupid” would likely turn off your video and never begin.
Now, as for this article on female comediennes, allow me to offer this point: most women are not funny because they’ve never had to be.
Humour requires a certain amount of wit or intellect and many women have never had their brains challenged in this respect, so therefore have not developed this ability.
There are women like myself who have not really focused much on using our appearance to have our way with men. Women like myself use humour or intellect or creativity to attract men in order to make sure that they actually like us.
Deep down, most if not all of us crave an intimate secure relationship. Those of us recognize that beauty can actually work against us choose alternative weapons and that, my friend, is not stupid!
I wish everyone a fulfilling, challenging and exciting journey in healing what putwomentowork-ism (i.e. feminism) has done to us.
Cassandra
I think you should watch the post ‘Why I do this’ dated March 15. Your all misconceptions will be cleared. The way you feel that this man calls EVERY woman stupid is wrong.
Cheers, mate.
Why I Do This
Yup, comrade!
Interesting to hear your perspective as a woman, but I don’t agree with this statement.
“Deep down, most if not all of us crave an intimate secure relationship”
I have found through life experience that what women tend to crave is materialistic and financial support. Why is it that the usual questions that are directed at males is along the lines of “Do you own your own house, what car do you drive, what job do you do?”
This translates: He’s got money, so I’ve landed on my feet with this guy. I find modern females very transparent and fickle creatures, and I know I’m not alone in these thoughts.
I agree – Catherine Tate is HILARIOUS. Another one of my favorite female comedians is Chelsea Handler. She has a show called “Chelsea Lately”. I’ve noticed men don’t seem to find her quite as funny as women do, but hey, to each their own. She takes risks and is not afraid to make fun of herself. Her stand up could use a little work, but her sketches are hilarious, this is one of my favorites of hers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRRk8gJ462c
Her books are also hysterical, especially “My Horizontal Life” where she talks about her one night stands.
And I agree with the comment above me, Sarah Silverman is terrible and should not be on TV.
Depicting the entire male race as stupid isn’t fair by any stretch of the imagination and it’s been happening on a massive scale for decades.
What I find interesting is that it’s taken so long for there to be any reaction whatsoever. I always thought I was the only person who even noticed it was happening, and I’ve felt this way since I was quite young. No one indocrinated me, it’s just blindingly obvious.
What surprised me about Sharon Osbourne’s callousness is that there was any controversy at all. Her “humour” is surely the lowest level unfunny can sink to.
It’s like sleepwalkers awakening and it’s going to be a massive shock to humanity when the denial ends.
Catherine Tate has her roots in the British comedy club circuit a’la Frankie Howerd. She’s Dick Emery with real tits, but equally bad teeth. That is why her humour resonates so widely in the Anglo world.
It is a shame that so many of her characters are so vile. Lauren and Nana are selfish and vicious creatures we are meant to warm to – I don’t. Still, she is very clever and her best observed characters (Elaine Figis and Bunty the baton twirler) border on genius.
I don’t like Nana at all. In fact when I watch Tate, there is a fair bit I will fast forward through. I like Lauren (because you know what’s coming), the red-haired woman, the character that asks her mate to guess this or that, and some of the random sketches. I like her in parts, but same goes for most comedians.
For me, the crucial point is that I regard her as just a ‘comic’ and not a ‘female comic’. I can’t say that for any other female comedian I’ve come across, at least not that I recall.
Some mangina stupidity:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html
I read that garbage. That guy is way off-base with that article. What a pitiful mangina he is!
I like British humour. But that was till 2006 when Sacha Baron Cohen pulled off a stunt by his both misandric and misogynist film ‘Borat’ which was widely criticized thereby making him ‘public enemy’ back here. Not to mention, our government labelled him a misogynist (but not misandric!). But as far as those comedians shown above are concerned, i really liked their stuffs by watching in Youtube. I too liked Catherine tate.
Interesting article & something I’ve discussed in the past. Quite akin to actor/actresses as I could name 5 superb actors without pausing for thought, 5 superb actresses. . . well I’d have to think about that, I know there are many but I have to think about who they are.
Anyway back to comedy. The secret of great comedy is truth & I find comedians who question received wisdom, Doug Stanhope being my favourite, are the only ones worth listening to now. Comedians like Chris Rock, Bill Burr & George Carlin especially in his later years are calling people out on their bullshit & their acts are as much a philosophy than just entertainers. There are some great comedians out there who also require you to think a bit, Stewart Lee comes to mind. He may be a bit PC at times but is still great.
The mention of Catherine Tate is interesting as the main hub of her characterisations are the grotesque aspects of female traits. I can’t watch her partly because of this but i do wonder how many of her audience see that aspect.
The Jo Brand schtick of “I’m fat & aren’t men crap” is as tired as a Jim Davidson routine. We get it Jo, you eat too much & you’re married to a dick, what did you expect to get looking like that anyway.
I think part of the problem is that a comedian has to admit he is as flawed as the subject matter he’s using & the female ego won’t allow much tolerance of that. Women need to be on pedestals, to be seen as princesses or the pillar that holds the family together & they need to be told this constantly.
Sorry ladies but you’re as messed up as the rest of us so forget your fantasy life & deal with the world in real terms. It’s ugly & messy at times, but that’s what helps keep it interesting & funny.
Eileen, did the vaginal deodorant joke of Sarah Silverman insult you?
I often find female stand ups embarrassing. My sister and I can’t think of a single one who was/is even slightly amusing. They try too hard, many talk at great lengths and in disgusting detail about their genitalia and bodily functions, their stilted performances are uncomfortable to watch and the subject matter they overuse has long since died a death.
There’s something desperate about them; like they’re only there to to prove that women can be funny too rather rather than the, surely more important, requirement of actually being funny.
Male comedians will often mercilessly mock and humiliate particularly nasty hecklers, whereas females tend to take offense and walk out. Then of course you have female members of the audience getting away with assault with nothing more than a telling off.
http://www.break.com/index/comedian_confronted_by_offended_woman.html
That would never be acceptable the other way around. It should never be acceptable at all.
Female comedians can serve a purpose though, whatever you watch afterwards will be hilarious in comparison.
I totally agree with this article. Male comedians like Bill Burr and Chris Rock always take great risks to deliver their material. They challenge society’s taboos on social roles gender, and sexuality. They dare to stand out. They give a story and a reasoning for the disenfranchised and have the deepest empathy for the oppressed. And they give a nuanced, endearing, and humane account of the people in their lives.
They put themselves at risk, putting their vulnerable and sometimes even tragic personal lives in the forefront. They are masters of the stage. They know how to tell a story, how to develop it, and then weave it all together and back on itself as a Beethoven sonata.
Margaret Cho on the other hand is a pathetic ugly faghag. All she does is walk up and down, rambling half-baked diatribes on stage in an unorganized manner. (Perfectly revealing of the inherent messiness in women.) She is depressingly unfunny and sounds like Adam Sandler if he was constipated. Not to mention she presents her material in the most unoriginal way, merely using the traditional formula everyone else uses.
All she does is pander to the easy prejudices and ignorant opinions of the unempathetic and uneducated. She has no idea of what people really go through. She thinks she is some countercultural icon and a rebel but in reality she reflects nothing more than our society’s most kitsche and cliched sentiments.
Face it women. Men are simply better than you at everything.
That reminds me, I can hardly think of any good women comedians, at least the ones who are as good as men. Richard Jeni was good, hell, he’s number one in my list. His sketches were marvelous.
Christopher Hitchens on a video titled “why women still aren’t funny”. Worth a watch, very informative and to the point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7izJggqCoA
Ellen Degeneres, Wanda Sykes and Rosanne Barr (that although not a lesbian, has a gay brother and a lesbian sister)
Things that make you go hummmm!