“Women aren’t funny”; a quite brutal stereotype about women, is it not? This accusation towards women started out quite small until the well-respected journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote an essay named “Why Women aren’t funny”. Then the label became a valued opinion instead of an urban sexist remark. The Argument usually is that women have no need to be funny, since they can get by only using their looks. As if women would not have any other ambitions than to impress people by their outer shell, or that men would be shallow enough to be only impressed by the appearance of women. Luckily, there are plenty of female comedians and women working with humor to prove that the accusation of the female gender being completely unfunny wrong.
For instance, Jane Austen is to date one of the few writers that masters irony so perfectly, and Tina Fey has gotten quite a following after creating the television show “30 rock”(She also was a head writer in the first two season, the most crazy and hilarious seasons). In this post, I’ll mention a few other funny women that prove females can make humanity laugh as much as males.
“Smack the Pony” was a British comedy sketch show that aired 1999-2003. It starred Fiona Allen, Doon Mackichan, Sally Phillips and Sarah Alexander. They also wrote the teleplays for the sketches. The sketch featured beneath this text is one of their most hilarious sketches. It satirizes female fantasy cliches.
Margaret Cho is a Korean-American comedian who is mostly known for her Stand Up. Themes she explores in her humor are body image, race, sexism, human sexuality, homophobia, the LGBT-culture, and politics. She bravely finds humorous aspects in all cultures and norms, and isn’t afraid to be at times vulgar and explicit. The stand up clip down here is mostly a demonstration of her humor. But you should watch one of her full hour stand ups to completely enjoy Ms. Cho’s talent, like “I’m the one that I want”, “Assassin”, or “Beautiful”.
Betty White, who starred in the hit sitcom “Golden Girls”, got to host “Saturday Night Live” in 2010 for Mother’s Day. She also starred in many of the various sketches, the best one being the muffin sketch. Ms.White’s opening speech was also hilarious, worth a watch if you run across it. What’s spectacular about the humor White uses is that she plays the cute, sweet-looking old lady while she says the raunchiest things.
I tried my best to embed this video. But all I can get is this link, which takes you straight to the sketch in full screen:
Last, I would like to show you a video I found from “TED – ideas worth spreading”. “TED” is an organization which invites various people to talk about certain issues. The topics include culture, sociology, science and technology. In this talk, Heather Knight introduces an adorable little robot that tells jokes in Stand Up-style. It also collects data to know when its jokes have been successful and crowd pleasing by using software co-developed with Scott Satkin and Varun Ramakrishna at CMU. This way it may change its jokes by the crowds demand. Heather Knight runs the corporation “Marilyn Monrobot”, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art; she’s not used to speaking to a big crowd which shows from how nervous she is. But her energy and hyper personality gives her strength and makes her fun to listen to and watch. You might want to click on the screen sign to the up right to make it bigger!
it is abaut time to give some fame for these funny but so serious women!
me too I like Betty White and Tina Fey.
Betty White and Tina Fey are awesome 🙂
Yes, it’s about time women would get more recognition in the Comedy circles. They are so many female talents that are underrated :-(. But maybe soon things will change!
Concerning the “are women funny” question, I take the side that to argue that women, when presented as exceptions, helps stengthen arguments such that Hitchens makes. There are boring and flat men, and there are funny women, but on average men are superior comedians. And c’mon, aside from humor and being able to lift heavy objects, we men don’t have much to brag about. Women are superior in pretty much every other respect.
Hi!
Hm, I can see your point, yet I still think that humor is something both sexes can be good at. Problem is that humor represented by women isn’t always as much valued as humor represented by men. Male comedians have the advantage of support from male audiences, while female comedians lack support from female or male audiences. I believe neither women or men are the superior gender in comedy. Just that women have had worse luck.
But agreed, men are often better at lifting heavy objects 😀 However, I don’t agree men have fewer things to brag about than women. Males have done great things in science, literature, politics, movies, music etc. Even if women have also done great things in these categories, it doesn’t make men less important. I strongly believe that both sexes have been and are as important for society’s and Culture’s development. 🙂
Gotcha. I pretty much agree, but I always let my wife think she’s superior…she still sees right through me, and thinks I’m trying to be funny, or that I’m not sincere, but that’s all because of her superior sense of irony.
Good that you agree 🙂
I see. Yep, some people can see right through others. Amazing thing really 😀
Just two more! One well known and other more invisible but up there with the best!
Wanda Sykes does the question of a Detachable Vagina
Comedian Jen Kirkman shares her own personal experiences regarding female masturbation
And thanks for the Robot Comedy. I guess they can actually have a detachable Vagina!
Haha 😀
That was funny. Especially liked the second one. I love comedians that take on risque subjects or otherwise strangely taboo themes. Always very entertaining if done right! 🙂