It’s No Joke — Women Are Funny

Why do people keep insisting women can’t be funny? It’s getting to be beyond a joke.

“Very few female comedians can pull off funny funny,” muses a ridiculous article in the Herald Sun, Melbourne’s highest circulating newspaper. The article, a review of Jen Brister’s stand-up comedy, continues by informing us the show is “surprisingly, quite a humorous act.”

One can only assume the author, Tianna Nadalin, is surprised by the fact that a woman can actually be funny. Who knew?

Incensed comedians, as well as the pissed-off general public, jumped to the defense of funny ladies everywhere, with Twitter a flurry over the article’s sexist, outdated message.

The Herald Sun has polished up the story and removed the offending lines after sufficient public humiliation, but you can still catch the original here.

That someone would write such a review is one thing, but that a major newspaper would publish it is deplorable.

While the review was offensive, and frankly quite stupid, it is symbolic of an unshakable ideology within society: the belief that women can’t be funny.

How much evidence do people need before they’ll let go of their archaic opinions, which they seem so adamant to tell anyone who’ll listen, and acknowledge that many women are now writing, directing and performing their own hilarious material?

What are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo and Joy Behar? Chopped liver?

Furthermore, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival has been in action in my beloved city this month, and the comediennes have been well and truly holding their own with the lads. Of the seven nominees for the festival’s most prestigious award, the Barry award, three are women.

Hannah Gadsby, Kitty Flanagan, DeAnne Smith, Tig Notaro and a whole host of witty women have been cracking the city up for the past few weeks.

Is it common knowledge that men aren’t attracted to women with a GSOH? If so, those wretched personals have been deceiving me for years.

A feature on why men don’t find funny women sexy recently ran in Madison Magazine. Among the explanations offered were: women are attracted to men’s sense of humor while men are attracted to women’s physical appearance and men are intimidated by funny women and are worried they will steal the limelight at social gatherings.

These hypotheses were not backed up with any hard evidence, but Joan Rivers is always willing to provide some. “Men find funny women threatening. They ask me ‘Are you going to be funny in bed?’” she once said.

But it’s not only men that funny women trouble.

Women appreciated for their talent and wit seem to make the media a little uneasy, so they often go to considerable lengths to direct our attention to the ladies’ looks.

In 2009 the Huffington Post ran a “Funny and fine: Who’s America’s sexiest comedienne?” poll, pitting the women against one another in an online beauty pageant. In 2008 Annie Leibovitz put together a shoot for Vanity Fair, featuring a dozen of the wittiest gals in Hollywood, airbrushed, scantily clad and provocatively posed.

While they are undoubtedly sexy women, and proud of it, their sexiness shouldn’t be used to wrench them from the realm of the mind and plant them back into the world of the body, where many would prefer to see them reside.

To those who think women can’t be funny, get with the flippin’ program. The world’s witty women are owning the funnies with the best of them, and it ain’t going to change anytime soon.

Contact the author here: brianna@morningquickie.com