Are women funny?

The Associated Press

Sarah Silverman is a controversial comic. But is she funny? Ask Jimmy Kimmel.

Featured Topic | Posted 24 weeks 3 days ago

It's an age-old question often phrased as a statement: Women aren't funny. Aren't funny, to whom? But there are lots of funny women, aren't there? The April issue of Vanity Fair delves into the matter, but the questions remain: Are women funny? Are women funny differently than men? Do men just not get women's humor? Is a joke always just a joke?

Ben likes: Why women aren't funny

Christopher Hitchens/Vanity Fair

Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals. And there is a huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit. (Men can tell jokes about what happened to John Wayne Bobbitt, but they don't want women doing so.)

Joel likes: Are women allowed to be funny?

Gloria Goodale/Christian Science Monitor

Yet, for every step forward, say many comics and cultural observers, when it comes to being funny, women still face many societal prejudices. Nice girls just don't act like that, says comedy veteran Rusty Warren, who recalls male audience members storming out of her shows. Not much has changed today, say observers who suggest that many people, men and women, find attractive, aggressively funny women like Sarah Silverman threatening.

Witness the recent column in Vanity Fair which declared "Women Aren't Funny" (written by Christopher Hitchens). And despite the fact that his ABC comedy employed numerous funny women, comic Drew Carey says the prejudices are real. It's not so much that women aren't funny, he explains, as that men don't want them to be funny. "Comedy is about aggression and confrontation and power," says the stand-up comic. "As a culture we just don't allow women to do all that stuff."

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Men not liking funny women doesn't make them less funny..

Submitted on May 29th, 2008 by Anonymous

There's so much truth in this crap! Seriously, funny women are a turn off to most men. They don't know how to respond to wit or humor coming from a woman. Coming from a man they would jump right in and engage..But with a funny woman they can't decide if they like her or they think she's obnoxious.. they don't want to jump in and engage because they're scared of being percieved as mean. It's very unnerving for them and makes them feel somewhat conflicted if the woman is actually attractive.

The CRAP part is that he doesn't acknowledge all of the above - he tries to simplify it and cover up the somewhat embarassing, gritty details in an effort to avoid feeling vulnerable.

'that girl'
http://heyyourememberme.blogspot.com

This is just silly

Submitted on March 10th, 2008 by Marlo

Men are intimidated by funny women? Women are told by their moms not too appear too intelligent because it might scare off the dudes? Um, what decade was that Vanity Fair article written in?

Sure, there's still sexism out there, but to have to resort to lists of comediennes to prove women can be funny... not buying it. Things aren't quite that backward.

As for the idea that comedy is all about aggression- I think the funniest people are the ones who can be self deprecating and poke fun at themselves as well as the world they live in (like Ellen Page in Juno or Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, for example). Nothing's inherently "male" about that.

The following women are funny

Submitted on March 9th, 2008 by Anonymous

Phyllis Diller
Carol Burnett
Nicole Sullivan
Alex Borstein
Amy Poehler
Amy Sedaris
Lisa Lampanelli
Tina Fey
Sarah Silverman (in "The Aristocrats")
Gilda Radner
Jan Hooks
Carol Leifer
Florence King

That is all.

All I know

Submitted on March 9th, 2008 by Joel

is that "30 Rock" is the funniest damn show on the air.

Not even unfunny

Submitted on March 9th, 2008 by j.d.

Legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli once declared the views of an opponent of his "not even wrong", i.e., not worthy of being compared to ideas that had been shown to be wrong.

Sarah Silverman (and all those other people -- Ellen DeGeneres, Roseanne, et al that we were supposed to laugh at) is worse than unfunny to me. She's not even unfunny. She fails to provoke a reaction in me.

But let's deal with the general case: women can indeed be funny. (Roughly in the same proportion that men can be funny, I'll wager.) The idea that most people think women can't be funny was true, I'm sure, twenty years ago, but I don't know that it's the case today. It is, however, stirred up by our media betters every once in a while in order to "prove" what sexist troglodytes we are as a nation, and who value "edgy" or "controversial" types (Silverman is neither) above, you know, being funny.

But, I listen to a lot of comedy on my satellite radio and in other places, so let me recommend some funny (and indeed controversial) female comics that make me laugh: