The Gender of Comedy

I struggle with the whole gender comedy issue.

It's a very slippery slope. Too fem, or too him: either way you sacrifice something. That's the way it's always been. That's why I've made the conscious decision not to refer to myself as a "female comic," or "female improvisor," but as a comic or improvisor. I just happen to be a woman. Because for me if you're going to be in the boys club (and it is a boys club), labeling yourself as a "female comic" or "female improvisor" A) suggests that your particular brand of comedy is for female audiences, B) suggests that you do not see yourself as an equal with the men who you share the stage with, and C) that your humor is dependent on your gender.

My aversion to dressing my comedy in pink doesn't change the fact that I'm a lady, or that the struggle goes much deeper than labels. There is a fierce tradition of funny ladies who have paved the way, who have struggled, and who have fought to make it possible that women can make a living doing comedy. I have an enormous amount of respect and reverence for them, and for the fellow comics and improvisors that I share the stage with who also happen to be women. The struggle to do this work is far from over, as made clear by Christopher Hitchens' article in Vanity Fair.

In January 2007 the gauntlet was thrown.

Self-appointed spokesperson for the boys club, Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair, wrote the highly publicized article "Why Women Aren't Funny". The title was designed to catch the eye, make headlines and ruffle feathers. And it did just that, ultimately triggering Alessandra Stanley, spokesperson for the girls club, to respond to Hitchens in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair with the essay, "Who Says Women Aren't Funny?".

I'm neither the type of person to judge a book by its cover, nor am I the type to judge an article by its title. But Hitchens' title flicks the reader on her forehead, draws the line in the sand and dares her to cross it. Being the pacifist I am, at the time of the article's publication I chose not to read it. I chose not to retaliate, validate or comment on the article in anyway. I mean, who is Hitchens anyway? Some British-born academic/journalist/literary critic? Some alcoholic, polemicist who's known more for being a provocateur than saying anything revelatory?

I digress. Claws retracted.
(I guess I don't like being thumped betwixt me brows).

Well, recently curiosity got the best of me and despite my better judgment I read the article. I read knowing that the lens with which I would view this article would be inevitably skewed by my gender, race, vocation and experience. Despite these handicaps, I was determined to wade through the seemingly endless sea of his witless bravado, arrogance and condescension in search of floating logs of truth and insight. I did my best to read it with an open mind. I tried to hear Hitichens' arguments clearly, and digest them with as much objectivity as I could muster - all without throwing up in the back of my mouth.

And after reading the article I was left feeling as if I might have missed The Hills finale. So I checked, and I didn't. So reread the article again to insure that my preoccupation with the Audrina and Lauren fall-out hadn't caused me to miss something important.

I didn't.

While he had some valid points, he muddied them with such pretense and impudence, that it was hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I actually happen to agree with several of Hitchens' assertions, one of which being that men have adopted humor as a technique with which to woo.

[Men need humor to attract women] ...Women have no corresponding need to appeal to men in this way.

I also agree with Hitchens that women are socially discouraged from being funny.

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.

Hitchens even makes several (seemingly calculated) remarks attacking the male intellect in a good natured attempt to win over those the title of his article may have offended.

Wit, after all, is the unfailing symptom of intelligence. Men will laugh at almost anything, often precisely because it is—or they are—extremely stupid.

Jokes about calamitous visits to the doctor or the shrink or the bathroom, or the venting of sexual frustration on furry domestic animals, are a male province.

But all of these comments served as amuse-bouche to manipulate the reader, and make the main course of asinine generalizations more palatable, enjoyable even.

In any case, my argument doesn't say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but 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.

He proceeds to list hefty, dykey, Jewish ladies to prove his point. All of which are in fact hefty, dykey, Jewish and unarguably funny. I don't take issue with his lists, but in that they're presented through such egregious aphorisms that are riddled with bigotry.

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?

We are all born into a losing struggle. Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can't afford to be too frivolous.

I'm not arguing against the science of humor, or the inherent differences between men and women, and their respective senses of humor. I get it. (Go Cardinals!) I'm not even arguing the trend he's found in the kinds of women who are "allowed" to succeed in this field. I'm arguing against Hitchen's point that humor is a birthright reserved for men, usurped (and as a result sullied) by women.

It is clear from this article that the issue of gender and comedy is not dead, but alive and well and ever so relevant. In trying to understand my own struggle with this issue, I stumbled upon an amazing (albeit short lived) series on girls and comedy on the BBC called, Girls Who Do Comedy. It was refreshing, eye-opening and extraordinary to see such a phenomenal group of hilarious women come together and talk openly about their journey and struggle with the same issues.

Dawn French interviews: Morwenna Banks, Sandra Bernhardt, Jo Brand, Eleanor Bron, Kathy Burke, Margaret Cho, Denise Coffey, Phyllis Diller, Jenny Eclair, Mo Gaffney, Mel Giedroyc, Whoopi Goldberg, Sheila Hancock, Helen Lederer, Miriam Margolyes, Penny Marshall, Kathy Najimy, Sue Perkins, Miss Piggy, Joan Rivers, Rita Rudner, Jennifer Saunders, Sarah Silverman, Linda Smith, Laura Solon, Jessica Stevenson, Meera Syal, Wanda Sykes, Lisa Tarbuck, Catherine Tate, Tracey Ullman, Julie Walters, Ruby Wax, Victoria Wood and Gina Yashere.

I loved the questions Dawn French asked these women so much that I plan on following up this post with my own answers to these questions.

Stay tuned, the struggle continues....