Women (still) aren't funny

Nothing bothers me more than hearing someone claim that women aren’t funny. It’s an opinion that is thrown around as though it were a well-known fact of life. Even comic greats like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Jerry Lewis have said women aren’t funny. The “women aren’t funny” argument seems to persist as an acceptable vehicle for sexism, and women still struggle for respect in the comedy world. So why exactly is it that in 2011 women are still seen as unable to compete with men in comedy?

Taking a look back, women have been in comedic roles for the better part of the 20th century (Lucille Ball, Betty White, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin), but they still don’t get the respect they deserve, either on the streets or at the comedy clubs. In May 2011, Rosanne Barr wrote a scathing article for New York Magazine which details how her sitcom Roseanne (the first female-created sitcom) was hijacked by ABC, which essentially refused to name her in the credits as the show’s creator. Instead, the credits ran: “Created by Matt Williams.” What’s more, she reports how women were pitted against each other to fight for raises and were rarely promoted to writer, how an all-male team of writers created lines that were “what women would say,” and how when Rosanne climbed to the No. 1 spot in 1988 she was sent a chocolate in the shape of a #1, whereas male stars of No. 1 shows were typically sent new Porsches. But that was the 80s, right?

Sadly, Barr’s article dovetails with Tina Fey’s experience as a woman in comedy in the 90s and 2000s. In her recent (and very funny) autobiography, Bossypants. Fey recalls how in 1994, while with the improv troupe Second City in Chicago, she and Amy Poehler were not allowed to be on stage alone together - since a skit without a man wouldn’t go over well with audiences, and there wouldn’t be enough “material.” They had rules that there were never to be more women on stage than men in a given skit - the exact ratio required was typically 4 men to 2 women. Years later in 2004, Saturday Night Live’s popular segment “Weekend Update” was co-anchored by two women (Fey and Poehler!) for the first time. While Fey’s writing for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock (her own show on NBC) has received countless awards (including Emmys and Golden Globes), Bossypants reveals that the road to such success was one ridden with sexism and prejudice. Today, Fey and Poehler are nearly alone at the top as women in comedy.

Most recently, attention on women in comedy was revamped by the popularity of the movie Bridesmaids. Starring Kristen Wiig, another female SNL comedian, Bridesmaids is one of the best-reviewed comedies of the past several years, yet its praise is always cognizant of the largely female cast; most reviews seem to note their surprise with how funny women can be (who would’ve thought?!). Bridesmaids has grossed over $168 million, yet it is near the top of the list of top grossing movies never to make it to the No. 1 spot (the rest of that list is largely comprised of children’s movies). An LA Times review praised the film’s success given that, “R-rated female-centric, gal-pal entertainments don't exactly top studio wish lists.” Indeed, while Bridesmaids has been lauded as “easily the funniest movie of 2011,” it drew only a 33% male audience.

Another critic praised the film for turning the boys’ club of comedy on its head: “It is not insignificant to note that Bridesmaids, in all its outrageous, profane, bawdy glory, is largely the work of women -- written by, co-produced by, and starring a cast almost entirely made up of women. What results is not a feeling of ‘girls playing at a boys game,’ but rather the girls stealing the game and reinvigorating it with quirky energy, sharper comedic insight, and subtle depth.”

So if women have been succeeding in the big comedy business of Hollywood, why does the notion that women aren’t funny persist? One Australian comedian reported the most common reasons people gave in response to why they thought that women weren’t funny:

- Funny women only talk about relationships, vaginas, tampons, emotions, family, domesticity, personal problems, [insert 1950s idea of women’s conversational topics here].
- Funny women aren’t attractive.
- Funny women are aggressive.
- Funny women are too polite to be funny.
- Funny women lack confidence.

Another point that was frequently made was that women being crude (as comedians typically are) was unattractive and that men didn’t like seeing women in a crass role. The aforementioned list exposes how men seem to dislike women acting too much like men, and/or that in order to be funny women need to act like men. Women are placed in a double bind: when they act like men, it’s gross, but when they act like women, they’re not funny. Just like in other work environments, women are forced to toe the line between being too “manly” and being too feminine for men’s work - neither result yielding much more than unrelenting criticism or qualified compliments (“good, for a woman”).

This comes back to the sameness/difference debate: Should women be trying to convince audiences that they are just like men, or should they be promoting their own flavor of comedy? Each path presents its own problems for feminism and exposes opportunities to keep women below men in the comedy business. For if women are just like men, they need to play the game by men’s rules, a game at which they will inevitably fail. And if they brand their own style of humor, they’re relegated to the WNBA of comedy (the unpopular, “separate but equal” accommodation to feminism). And so women who do comedy play by men’s rules, and it becomes apparent that men want women as their audience, not as their rivals.

People often cite a difference in men’s and women’s senses of humor as the reason why women are perceived as less funny than men. A Stanford University School of Medicine study found that men and women share much of the same humor-response system; both use a similar part of the brain responsible for semantic knowledge and juxtaposition, as well as the part of the brain involved in language processing, but men and women interpreted what they found funny differently. But even if women and men do find different things funny, that rhetoric still goes on to conclude that women aren’t as funny as men, as opposed to concluding that men aren’t as funny as women. As in other male/female comparisons, men appear to be the yardstick by which women are measured. In turning to nurture over nature, the reasoning seems to come more into focus. As Kate Sanborn put it in her 1885 book, The Wit of Women, “What woman does not risk being called sarcastic and hateful if she throws the merry dart or engages in a little sharp-shooting. No, no, it’s dangerous—if not fatal.” Perhaps even today men feel threatened by funny women.

As with other arenas where women attempt to enter a man’s domain, a disproportionate amount of attention is placed on looks and attractiveness. As a Vanity Fair article very candidly confessed, “[My] argument doesn't say that there are no decent women comedians…Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.” A response to the piece noted how in the past women were simply not funny, then women couldn’t be funny if they were pretty, and now female comedians need to be pretty - even sexy - to succeed. Indeed, Tina Fey was put on camera only after losing 30 lbs, while male comedians like Chris Farley, Jack Black, and Seth Rogan don’t seem to be losing any work because of their weight.

While women in comedy continue to endure particularly harsh critiques simply because they are women trying to make it in the old boys’ club of comedy, funny is becoming closer to the norm for women these days. But then again, women are more prevalent in everything these days. Unfortunately, the trend is showing that women in comedy must increasing rely on sex appeal to get ahead, lest we forget that the entertainment industry is still controlled by men. Fortunately, it also seems as though women are more inclined to ignore the claims that they aren’t funny and to allow their success to speak for itself. In the end, I anticipate that it will be these women who will have the last laugh. In the meantime, it looks like women in comedy will continue to work overtime to overcome prevalent sexism, and this is no laughing matter.