Because the best way to feel good at ourselves is to laugh at how stupid other people are.
Comedy is a tricky business --
Why has humorous prose maintained it's hilarity over centuries? What are the things that make funny things funny? How come so many people find Will Ferrel funny...when he's not?
There is a lot to be said about comedy...and a lot of things open for discussion. Why is it that if someone tells a racist joke, it's not funny, but if someone impersonates a racist person telling a racist joke, it is funny? How come many people find men to be funnier than women?
The point of this group is to discuss funny things...in order to help make our writing funnier. Humorous prose.
Smac's question on why many people think men are funnier than women.
There are are a few ways to answer that - Not all men are funny on purpose, and I think maybe that's the type of funny you were getting at, Smac. Although I could be wrong -that happens once in awhile. The last time I was wrong was ... October ... something ... nineteen eighty ... something. I never quite got over it. I've been right ever since.
What was I talking about? oh yeah, funny men. Not all men are funny on purpose. they just look funny, or act funny(not on purpose) or talk funny or smell funny.
Women instinctively don't like to be laughed at, unless they've chosen comedy as a career, and then they're being funny on purpose. I think (and this is just my opinion)women make an effort not to be funny not on purpose, because they don't want to be laughed at when they weren't making an effort to be laughed at.
Therefore, some women make a point of not looking funny, or talking funny, or smelling funny. Some men on the other hand, don't give a crap what others think of them anyway.
Got anymore questions?
Moon
Within that template of feminine comedy are the usual suspects of menstruation, child bearing and dating, at least for stand up. Improv characters usually fall within a specific category, such as the screechy voice, the nerdy women, the prim and proper or the neurotic.
Within a sitcom, women are BARELY ever [permitted to be] funny, usually being cast as the sexy, understanding housewife who puts up with her bumbling oafish husband (King of Queens, the world according to Jim, the Honeymooners, (almost),Everybody Loves Raymond, King of the Hill, Till Death till we part, Family Guy...
When women are permitted to say funny things on sitcoms, or do funny things on TV, there role again is always restricted -- the cold emotionless, stoic #%##$, the cold eye rolling snipy jabs, or of course, what show could not be funny without the dumb blonde airhead? (Well, lots) Or of course the slut?
So, in essence, and I'm sort of thinking aloud as I go here, women are pretty much relegated to making fun of themselves, or being a sidekick to men's funny...
I give credit to Sara Silverman, Julia Loise Dreyfuss, Tina Fey and Lucille Ball for breaking that mold...with few others*
(although Rac7hel and Angela are quite funny)
Who am I to judge, really? Because I come from a guy's perspective -- which brings up something else -- is comedy derived within the cultural environment of where it's born?
You all have made some interesting points. I think smac might be right about woman being regulated to less funny roles. I wonder, though, if old woman characters have more room to be actually funny? It actually seems that most of the good character roles for woman are for old actresses. I have one friend who is a really stellar actress, but I think she'll have to wait until she is old to get any good parts in the big world, because all of the young female roles seem to have to have either the feminine 'charm' or the go-get-em masculinity, which is rather limiting. (There's no female young equivalent to Dr. Who that I can think of, for example.)
Also, I wonder if it's because girl can be 'silly', which is sort of dismissed, and if a girl being 'funny' just comes across as 'silly'?
In my limited experience directing a couple of comedies at my college, it stood out to me how much funnier the guys were, even when we had equally strong actors in girl and guy roles. Partly this was due to the characters, (again, the guys tended to have the funnier parts).
But I think there is something about physical comedy that guys can somehow pull off in a way that we find more funny. Eeer, I'm not sure how to explain what I'm trying to say. Maybe we culturally have different expectations of how men and woman do and should move?
Hmm, take facial expressions... My brother and I both make funny faces sometimes. He always gets more laughs for his than I do. I think people just think I'm being 'weird' or 'silly' while he is 'funny'.
I think I'm talking circles here. Sorry.
-Fog
Moon
These are professionasl writers, I'm talking about. There are non professional women writers right here on protagonize that are far and away better than those professional writers. There are also very funny men here at Protag too, but my point is that there are very funny women writers out there, but how many get to be 'professional' ?
Moon
Since canceling cable 5 years ago, I haven't looked back -- and the funniest show I've seen for a while is Community -- what surprises me about it is that it's actually on one of the run of the mill networks, NBC. It's a smart satire of itself, and pretty much a romp making fun of all sorts of formulas. It becomes a bit more ridiculous each episode, which is why I like it.
However, the ground breaking shows...the Norman Lear generation, Sanford and Son, Archie Bunker, Jeffersons, all of these realist comedies, have been replaced it seems with the Theo Huxtable sugar candy fare that seems so inconsistent in a continent that seems to be going broke.
Hmmm....what to do?
Not so much.
I came across an example of this today, when I was chatting with a group of guys and ladies about billboard advertising. Naturally, one of the guys mentioned "nasal sprays", in the context of "why the hell are they popular enough to make it onto a billboard?" Cue sniggers abouts oldpeople!sex. No one blinked. I (22yo fresh-faced vivacious female) then made what I thought was a pretty on-topic deadpan comment about the performance "norms" in pornography (and I was circumspect, though yes, the word "porn" was mentioned).
Dead silence.
Oh that's right, I forgot. I'm female, so I'm not supposed to be comfortable talking about the sex industry. :P
Sad but true. If you'll allow me a gross over simplification, if we assume we're all just fancier better dressed version of all the wild animals out in the savannah looking to procreate and feed, then there is little place for humour unless it helps us do one of those two basic primal things.
Feeding ourselves is not so hard these days. That just leaves procreation (I'm talking really about finding a sexual partner here not actually producing small armies of mini us).
Sex is a whole different ball game for women than men. For women finding a sexual partner is easy, they hold all the keys when it comes to sex. Women are Willy Wonka in the chocolate factory. They give out a few golden tickets a year, us men scrap around outside the gates bankrupting ourselves on dinners and movies to try and get one. Anyway we can increase the odds of getting our hands on one of those tickets we will do. One way is humour. Particularly if we are unattractive or not physically strong, alpha male provider types.
Okay gross oversimplification over.
Women are just as funny as men, I think it is probably just harder for them to get an appreciative audience for that humour. Particularly a male audience.
As a Brit I would also say humour is often very embedded in a culture as smac was already suggesting. I personally find US comedy shows painful. There are a few exceptions (okay, currently I can only think of one current show, Modern Family) but in general the people are too stylized and the lives too unrealistic for my tastes. It's too far from the British comedy I've grown up with. I like surrealist British humour like The Mighty Boosh and I've tried that on many non-Brits and they've pretty much all hated it.
Esirah, I'm left wondering whether your lack of a laugh may have been just because of misplaced delivery, timing or the fact that your line wasn't funny. I mean, all of those things are possible yet I can agree, I think that you, as a woman have a higher standard to bear.
Adam made a point avbout British comedy, and I agree, having seen the Original Office, for instance, that across the pond, comedy is years ahead. To point out what a great transition that is, there is a great British comedy duo, Mitchell and Webb who perform the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9fFOelpE_8
I think that men are typically seen as decision makers -- the noisiest arguers, the most passionate (note: I'm not saying they arethe most passionate) while women are portrayed as the quieter sidekicks.
So, if that is the case, then social commentary, which comprises most contemporary stand up comedy, for instance, leaves a case where a man's commentary, I believe would garner most attention. There is sincerity in comedy, and a lewis Black rant for instance is offered that credibility because of his male status. Yes? No?
Social conditioning is an obvious candidate for an answer. Forget women for a second, but lets look at cultures. Cultures, which can make fun of themselves are often funnier that cultures which are too stuck up and take offense at every pointed barb.
Coming back to women: Women in many cultures are brainwashed into considering what people think of them. Men face less of it, because it is often ok for a man to be imperfect. A man can therefore laugh at his own flaws much more easily than a women. Also women cannot deal with all her whims openly. A man can talk about gastric problems, a woman cannot. A man can afford to laugh at his paunch and weight, but a woman cannot. A man can talk about sex and masturbation, but a woman cannot. I have watched many a woman go red with embarrassment at topics that men discuss freely. I have watched men make more fun of each other and their own selves than women ever do. (The last few sentences are mere anecdotes, and really add nothing to the argument)
And people are funnier as comedians when they are not too stuck-up. This is not about not being egoistical, because many comedians have a really big ego. This is to be able to take yourself and life as it is - flawed and imperfect. Watch any female comedian. The first thing you notice are their complete lack of conventional 'shame' at the so-called taboo subjects. The lack is of course about them being completely ok with who they are, with being able to make fun of themselves, with being able to talk about taboo topics without flinching and without having to aim to be on any pedestal of restraint.
Its what makes humor so attractive. The lack of restraint. The openness.
Now imagine in addittion to all that, the woman is also funny. Just one more thing for the guy to feel threatened by. Especially if she is intelligently funny, which would mean she's smart, which would make Mr. Squished Together American Man even that much more afraid--until eventually he looks up at the sky and asks "What the hell am I even doing here?" But the sky, not having a vocal apparatus, says nothing back. So after a bit of deductive reasoning the man comes up with two likely purposes for his existence: 1) to provide the woman's offspring some genetic variation, and 2) to keep the mountain lions away. And the woman might not really even need him for 2).
Only problem is: It turns out that the whole bigger and stronger thing makes all the difference in the end. The fact that the woman is just as smart or smarter, and has fully functioning nipples, and looks significantly better naked, really does her no good when the man can just punch her in the face, wedge her under a tree, and do whatever he wants thereafter. So in a world where a bunch of physically strong, yet somewhat frightened people with penises hold the cultural strings, it's no surprise that women are not encouraged to be comedic, or that bright, funny women are not promoted more in popular media.
Funny thing is, though men seem mostly unaware of this fear they have, women themselves seem to instinctually get it. How many of us have been out at a bar with a group that included a female acquantance that we knew was very bright and quick-witted who happened to be dating a guy that was way dumber than her, and overheard their conversation and just been like "Huh? Why is Amber acting like a bimbo? Why is she dumbing herself down for this idiot?" You're left scratching your head. Well it took me awhile to realize it, but I think the answer is that Amber is even smarter than I thought. Like anyone else she has needs, and she's doing what she has to do to get her needs met.
As insipid and unrealistic as sitcoms are, they seem to get this one thing right. Though the female character is almost always less funny than the leading man, she is constantly puppeteering him, subtly, often without him knowing it. It's that whole "give him the illusion of control" thing our mothers seem to be so adept at.
The only bad thing about all this is that it's sad. Women shouldn't have to pretend they aren't smart. And they shouldn't have to purposely be less funny just so their muscular, craven, idiotic counterparts don't go into existential crisis.
K, enough, enough, brakes, enough. Sheez. This is what happens when I stop drinkin. No shutty uppy.
"...the female would be prettier probly, and more graceful, and be a better dancer, and be gentler, and have less back hair."
Ah, right. So we're supposed to be prettier, more graceful, better dancers, gentler, and have less back hair. Hmmm. So. I have less back hair than most men I know, but for the rest of it? I'm SOL.
I guess I'm just not a woman, then. Obviously, because I'm fairly tactless/clumsy, the world's worst dancer, and average-looking, I can't be a 'real' woman. Well, #*&*. Nothing I can do about that.
Guess I'll just be as outrageous as I like, and make all the sex/!^&$/racist/mean jokes I want--all the ones that men make, and think are funny, but both genders find shocking when a woman makes them--and if anyone doesn't like it, well, screw them, then. I'm *already* not what men want, when they imagine the perfect woman. I may as well continue the trend, and hope other women join in, embrace the crudeness, and tell men and their double standards, and women and *their* double-standards, to stfu.
In real life, I get accused of being a lesbian fairly often. Or a slut. Or a #$%^#. I *also* get told I'm really funny, bat-^&$! crazy in the good way, and (one of my personal favourites) "off the chain". This largely seems to come from speaking my mind, when everyone knows it's inappropriate. Well, I don't know it. And even if I did, I've been doing this whole blunt-honesty thing for too long to stop it now. And it leads to this:
If I feel like making a joke, I make one. And who cares if it's not... lady-like?... anyway. Not me. And you shouldn't either. And, if enough people have that view, then maybe women will get the freedom they deserve, to be as funny as they are in the privacy of their own thoughts.
Generally, though, I find men to be funnier anyway. Lol.
@AmandaQuirky said:
Speaking of funny lesbians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8FfFwtL91Q
And Jay--if you're calling someone a lesbian/@!!$^/slut to try (try!) to offend them, it is an accusation. The fact that I'm amused and/or proud when they say it, does not negate that fact...
:)
So are we all pretty much in agreement, women un-funny themselves to please men? And then, perhaps, they become less funny over time as a result, because of some variation of use-it-or-lose-it?
Actually, come to think of it, sometimes they do! Don't you hate it when you're hanging out with guys, and one of them makes a crude joke, and then looks at you and awkwardly apologizes. I HATE that! It's times like that I wish I could fart loudly at will.
Men who view us as somehow not worthy or mature or whatever enough to know the 'real' them, do piss me off, though. I used to chat to this guy online (he eventually unfriended me on Facebook, because I was "too blunt")... to my boyfriend, he would talk about %$@!ing this woman whose _insert rude word_ was "as wide as the Cumberland Gap" and to me, he would say things like "I've only recently experienced the enjoyment of intercourse"... wtf?
Maybe he's a perfect example of a man, who does that woman thing, and (just for the record) is unfunny as a result. Because he is, actually, in 90% of situations where he *could* be funny, dry as dust.
Could to see it works for both genders... if you change yourself for the other one, you start to suck and lose all hope of developing your sense of humour :)