I think you need to distinguish between people who are themselves funny and people who can do a great job acting that way if other people provide the material. There have been some great comic actors who had no sense of humor outside their roles.
I disagree.
Wow. Jimmy Fallon is what a cat might think is funny, if it wasn’t hungry or in need of a Sunny Spot.
And, the talent-less eel in a dress and high heels makes an appearance. No, beyond political one-trick-pony parody, Tina is NOT funny… not even close. Toss off the “but she’s a girl” crutches and she does a total face-plant.
Her right-wing movie crap, to her credit, is just low key enough that you don’t say “Fuck You” and walk out, but you’ll always make a mental note: “Whose in it? Yeah, I’m busy that night. Sorry.”
If/when cable puts out her stuff in monthly rotation and if the only other free thing on TV that you haven’t seen is “Alaskan Bush People” , maybe you can ignore it if you HAVE to watch it, but you’ll never spend a nickle on PPV ordering a view of it.
I’ll answer in this way: Its certainly more accepted that men be funny than women be funny. So much so that much of our humor has been shaped by men only, so what they say we may find funnier
This isn’t Golf. You don’t get a big handicap (pity or otherwise) based on what you perceive as acceptance. If you want to say women plumbers aren’t accepted, you can try… but if they do good work at a competitive price and the pipes don’t leak they’ll never ever be short of work.
So Men are why ‘some’ audiences just don’t find some women as funny as men. Wait, these are the wrong crutches, lets get out a different pair.
Except… sometimes… women Are as funny. Many times where they fail is that they fail to fan that spark and slowly take the time to build those flames into a roaring fire.
If you want to make a comedy, or build a fire, you fan the spark gently, add some dry easy-to-burn tinder, and then when it catches, some small sticks.
Eventually, you’ll add bigger sticks… and then some smaller split logs in a pyramid… and when they fully catch, Then you can pile heavier stuff on top.
Some female comedians skip a few steps in their impatient rush to get to the end… and when you pile lots of wet heavy dead wood issues on a small fire you have just lit, all you get is a smoked-out room.
But that’s the audiences [del]fault[/del] perception, because they’ve been conditioned, by men, to see that as ‘smoke’ instead of the billowing gray-black cloud of roaring fire that it really is.
Male comedian Ari Shaffir had the best explanation for this I’ve seen. Basically it boils down to being a comic is an unceasing grind. And burgeoning funny women have a lot more opportunities outside of comedy(tv, writing, etc.). So you don’t see many 12-15 year female comics. But every male comic you see(Attell, Burr, Stanhope, Louis, Maron, etc.) is a 20+ year comic. Lots of male features(non-headliners, road comics) are killers with 10+ years experience. So when you see a new female comic in a show maybe she has 5 years on stage. She’s sandwiched between two 10 year males. Audience sees it and thinks “wow, women suck at comedy” but every 5 year comic sucks(relatively speaking of course) regardless of gender.
I’ll throw out a hypothesis. Don’t care if people agree with it or not, but it’s an idea I’ve been playing around with all day.
Funny people are deviant people.
Men are more likely to be “deviants” than women are.
It is commonly accepted that men exhibit more variation than women do. Your randomly selected woman is much more likely to fit the “typical” profile than your randomly selected man, who is more likely to fall closer to the extremes. And this goes for a number of metrics–not just intelligence.
My personal experience bears this out. Of course there’s a lot of diversity among both men and women, and I’ve seen it. But the “stand outs” frequently tend to be male. Whether that be the coworker who outshines everyone else with his mad skillz or the coworker who is so lousy interpersonally we keep wishing he’d get fired already.
As a loner, I tend to notice other loners when I’m out in public. There are of course female loners, but it seems to me that you’re more likely to find men sitting in the theater by themselves or eating at the lunch counter alone or aimlessly walking down the side of the road. Women are usually with at least one other person.
I think humor requires some degree of detachment–both emotional and social. Take dead baby jokes. This kind of humor resonates most with people who don’t feel a deep heart-tug for babies as a massive faceless group. Once a male coworker and I were scolded by a female coworker for quietly chuckling over a news article involving a toddler who got trapped in an operating washing machine. Her emotional attachment to the victim in the story was very clear, but for me (and perhaps my friend), all I could see was the absurdity of it all. She thought we should be ashamed of ourselves for not feeling the “right” way. I really wish I had told her to sit her sensitive ass down somewhere and leave us alone.
Detachment goes hand-in-hand with feeling like you exist on the margins–like you really don’t belong in this group called “human beings”. As a kid, I was a class clown (and still am) because I was unable or unwilling to connect with people in way that exposed my authentic self. Their hyooman behavior confused me a lot, but how in the world do you reveal something like this without coming across a big ole derp? So humor gave me a “pass” to be as crazy and weird as I wanted to be, as long as I made people smile. You can hide all kinds of insecurities and inadequacies with a funny face, well-place joke, or one-liner.
I think guys tend to experience the outsider perspective more than women do, since the latter tend to not only know the social rules from an early age, but accept them unquestioningly. They are also less likely to experience the challenges of being outwardly different. I don’t think you can be really funny and not be irreverent or"deviant" in some way. At the very least, you have to be a keen observer–and this requires some emotional distance from the “they” you want to make fun of.
That’s my experience. You very rarely find women repeating jokes, but that doesn’t mean women aren’t funny. Also, a lot of “men’s humor” is either overtly offensive to a lot of women or is downright not funny to most women (fart jokes and the three stooges come to mind) so I suspect a lot of women’s humor might not come across as funny to men. Stand-up comedians is a highly sexist field of work so it’s not surprising that not that many women go into it.
All right, there’s some truth in this. I learned this when I worked with disabled people. Men are spread more broadly over the bell curve of intelligence than women, so, more men geniuses, but also more men idiots; while more women cluster over the center point; however, the greatest outliers among the women are still as far outlying as the men.
So the funniest women are as funny as the funniest men-- but that’s only assuming that funniness fits the same paradigm as intelligence. Does it? I think it may still be a question of women being expected to find all the things that men find funny, objectively funny, but men allowed to dismiss anything women joke about as “women’s humor.”
I was once subjected to about five minutes (but it seemed like 20) of a male comedian joking about sitting down with his penis in the wrong position. The men thought it was hilarious. I didn’t get it at all, but it wasn’t “men’s humor,” it was just humor.
You clearly don’t understand how discrimination works. It starts out at a very young age-girls are discouraged from playing with tools and fixing things in favor of playing with dolls and cooking. By the time a girl hits high school, the odds of her ever even having touched a wrench or cleaned out a blocked-up sink is quite low. She sees that all of the plumbers are men. Despite this, she decides plumbing is a great career and tries to find someone to teach it to her. The experienced male plumbers don’t take her seriously, laugh at her, and sexually harass her. If she does actually manage to qualify, I can assure you that a considerable proportion of the population will simply assume she’s incompetent based on her sex and will hire the male plumber instead. Even if she does very good work, her clients will rate her poorly simply because she’s a woman.
People have done studies on this in various fields (not plumbing, as far as I am aware). For example, one study, they had various people review a written scientific paper. When the paper (the same exact paper) was submitted to the reviewers with an obviously female name as the author, it was reviewed more negatively than if it had an obviously male name as an author. This is one reason why most scientific journals now strip author names off the article before sending it for review.
Same sort of things happen in comedy. And a lot of other fields.
I have, in my own way, a lot. I’m not going to explain further publicly.
I believe you. I honestly 100% believe you. That’s no whoosh.
If I have any humor, I’ve observed it and worked on it learning from people, TV, and film by passive observation.
The few times I’ve ever tried to directly interact with Anyone who I found ‘funny’, I found them to be vicious condescending assholes looking to break anything around them that might be a threat to their ego.
They were the type of assholes who not only deserved a beating, but who KNEW they deserved a beating. The phrase ‘Pin-prick’ is an awfully funny pun around them.
Sometimes I enjoy coming here and giving humor for free because I know I’m as good, but I know that ‘comedy for free’ Fucks with the pros out there. That and a cold beer makes me smile after yard work on a Saturday.
I never said you aren’t or couldn’t be funny. As a critic, I can be a bastard… but some people curse at their personal trainers (behind their back) too.
Free Advice? Don’t be what everyone thinks you are in The Pit. There are infinite audiences across the net to play with, but only One SDMB.
I think so, too. Certainly for the first statement, a little bit more tentatively for the second one (although I’m certainly still on board with it as a working hypothesis at the moment).
I think deviance and transgression is intrinsic to (at least a lot of) humor. It’s about taboos and upending order. Funny is mischievous. Heck, even something like a pun is about that: It disrupts and upends the expected structure and order of a sentence, in a surprising way.
It’s actually a good question in itself why this is the case. It’s a very peculiar kind of pleasure, when you think about it. Why don’t we laugh as much about expected, familiar and safe things? I mean, it’s not really obvious why we shouldn’t. But I guess that’s a different thread.
This is the problem for wise crackers everywhere, isn’t it? Uncomfortable subjects are funny. But there is a level of uncomfortable where it’s not funny anymore. Sometimes the joke is just too close to home, and too near the bone. Detachment is important here, clearly: Watching someone getting their balls crushed in a revolving door is hilarious. Getting your balls crushed in a revolving door isn’t.
Dead babies are interesting, actually, because there’s a meta element there, that I think not all jokes have. Laughing about something you’re not supposed to laugh at is in itself funny, even if what you’re laughing at isn’t all that funny per se. Dead baby jokes are funnier than bad puns (I know, I know - subjective, but stay with me), because there’s nothing all that wrong with laughing at a bad pun. People won’t look at you like you’re a psycho if you do. Dead babies, well, yeah, some people will do that. But that’s part of *why *they’re funnier.
Maybe you’re being unfair to your coworker by wishing she would leave you alone, because if there weren’t people like her around, dead baby jokes would be less funny. I don’t think dead babies are actually that funny, intrinsically (although balls crushed in revolving doors are). They’re not funny at all if you find one in your house, even if it’s not your baby. The fun part is the social deviance of finding them funny. Having to duck away and laugh “in secret” is part of the dead baby experience. The babies themselves are secondary.
Or maybe I’m wrong about that. Just something that occurred to me.
You know, when you mention it, I actually have noticed that. I guess I just hadn’t thought about it.
On this subject… I have a question. It may sound stupid, or sexist, but I think I’ll just blurt it out: In such groups of women, how much of the joking is about men? I mean, at the expense of men?
On the one hand, I suspect that, if I’m being realistic, very little of it is. I’m not, as a man, really narcissistic enough on the behalf on my gender to think that women really find men all that interesting.
But on the other hand, I’m also irrationally paranoid, so I’m convinced that people are always laughing about me behind my back. And you would think that men, as a subject, would make a fertile ground for humor for women. Because men are laughable. We’re intrinsically comical, silly and pathetic in a way that women aren’t.
This is certainly true when it comes to sex, and such matters. To be blunt, and boil it down: Penises are silly. Vaginas aren’t. You can’t make a vagina joke, it wouldn’t work, but you can point and laugh at penises all day.
Here’s the thing, though: Men can make fun of penises, and laugh, because we’re making fun of ourselves. But if a women makes fun of a penis, I, being a man, don’t find it as funny. Well, I can see why it’s funny, objectively. But I don’t laugh, or it’s at least more difficult for me to laugh. Because the joke is too close to home, and too near the bone. I become like the coworker in the dead baby story.
Do you mean all “men”. Are a “man”?
Because when I’ve been in groups of laughing women, it is funny individuals and individual situations that have made us laugh. Not “oh, let’s talk about how silly men are.”
Um…you do know this isn’t true right? Have you ever looked at a bad-looking vagina, bro? They look like grilled cheese! If you can’t find the humor in a vagina (also hilariously known as “vajayjay”, “chicken”, or the old-school “pocketbook”), then something is wrong with your omblongata.
Now, one reason you may not find it funny is because–in my experience–men seem to think anything related to the female reproductive system is “ew gross!” If a guy comes across a bunch of women talking about their periods, for instance, they usually don’t stick around long enough to hear the funny. No, they’re usually too busy making it known to the universe that they don’t want to hear that shit.
So it’s no wonder that the things that women laugh at become “women’s humor” instead of “everyone’s humor.”
I would totally laugh if a guy who made fun of a vagina, as long as he was funny. And I don’t think most women would have a problem with it either. Perhaps you can learn to relax and not take things so personally?
Cool. Thanks! I’m just checking. Gathering data, as it were.
Still not funny to me. But I am happy to learn that there is such a class of jokes. I’m having my horizons expanded.
Now, that’s not true at all! I think vaginas are wonderful. Sometimes I even look at pictures of them on the internet, just for the pleasure of it.
Ah! This is a fair point. But I’ll ask you this: In this case, the funny is about gross, right? Or isn’t it? Isn’t the humor based on the fact that periods have some grossness to them, even to the women having the discussion? And if so, isn’t it a case of your own gross being funny-gross, while other people’s gross is just gross-gross?
Is that what you told your coworker about the dead babies? 
The thing is, though, I try to. And it’s fine for you to make those jokes. As I said, I can recognize the funny, so have at it. I’m not exactly offended. I just don’t laugh as readily.
Point taken, though. I’ll work on it.
Laughter is the result of an interrupted defense mechanism. The more uncomfortable a subject is, the more likely a comment will tread on a defense mechanism. But, as you point out, there’s also a line between what you can get away with saying and what you can’t.
There’s also a sexual component. (Most) men don’t want to be seen as a sexist pig, for various reasons, and that’s one of those areas where humor can very easily fall flat on its face with women.
That’s fine. But just recognize that “penises are funny, vaginas are not” only applies to your sense of humor.
Telling about how you once lost a tampon inside you and spent two hours spread-eagle on the bathroom floor trying to get it out and then another hour in the ER–only to then discover that there was no tampon in you at all–isn’t gross-out humor. It’s situational humor. Just like you can tell a funny story about being in gastrointestinal distress without it being literally about the diarrhea and vomit.
Right. OK, I’m with you. So where’s the funny coming from here? It’s certainly vagina-related to some degree. The vagina isn’t exactly incidental to the story. Say you once lost an earplug inside your ear, and you spent an hour in the ER, only to discover that there was no earplug. There’s nothing funny about that. But with a tampon, there is.
So, do I personally find that story funny? Well… no. I don’t. Not laughing at all. I don’t even want to hear it. I would actually walk out half way through you telling it.
Why? It’s because of the “sexist pig” point that Johnny Ace made. It would be intrusive for me to laugh about it. The story involves me conjuring up images in my mind that include your vagina. And I don’t want to picture your vagina, any more than I want to unzip your pants and actually look at it.
Not because of any gross-factor, at all. I’m sure your privates look perfectly fine. But because I would be invading your privacy. Intruding on your modesty. This is a bit odd, because it’s you hanging your privacy out on display and inviting everyone in the room to look. But I still don’t want to look. Those are your private parts, none of my business. I am afraid to offend by looking. It’s like I’m wary of a trap.
If it was a guy losing something in his butt hole, or having his penis stuck in something, it would be funny to me. I don’t worry about invading his privacy, or offending his sensibilities.
There is obviously some old-fashion sexism at work. Are your private parts and modesty so delicate that I can’t even engage with them in the abstract? Hardly. But something in me seems to think so.
Here’s the gist of it, I think: The penis is a public thing, the vagina is a private thing. Which is sexist, obviously, I’ll admit that.
(No conclusions yet from me, beyond that. Further postings to follow,)
Why don’t I and millions of other women feel afraid to “look” at men when they talk about their dicks, balls, and assholes?
But if I’m a telling a story involving my vagina, isn’t that an invitation to “look” at my private…life? And why would my sensibilities be offended by your laughter, if I’m basically inviting you to laugh at me?
I’m happy you recognize that this is problem on your end, not women’s. Now, I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t women who would take offense at a man pointing at laughing a woman’s vagina (either literally or metaphorically). But most of them aren’t this way, really. There is nothing special about a vagina. It doesn’t belong on a pedestal. It belongs on a plate, paired with a bowl of tomato soup.
Yes, and not in a complimentary way. We are a bunch of fuckups. Shit, we GLORY in it. Women are our straight men, who traditionally should be paid better because any guy can be a clown. Ask Bud Abbott.