Jay Leno as a stand up was a monster pre- tonight show. He would be on Letterman a couple of times a month it seemed. I made sure I stated up to watch each time. At the time there was no one better.
That’s true in improvisational comedy, too – female performers are generally not as strong. There’s something about the physicality and immediacy of the medium, something about the “play” aspect and the way performers bounce off each other and take risks. On stage, anyway, the women tend to be weaker.
OTOH, women sitting around drinking coffee and cracking clever jokes? Comedy gold. Men don’t pull off that one the way we do, generally speaking.
But are any of them women?
Being funny is not a valued trait to American girls growing into women, so the pool is much smaller. So there’s not as much cream-of-the-crop talent. In a group of boys, being “the funny one” is a highly valued trait, typically ranked just under “great at sports”. And you do have to be legitimately funny to hold that spot as a man, not just be the one who will dare or deign to try and be the cut up (ladies). Women are told to be other things - to act other ways. It’s no surprise that there are a significant number of lesbian stand up comics because they’re already rejecting even more significant societal norms.
Also, lots of women are told they’re ‘so funny’, when actually they’re just attractive and/or have a general fun personality (not the same thing as funny). Everyone was just trying to compliment their looks in a non-obvious way. Of course there are mixed results when one of them takes the compliments literally and tries to do stand-up.
Don’t like her. The rare time she pulls a chuckle from me, it is despite the fact that I don’t like her brand of comedy. Her voice makes me crazy.
MC Lyte was the truth…one of the best who ever did it… On the first two albums. Everything after that makes me think she had a ghost writer at first. Completely baseless accusation, but one that I have truly believed since I was a kid. The difference between “Lyte as a Rock” and “Roughneck” is just too great. Totally different styles, skill level, everything.
Queen Latifah I liked, but I think she fell off. The first album was the only one I liked. I don’t accuse her of having a ghost writer for that though, because her later, weaker stuff was in her same ‘voice’. Can’t really explain it.
[QUOTE=Hilarity N. Suze]
…The women who make me laugh tend to be doing routines that probably wouldn’t make a guy laugh, like Kathleen Madigan. Example: Her friends send Christmas cards with pictures of their husbands and children. What should she put on hers? Pictures of her sleeping late and having extra money?
[/QUOTE]
That’s funny.
[QUOTE=Ambivilid]
I think stand-up comedy is just hard-period. Many otherwise funny comedians just bomb when it comes to stand-up gigs. A truly funny stand up comedian is hard to come by; and there are certainly fewer women doing stand up than men…
[/QUOTE]
This is such simple common sense, I am ashamed I haven’t considered it. Posters in this thread are straightening me, *in *theory. I mean, you all are really convincing, *on *paper. But I surely hope this will pan out in practice. In other words, lets make with the funny comedienne clips. The line from Kathleen Madigan made me laugh. I’m about to look her up. Also, about to look up the other suggestions for comics I haven’t heard yet.
[QUOTE=picker]
Reported for douchiness. Specifically, the don’t be a stupid jerk rule.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, pretty sure he was just joking.
[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry]
Ahahahahaha! Hee. Hee.
Knock it off.
[/QUOTE]
That struck my funny bone, for whatever reason.
[QUOTE=Becky2844]
Girl, you are funny. Like dry white wine. Best taken with a smirk. (Forget the lime; the acid’s already in there.)…
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I’m goofy, in that I really love to laugh, so I have a bad habit of taking nothing very seriously. I probably should change the thread title, because I really do mean stand up comedy.
By the way, shout out to Ellen, who has made me chuckle often with her stand up, now that I think of it.
[QUOTE=fessie]
…OTOH, women sitting around drinking coffee and cracking clever jokes? Comedy gold…
[/QUOTE]
So true.
I have to stress, again, that there’s nothing wrong with you choosing not to like female comics. I am not suggesting you need to start liking them. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, you can’t find time to like everything. I’m just suggesting that the claim that women aren’t funny as standup comics cannot be objectively supported. Comedy is subjective. (As you can tell I find the subject interesting.) On the other hand, one can go outside one’s own preferences to acknowledge some people must be funny to others even if they aren’t to oneself. I do not remember ever, once, a single time, laughing at anything Will Ferrell has ever done. Ever. To me he’s as funny as a school bus fire. But he must be funny, because millions of people find him hilarious. I don’t think that means I’m missing anything, he’s just not my brand of sauce.
You can’t like everything. You don’t have enough time in the day to do that. So hey, laugh at who you wanna laugh at.
See, I don’t think Poundstone is funny one single bit on Wait Wait. Her delivery to me seems very forced, like "Oh, this is where I INSERT JOKE (have you ever noticed there’s a pause right before she INSERTS JOKE?) Nine times out of ten I’ll sit there and roll my eyes instead of laugh :rolleyes:
Have you seen any of Aisha Tyler’s standup? Cracks me right up.
I wonder if it has something to do with the women’s component of the audience?
A lot of times when I’m watching standup on TV, I notice the weaker jokes will at least get laughs from the women. I put this down to the traditional woman’s role in society as the ones who keep things “nice” - breaking up fights between their sons, not letting the discussions at dinner parties turn into arguments, facillitating the flow of polite society, supporting consensus instead of confrontation, etc.
But they aren’t able to extend that to a woman comic, at least not in a mixed-gender settings. In all-women “girls night out” settings it’s “you go girl!” but when men are paying attention to the woman onstage it’s “who’s that bitch think she is?”
OTOH, when the female comic really puts herself at risk, even in a mixed audience, the women rally to her: listen to who laughs hardest when Mo Collins starts in on date-underwear vs period underwear
It seems at least half the people I follow on Twitter are hilarious women. I pretty much only follow comedians and comedic feeds. After work or during lunch I can link to them.
I agree with the OP for the most part. There are terrific female comedic actors, but in stand-up, not so much. Roseanne used to kill me, in both genres. She was earthy, direct, somewhat vulgar, and got right to the heart of things. Haven’t seen her lately, other than the ad for the roast with the shotgun, which was funny. Ellen was okay, but hit or miss at times. Wanda Sykes was funny early on, but has gone downhill, as many comedians do. It’s a tough biz.
If you look at the funniest stand up comics, the traits that make them funny are stereotypically masculine. Irreverence, boldness, provocativeness, “meanness” (for the lack of a better word). Since girls aren’t encourage to exhibit these traits like boys, you’ll find few women who do.
Then you have to consider, out of those women are who are irreverent, etc., how many of them are going to also have the right kind of stage presence and be funny? Physical attractiveness can cause your audience to be too distracted to laugh at you, so a woman can’t be too pretty and expect to do well as a comic.
All of these reasons are why you don’t find that many women in the stand up business. Those who are in it are working against a lot of obstacles. If you took Chris Rock and made him a woman, but kept his persona the same, would you find “her” just as funny?
Garfunkel and Oates(Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci) make me laugh out loud, without fail.
If her material is even a little autobiographical, I’m gonna guess she got the free pass by fucking them for it.
I don’t know if Adele Givens has done much in the last few years, but she is/was fucking funny. And obviously smart. I like that combo.
In general, though, yeah, I think women tend more towards collaborative humour than the solo stuff. Four women hanging out over coffee are, collectively, so funny you can’t breathe. Stick any one of them on a stage with a mike, and probably not so much. My husband has this theory that it’s because, in stand-up, the relationship with the audience is inherently combative, and that suits male humour (which is often about one-upmanship) better than female (which is often about bonding).
I’m out of touch, but in past decades I thought there was no shortage of female comedians. I liked Poundstone, Degeneres, as well as Elaine Boosler. And although she ran out of material fairly quickly I loved Judy Tenuta. Just wonderful arrogance, oddball sexuality and spirit channeling. And then there was a small, somewhat glamorous, uhh… Rita Rudner. She was good.
I haven’t seen much of Sarah Silverman’s standup and wasn’t wild about her TV show, but she did well in The Aristocrats.
I wanted to hate Sarah Silverman, and did, for her “I’m a cute chick saying gross/racist/outrageous things!” schtick. But I started watching the Sarah Silverman Show and was hooked. Not sure if I would enjoy her stand up routine, but she’s brilliant in situation comedy.
The funniest regular character on Curb Your Enthusiasm - outside of Larry David and Wanda Sykes - is Susie Essman. I know she does stand up, but I’m left in stitches watching her on the show.
I can’t believe you feel this way. I would be curious to know which male comedians you find to be funny. My guess though is that I have never heard of them.
My favorite female standup comedians:
- Ellen De Generes
- Roseann Barr
- Sarah Silverman
- Margaret Cho
- Wanda Sykes
I must admit the pickings are slim. However there are only two people who have ever made me think I had just seen the funniest person in the world Steve Martin and Roseanne Barr.
Really? I am complimented on my looks/personality with reasonable frequency, but the last time I can remember someone complimenting me on being funny was in fifth grade – and that was a girl.
She’s the only comedian I know whose better at ad-libbing then with pre-written jokes, which is probably why she’s popular on Wait…Wait.. I saw some TV specials with her stand-up, which was alright, but she was a lot funnier when she was riffing off the audience then with her prepared stuff.