You mean like Balki Bartokomous, Viktor Navorsky, Rolf and Fez? 
Possibly. I don’t know jack about basketball, nor do I particularly care to, so I can’t really comment on that. I don’t watch the games, nor do I follow any of the off-court politicking or history of the game. I do follow a bit about that for comedy, enough to make at least a couple of half-assed assertions.
Thanks.
I never watch it either, but everybody knows that it’s dominated by blacks. Anyway, my point is, just because basketball is dominated by blacks, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s biased against whites, just like event though comedy is dominated by men, doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a bias against women. There could be, but nobody should just jump to that conclusion.
I think you’re putting to much emphasis on my use of the word “bias.” Like I said, I don’t think it’s overt, at least not usually. I don’t think people are out there passing any sort of conscious judgement on female comics or anything. But you can’t deny that there’s an overwhelming gender disparity in the profession, and I think after a certain point, such disparity becomes self-enforcing. If all you ever see on stage, screen, and TV are male comics, both men and women are going to start thinking “comic=male,” and women are going to be less likely to see comedy as a viable career choice for themselves. I think you can see the same sort of bias operating in the nursing and teaching professions, which tend to be dominated by women, even though there’s no overt cultural taboo against men working in either field.
aghast Good gods, man, did you think I was saying I didn’t like *Margaret Cho??!! I mean really, think who you’re talking to.
Oh sorry, misinterpreted the “you.” It is 6:45 AM, after all.
To some extent, yes, I am saying that. Yes, I understand about certain subjects getting monotonous, but I mean, how many “women hate me, I can’t get laid” jokes can you deal with from male comics, either? And yet that wasn’t the complaint, nor would such a complaint be gendered in the way this one was.
With all my extensive knowledge of lesbian comics, I’ve heard a comparatively small number of menstruation jokes, “considering how much it happens…” (Cho) I really doubt it could get so thoroughly monotonous that someone could get tired of it, unless there’s some specific underlying issue with menstruation to begin with.
At basis, these women wouldn’t talk about it unless they thought it was interesting, and unless they thought other people thought it was interesting. Comics aren’t completely self-absorbed, or they don’t get work. Maybe if you don’t find it entertaining, chances are you’re not the target audience (which conceivably might be ‘people who menstruate’). It’s a little self-absorbed to dismiss the subject; apparently someone does find it interesting.
Actually, Karen Williams is a mainstay of lesbian comedy and is black—she’s been on the scene just about as long as Kate Clinton & Suzanne Westenhoefer.
Right, because it’s still possible to be in a minority group and recognize that someone’s in a minority group without its being a value judgement. There are a ton of straight male comics making “I can’t get laid” jokes, because there are a ton of straight males, period. And a majority of them are hacks. So the complaint isn’t going to be made the same way, because it’s not that unusual a thing to point out. That doesn’t mean it’s not tiresome, just that it’s not remarkable.
And notice that a person can say, “what is with all these straight white male comics always going on about not being able to get laid?” and no one’s going to say, “Well, you don’t know what their life is like! You must obviously have deeper issues with heterosexuals/white people/men!” The standard “you just don’t get it” response, with a hint of homophobia/racism/sexism thrown in.
This is the arts forum, not the political forum. It’s possible to judge a person’s work just based on the work itself, not who’s delivering it. And there’s nothing sexist or homophobic about saying that jokes about being a lesbian are inherently funnier than “what IS the deal with airplane food, anyway?”
And this business about how “it needs to be said” (from elsewhere in the thread) is bunk, IMO. It needs to be funny. Yes, comedy can be political, if it’s done right. But it has to be funny first, most of all. If you’re not putting a new spin on it or presenting it in a different way, why bother?
I don’t agree with this at all. Do I have to be a Korean-American bisexual woman in order to think that Margaret Cho is funny? If I thought her bit about her mother was funny the first time, but by now I’ve seen it so many times now I feel like I had to grow up with the woman, does that mean I’m racist? Or just that I feel like I can take a check-list and mark off the bits of her routine as they come along, and it’s become tiresome. (“Her mother: check. Being Asian: check. Lesbians: check. Are we done here?”)
It seems to me that if you’re developing a comedy routine that only appeals to people of a target audience, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot. In any case, you shouldn’t be broadcasting your stuff nationwide if your attitude is one of “well, if you don’t like it, then you just don’t get it.” Two of my favorite comedians are Dana Gould and Paula Poundstone, for example, and most of their routines are stuff that I can’t directly relate to, but I still think they’re funny as hell.
As far as subject matter, I wonder if it’s telling that I can remember exactly two jokes about periods that I thought were funny, and both were written by men. One was Dave Foley from the Kids in the Hall (“I’m the Kid in the Hall with a good attitude towards menstruation!”) and one was from “South Park” (“How do you mean ‘heavy flow’?” “Well, you know that scene in The Shining when the elevator doors open?”) So either that means that I’m a misogynist, or that those guys can be funny regardless of subject matter.
Way to over-analyze humor, there, SolGrundy.