Inspired by comments originally made by Zoe and taken up by WhyNot, a simple poll, my brothers and sisters, for you to exercise the motz in your gulliver*.
Gender doesn’t come in to it. So:
Yes I like (some) female comedians;
I have no preference.
I had a Clockwork Orange moment myself the other week. I was staring around at some very brutal and ugly concrete buildings, wondering why they were familiar, assuming they reminded me of some 60’s carpark I’d passed by. They’d filmed part of Clockwork Orange there, apparently.
With an androgynous name like that, how fitting you have no preference!
I was just browsing IMDB this afternoon at work - in bewteen posting to the SDMB - and I read that C.O. was filmed almost entirely on location. Did you know that Orange is derived from Bahasa Malay Ourang (=Orang, as in Orang Utan), meaning human. Apparently, author Anthony Burgess’s wife was raped by four men while they were living out there.
I’m a woman, and I like a lot of women comedians. I also like quite a few men who are comedians. My husband also seems to enjoy both. I couldn’t say prefer women comedians to male comedians. I could probably list about an even number of both that I like and if you were want to generalize about what kind of people they were, you’d probably say I prefer Australian and British comedians to American comedians, but I certainly couldn’t generalize down gender lines.
Actually, I haven’t really seen any female comedians that I prefer to most male ones. All my favorites are men.
That’s exactly whatI was thinking.
It’s a rather depressing book and film. That it’s inspired by a real life event just makes it even more so, I think.
Imagine Hollywood trying to remake it, today.
Count me in as another female poster who doesn’t care what the gender is.
My preference is for funny comedians.
Could y’all go discuss Clockwork Orange elsewhere? You’re bringing me down, man.
I don’t go by gender, either. Funny is funny.
I like comedians who make me laugh. Some women can do this. I like 'em.
I tend not to be very amused by one-note comedians whose entire act is about some particular subject. Women comedians who constantly harp on gender issues or politics are a pain in the posterior, IMHO. I like whimsy, wordplay, and lighthearted satire. I guess I’m getting around to saying that I like Rita Rudner, Lily Tomlin, and Ellen DeGeneres. Small doses of Judy Tenuta are OK if I’m in the mood.
I like Laura Kightlinger. She’s hilarious. Maria Bamford, she’s the one with the real high pitch voice. She’s good at impressions. Rene Hicks is pretty funny. Judy Gold, Victoria Jackson, Tracy Smith, watch Comedy Central Presents to catch all those. Awesome stuff.
Queens of Comedy was great.
I don’t know if I prefer them. I think I might. Sometimes I guess females are funnier to me because they notice different things and in a sense, they are meaner, or more incisive, and I like that. They make the kind of jokes I can sit back and say “oh yeah funny because it’s true.” Like, Margaret Cho, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, they just speak my language most. Maybe they stand out to me because comedy is a bit male dominated. For me, comedy is one field where a woman can be really incisive and smart and not worry about putting everyone off, so that’s a place where I can see my point of view reflected in the mainstream media. There are things that Amy Sedaris can say from a female perspective that nobody else can say and no male is going to say. I guess I look at a female comedian and see her have so much material that is unexploited and you haven’t heard a million times.
I think as a whole I tend to find male comedians funnier. There are a few exceptions: I was thinking of Amy Sedaris when I opened the thread, and I agree with those mentioned in pokey’s post. Still, I think female comics in general focus too much on “women’s issues” opposed to male comedians, whose subject matter tends to be more general.
This would be one of my main gripes too. I’m not saying that women are intrinsically less funny, but that a) they might be too centred for their own comedic good (in general terms) and b) they TRY TOO HARD (sometimes - actually far too often!)
What Pokey said.
Count me in with the ‘funny is funny’ crowd. It’s no never mind to me if the person is man or woman, I just want to be amused.
And I wonder if female comedians focus so much on ‘women’s issues’ or that we notice it more when they bring it up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male comedian who didn’t bring up a male issue or three at some point in his routine. But we’re used to hearing and seeing the male point of view on so many things, it’s almost a sort of default setting.
I hope it doesn’t seem as though I’m male bashing or anything, and it’s entirely likely this whole thing only exists in my head.
No, I was going to say the same thing. What’s a “woman’s issue” in comedy? Period jokes? Bra jokes? Nail polish jokes? I don’t really notice a lot of that. When Amy Sedaris hangs a little bell on her tsk-tsk* and rings it for a highschool boy, is that not a universally funny thing? Cause if it ain’t, maybe I’m in the wrong universe.
WTF, why would it be male bashing to say you think female comedians’ comedy is as universal as males’? That’s nuts.
*tmi - giant, flappy labia
I believe the title comes directly from the British expression “Queer as a clockwork orange”. Although I also understand that the book was somewhat inspired by his wife’s rape.