Women Can Be Funny

Women aren't funny, that's what I'm told.  I'm not sure when that became the popular sentiment but it seems to be viewed as common knowledge.  I have very recently watched Bridesmaids, a movie that is currently the highest grossing female comedy beating out Sex and the City (ugh).  That right there is a reason women are universally panned as being not funny, they enjoy Sex and the City, also they think Sarah Jessica Parker is beautiful.

I'll be honest, I really enjoyed Bridesmaids and not as a movie where women are funny but as a comedy.  It had its slow moments but it is rare to find any movie that is brings it from start to finish.  What I will say is that I liked this movie, I'm not going to run out and buy it on bluray but I'll be damned if I'd say it didn't make me laugh. I said as much on Facebook last night and received a few comments to the contrary and it got me thinking about this idea that women aren't funny.

It is true that you rarely see a woman in comedy that isn't meant to just stand there as an object of lust for one of our male protagonists or is clutching her pearls in horror at the hijinks that are being laid out before her.  I'm also reminded of the term "the hole" that I first heard while listening to O&A to describe the woman on a radio show who's job it is to say "oh that's not nice" or "stop that" whilst laughing at something crude being said by the men on the show. 

Won't somebody think of the children?

I argue that women can be funny, sadly my first example was born in 1926 but that doesn't make her less funny or my example any less valid.  Cloris Leachman was a staple of some of Mel Brooks' finest movies.  If you've seen her in Young Frankenstein as Frau Blucher (neigh) or most recently as Maw Maw in Raising Hope you'd have to agree that she is one funny lady.  Never afraid to reach the absurd or ugly herself up, she was a woman that could hang with the boys.

He vas my boyfriend!

I can continue on with examples of women that I personally feel are funny like Madeline Kahn, Amy Sedaris, Tiny Fey, Kerri Kenney, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jane Curtin, Catherine O'Hara, Jane Lynch, etc.  but what would that prove?  If anything it proves that for every woman I can name there are probably 5 men that I can add. Maybe it isn't that women aren't funny but rather they aren't asked to be. 

I think most women would rather be told they're beautiful than told they're funny.  A woman would rather walk into a room and be longed after rather than laughed at.  Is that true?  Perhaps to a point, and maybe that's the problem.