Christopher Hitchens says Women aren't funny
 

Blowhard extrodinaire and ex left wing nut current right wing nut Christopher Hitrchens just wrote an essay for Vanity Fair on why Women aren't Funny.

Here's the lead.

"Be your gender what it may, you will certainly have heard the following from a female friend who is enumerating the charms of a new (male) squeeze: "He's really quite cute, and he's kind to my friends, and he knows all kinds of stuff, and he's so funny … " (If you yourself are a guy, and you know the man in question, you will often have said to yourself, "Funny? He wouldn't know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce béarnaise.") However, there is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: "She's a real honey, has a life of her own … [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] … and, man, does she ever make 'em laugh.""

What a bloated, idiotic sack of crap. Now, while I almost Always think Hitch is a fuck, he usually writes (and writes well) from behind a wall of being smarter and better informed than anybody you know.

This foray, however, takes him into new territory, a field he knows shit all nothing about.

I've worked in comedy my entire adult life. Some of the strongest comic voices I've worked with have been women. Yes, there have been more men, but there are all sorts of reasons for that and Hitch isn't saying women are less funny, he's saying they aren't funny. Fuck that noise, and fuck the old gas bag for thinking you don't need to know what funny is to hold forth on it.

Amy Sedaris
Amy Poehler
Catherine Ohara
Cheri Oteri
Gilda Radner
Lucile Ball
Gracie Allen (who was a fucking genius)
Paula Poundstone
How about 30 Rock, whose writting that show?

And those are just my damn favorites. I would suggest the reason Hitch doesn't know any funny women is that he's repulsive.

My girlfriend's hilarious and her journalism teacher thinks she could be the next dan bell (some famous syndicated humor writer, not sure if the name is right) or some crap. I'll admit many of the girls i know have no, or a very poor, sense of humor but I think that has more to do with how they are raised than anything having to do with the ability of women to make jokes.

From what I can see from the excerpt you gave us, he's merely being sexist to be sexist, but trying to dumb it down by saying something that wouldn't necessarily jump at us as being a sign of his conception of female inferiority, that being that they aren't funny. Which, as you have stated, is utter bullshit, as some of the best comics in the business are women.

He's obviously out of touch with reality, or humor in general just goes over his head.

Very true. However, there's also differing senses of humor among people. While something may not be funny to you or I, it may be hysterical to someone else, such as the comic's primary audience. I have a hard time immediately saying "that person's not funny", because while he may not be funny to me, there's easily someone who may find him funny no matter how stupid I think he/she is.

That's true but there's also different qualities of humor. Some people like unwitty, cliche forms of humor like white girls (the only funny thing about that movie was the guy who kept hitting on one of the whitegirls) or something whereas other people would find that boring and cliche :( Usually when people like white girls I think of them as having a bad sense of humor, kind of how you can have bad taste in food or wine or art or something.
You know they say those that have "good taste" in anything will generally have better taste in everything. Not that they are superior or anything, just that they are inherently more suited for sensing details or something.

also don't forget guys thousands of years ago humour=temperment/personality. You know, Sanguine, melancholic, choleric and phlegmatic :O you see it in alot of old literature such as shapespeare and even more modern examples such as sociological stereotyping of body types to detect who is more likely to commit crimes and stuff.
In that sense everyone has Humour!

Wendy Liebman
Bonnie MacFarlane
Carrie Fisher
Rita Rudner
Lisa Lampinelli

That's just who I could think of in 30 seconds. Fuck that guy.

I coached Wendy Liebman once! She paid me! Yay me!

watch it, mr.jorn. i'm a white girl. >:

well maybe you shouldn't be disguised as a blackman then :rolleyes

He's a journalist, and that's a pretty closed group. I can see how he'd think that, given his circle. Name some funny female journalists.

According to old Max Burbank articles, Barbara Walters is a fucking SCREAM/

Helen Thomas.

Yeah, Helen Thomas can be funny, but she's very dry, hard to know when she's kidding.

I think Maureen Dowd is overrated, but she's got off a few good ones. hen she described Al Gore as "Practically Lactating" I busted a gut.

Molly Ivins can be pretty funny.

Ellen DeGeneres!



:(

when I was a kid I thought Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller were funny and then onto the Saturday night women and SCTV ladies...I enjoy the political comedians lately that seem to be all men.

Samantha Bee

Well, there you go I forgot about her, she is quite funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3iVI47SrEU

Don't forget Wanda Sykes!

well, my girlfriend isnt the funniest person around but one of my friends is.
she's funnier than any celebrity i can name.

Well, it looks like the ladies are having the last laugh (no pun intended), since the same magazine that printed Hitchens' editorial has Sarah Silverman, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey on the cover this month with the headline that reads, "Who Says Women Aren't Funny?"

At the bottom right hand corner, it has a photoshopped graphic of Hitchens' head and hands in a guillotine. I own the issue. It's great!

While I don't agree with Chris specifically, he's right when you consider women as a whole. Their movie tastes alone show that they don't care for spoof movies or similar comedies. They like dramatic comedies about family, love and fluffy stuff like that.

I think what Chris means therefore, is that in real life most women have the same kind of humor. I've rarely encountered a woman who makes her husband constantly laugh... instead, it's typically the husband making his wife laugh, which is kind of reflected in the media as well through their infinite 'every husband is a dumb shit' ad campaign.

Thinking back to high school, yeah- it was only guys making the girls laugh and NOT the other way around. They laughed alright, but it was at the effort guys took, not the actual humor.

Actually, you are agreeing with him specifically. That's pretty much what you do in every sentence following the one that says you don't. Which means that you're a bit of a turd. A dim, ill-informed turd, specifically.

I like simple statements like that. If you did read my opinion without insulting me for no real reason, you'll find I NEVER said 'women have no humor.' I don't know why I'm even replying to you, but for others you may accidentally convince, I was just showing that most women do have a DIFFERENT sense of humor (some other posts above agreed that lots of women have no sense of humor while I didn't even say such a thing...)

Naming 10 famous comedic women doesn't exactly convince me that they can all be funny. In reality, show me one woman like Wanda Sykes and I'll show you 20 who are not. Naturally, most men like 'stupid humor,' so if Chris is in that pile, of COURSE he'll say all women are humorless; it's just perspective.

And for every 20 women you can find that are not funny, I can find you 20 men who are just as humorless.

You are one of them.

I had plenty of reason to insult you- you feel you can classify the sense of humor of an entire gender. Just because every single woman doesn't have her own Comedy Central special doesn't mean women aren't funny as hell.

Please refrain from huffing paint before posting. That statement is so intellectually retarded that I do not have time to address everything that's wrong with it.

Usually, it takes a little time to tell when new people are going to suck on this board. Thanks for establishing that immediately!

Chicago Drew is the new Kulturkampf.