Once upon a time, and quite likely in a galaxy far, far away, writers used to write stories based on actual facts. Then one day, one of them (who was probably suffering a severe case of writer's block at the time) had the following illuminatory brainwave:
Who needs facts when you can have opinions?
And Christopher Hitchens was born.
To be fair—which I don't have to be, seeing as how I, too, am a writer—I wouldn't necessarily single out Hitchens for my ire (I mean award) because he's hardly alone in the land of Writers Who Simply Spout Off. Today, though, he really deserves some special recognition, thanks to his article "Why Women Aren't Funny" in Vanity Fair, which details his entirely reasonable and scientifically supportable opinion that women are just not as funny as men.
Oh wait. That's neither reasonable nor scientifically supportable! My mistake. And Hitchens' too, as it happens.
At the risk of sounding rather humorless myself (but hey, we all know that I am absolutely not funny at all), I'm going to venture to say that Hitchens might be just a little off track with his thesis (literary term alert!). It would have made far more sense for him to claim that women have a DIFFERENT sense of humor, than to postulate that women are simply not as funny as men. And a lot easier to back up with the conglomeration of anecdotal "evidence" he compiles to support his hypothesis (which is a scientific term—see, I'm bilingual! But don't laugh, I'm not funny!).
Let's take a look at some of his observations, shall we? Here's an excerpt from the beginning of his manifesto:
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 ... 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."
Hmm, well, that's a pretty convincing premise so far. Nothing unscientific there! In fact, it makes me want to read right the heck on, fully convinced of Hitchens' formidable reasoning powers. And thus I find this intriguing bit a few paragraphs down:
In any case, my argument doesn't say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.
Wow. I am blinded by the shining light of his perspicacity. And I am also relieved to hear that women CAN be funny in Hitchens' world after all! As long as they are fat, lesbian, and/or Jewish.
Thank God. I thought for a minute there he was generalizing madly or something.
We continue on, caught in the tractor beam of his bold, bright intellect:
Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.
Well, there's a double-edged sword. Women are smart, but don't want to show it by being the hilarious creatures they COULD be, because it might make men feel threatened. Which means, I think, if I follow his argument to its logical conclusion, that women AREN'T smart (since they prefer to hide their funniness so that men won't dislike them), and that men (SOME men—let's not generalize!) are still sexist pigs.
Not that I know anything about logic, of course. Hello—woman, remember?
But now at last, we get to the joke, and oh boy, is it a knee-slapper. Surprise! Hitchens is on the side of women after all! Hahaha! Just check this out:
...the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates. This is the unspoken compromise.
So women, in case you were tempted to be upset that you aren't funny, don't be! You're the ones secretly ruling the world! All those years of repression and, in some cases, oppression were merely affectations on your part and not a representation of the true(thy) reality.
Oh, you cunning minxes, all of you!
Somehow, I have a feeling that we are not amused. But then why should we be? Hitchens' article isn't so much funny as laughable, and believe me, there is a BIG difference. On the other hand, maybe by not finding the humor in his rambling attempt at wit, I am just proving his entire supposition: that women lack a fundamentally male anatomical reference point... also known as the Funny Bone.
(Which reminds me—another literary term is double entendre. Just, you know, in case you were wondering.)
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6 comments:
My expression in this blog alternated between 0_0 and >_< and that of insane laughter.
Wow. Some guys...and he's supposedly intelligent?!
ah well, he's smart enough to have known exactly the reaction he was likely to get. my guess is that he wrote the piece the way he did deliberately, so i suppose it COULD be witty... except it just isn't, really.
i'll take dave barry's riotous explanations of the differences between genders any day, because sure, he generalizes up the wazoo, but he doesn't make any pretense that that's NOT what he does.
and besides, he's funny.
Your blog took me right back to a conversation I had a year or two ago with a male friend. Can't remember the context, but he told me, yes told me, that women are not as funny as men. And let me tell you I got seriously perturbed by his statement!
Argued with him for a while; most of his logic was based around the examples in society - there are far more famous male comedians than female. I can clearly see even now as he said in summation, "just face it becca, women are not as funny as men."
It made me mad because I think that I am pretty funny, and it seemed he was telling me I was not. Also because I know that to me funny often equals smarts. You can't be funny if you're not smart enough to connect the dot from reality to hilarity. I wonder now if it also made me mad because it seemed to dictate, and limit, my abilities simply based on my gender.
But the more I considered it the more I just chalked it up to one more undefinable question. Because really, what is funny? Are men funnier to other men because they'll all give a chuckle simply when someone farts? Are women less funny to men because they simply don't see us that way? Who knows? I do know that another friend involved in that conversation often tells me that I'm not funny because I'm a woman, even as I am bringing on the laughs. Gotta love it. ;)
becca, i hear you. my own brother said the exact same thing in a conversation i had with him today, when i told him about the article. and i think really it boils down to this question of "what is funny?"
i think it might be fair to say that women are not as funny TO men as other men are. because women just can't seem to get the hang of farting on command, or making a good joke out of some other bodily function. but does that mean we aren't funny? nah.
an interesting point in the hitchens piece, which i didn't bother to highlight because hey, why be a writer if one can't be selective with the "proofs" one uses to support one's argument, is that men are funnier because they have to be in order to attract women. for women, a sense of humor in a man is so important as to almost be paramount to the attraction (apparently, and i'll go along with that speaking for myself). for men (so hitchens says), women have the power of attraction by virtue of their, er, physical virtues.
in other words, why do women need to be funny when they already have boobs?
there's some logic for ya!
and by the way, i think you are hilarious! as you know. :)
Whoever thought up the word "Mammogram"? Every time I hear it, I think I'm supposed to put my breast in an envelope and send it to someone.----Jan King
You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.----Erica Jong
A woman's rule of thumb: if it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it. ---- Unknown
JerryNJ
*!*
LOL. thanks JerryNJ... i like the quotes. especially the last one.
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