The acerbic, brilliant, and clearly emotionally-stunted media provocateur Christopher Hitchens detonated a little cultural suicide bomb recently. He wrote an essay entitled: “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”
Now, he went off the rails when responding to the obvious response to such a statement. Namely, that there are, well, funny women around — including professional comedians. He answered, in effect: sure, there are, but they’re lesbians (he actually employed a different term) and Jews. Uh, case closed.
But the sturm und drang that inevitably accompanies such incendiary pronouncements, or the incendiary pronouncements would never be pronounced, cloud an interesting truth at the heart of the argument. An evolutionary truth.
The fact is, men are egregiously unattractive when compared to women. And it is only by some ingenious sleight of evolutionary hand that women aren’t compelled en masse to become gay.
So, the point is not that women aren’t funny. The point is that they don’t need to be. To fulfill their role in the biological imperative, that is, be attractive, all they need to do is show up. It’s wonderful that they do much else. But they don’t need to do much else.
Men, on the other hand, are driven by necessity to become funny. It is often said comedians are insecure, unattractive people who develop wit to compensate for other lacks. Well, men as a species are insecure, unattractive people who must develop wit to compensate for other lacks.
Humor is clearly a form of sexual play, and what is laughter if not an orgasm in the mind? A laugh is a short, surprising, violent overthrow of the stasis and status quo, a momentary release from order and structure.
“But he made me laugh.” It is a common phrase uttered by women about men otherwise deficient. And a statement never, ever employed by men when speaking about women.
So women aren’t funny, or at least they don’t need to be.
But then along comes Dorothy Parker:
I like to have a Martini,
Two at the very most.
Three, I’m under the table.
Four I’m under my host.
Now, he went off the rails when responding to the obvious response to such a statement. Namely, that there are, well, funny women around — including professional comedians. He answered, in effect: sure, there are, but they’re lesbians (he actually employed a different term) and Jews. Uh, case closed.
But the sturm und drang that inevitably accompanies such incendiary pronouncements, or the incendiary pronouncements would never be pronounced, cloud an interesting truth at the heart of the argument. An evolutionary truth.
The fact is, men are egregiously unattractive when compared to women. And it is only by some ingenious sleight of evolutionary hand that women aren’t compelled en masse to become gay.
So, the point is not that women aren’t funny. The point is that they don’t need to be. To fulfill their role in the biological imperative, that is, be attractive, all they need to do is show up. It’s wonderful that they do much else. But they don’t need to do much else.
Men, on the other hand, are driven by necessity to become funny. It is often said comedians are insecure, unattractive people who develop wit to compensate for other lacks. Well, men as a species are insecure, unattractive people who must develop wit to compensate for other lacks.
Humor is clearly a form of sexual play, and what is laughter if not an orgasm in the mind? A laugh is a short, surprising, violent overthrow of the stasis and status quo, a momentary release from order and structure.
“But he made me laugh.” It is a common phrase uttered by women about men otherwise deficient. And a statement never, ever employed by men when speaking about women.
So women aren’t funny, or at least they don’t need to be.
But then along comes Dorothy Parker:
I like to have a Martini,
Two at the very most.
Three, I’m under the table.
Four I’m under my host.
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