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| Hearsay: |
Obviously Christopher Hitchens doesn’t know any of the women I know. And good thing too, cause they’d probably hand him his tiny, limp hors d’oeuvre of a package on a Vinta cracker and force him to eat it while they all laughed and laughed.
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.”
Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about.
Nathan riffs on how ludicrous this is at his blog, making a very important point about that opening paragraph:
Zing! Snap! Seriously, if you’re trying to prove that men are funnier than women, you really ought to lead with a joke that’s actually, you know, funny.
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December 13th, 2006 at 11:06 am
I think you’re misrepresenting his argument. Hitchens’ claim that “men, taken on average and as a whole, [are] funnier than women” is just a bit of dinner-table bluster. His real point is that men try harder because they have to: “The chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex, and Mother Nature (as we laughingly call her) is not so kind to men. In fact, she equips many fellows with very little armament for the struggle.”
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being at a comedy night, you’ve had an object lesson in Hitchen’s theory. Easily ninety per cent of the “comedians” are male, and a good half of their jokes are about blowjobs. It’s pure aggression and alpha-male antler rattling. And what is that but an attempt, however lame and ill-conceived, of appealing to the ladies?
December 13th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Yeah, but there’s a big difference between “men more often try to be funny in a male-dominated career path” and “men are funnier” full stop.
I think it’s cause Hitch doesn’t want to find ladies funny. I’m a gay man, so I don’t feel emasculated when my female friends make jokes I find mindbogglingly hilarious. Dominant guys – whether straight or gay – often don’t like to lose power, and laughing at someone’s joke means that you concede a little bit of authority to the joke-teller. Most women are pretty funny to other women, to gay men and to straight men who aren’t assholes, but some guys just don’t want to hear those jokes.
This piece of misogynist, self-pitying arrogance made me feel a load of absolute hatred to Hitchens.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Well, sure, Hitchens is loathsome, but that’s a given. Doesn’t mean he ain’t right in this case. Can’t think of a lot of funny women I’ve known; or maybe they’re funny among themselves. But that’s not really a bad thing; I don’t know many unfunny women, whereas I know a lot unfunny men.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Or maybe, Jack, you just don’t get our amazingly brilliant wit. But that’s not really a bad thing.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:03 am
I wish publishers would stop giving space to the nonsense of this objectionable old has-been.
One of the things I love about my girlfriend is her sense of humour – she makes me laugh more than anyone else.
His generalisations just make him look stupid.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Christopher Hitchens set out to provoke you lot, and he obviously succeeded.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:50 am
What, Frankie, because I take issue with this pathetic excuse for an article, the fat wanker has won? Well screw that. Hitchens is a bonafide jackass, and I’ll gladly scream on every roof top to get that message across.
One good thing that has come from this piece is that it reminds some of us just how many amazingly talented, funny women are out there – stand-up comics, writers and cartoonists – and that they deserve recognition and praise.
The quality of writing in Vanity Fair has really been in decline in the past few years, but this is an all-time low as far as I’m concerned. Speaks volumnes about Graydon Carter, that he would allow such crap in his magazine.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Why would any self-respecting woman bother to be funny around that thing…
December 28th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Is that what Christopher Hitchens looks like? No wonder he gets the odd laugh.
I say men act funny to get attention. Women laugh at men to be liked. That’s it.