“Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now…like right now?”
Seriously, what the hell is that? Personally, it makes me absolutely sick that Daniel Tosh would label this as “comedy,” or that anyone who would find it humorous.
Undoubtedly, there are many types of comedy. However, they all have one thing in common: a copious amount of men. This won’t come as a surprise to many, considering the fact that men outnumber women in a majority of careers.
So, what’s the deal? This may sound like just another feministic rant about how women need to be equal in the entertainment world etc., etc. But seriously, it’s a little ridiculous that women have been trying to thrust a foot in the door of the comedic world since the 19th century and they are still having minute success.
According to Forbes.com, Caroline Hirsch, owner of Caroline’s, an acclaimed comedy club on Broadway, says, “The number of female performers has hovered around 20-25 per-cent of comics, since she founded the club in 1982.”
So, the real question comes down to this: is women’s fight for numbers in comedy just another feministic cry for equality? Or is there a little more to it?
“A 2010 poll conducted by Channel 4 found that 94 out of the 100 greatest standups were men,” states TheGuardian.com.
So, while the answer is yes, there is a little more to it.
Not only are the best “comedians” men, but they also appear to be white and middle- aged. Coincidentally, white and middle-aged men also hold the seat of power in the United States. Forbes magazine exhibited an article titled, “Top-Earning Comedians of 2013,” and by some fortuitous event, 7 out of 10 of the top-earning comedians were white, middle-aged men.
According to Quickfacts, 77.7 percent of the United State’s population is white. Assuming that women and men both make up 50 percent of this figure, then that means that a majority of comedy is based around the lives and experiences of approximately 39 percent of the population.
This goes to show that comedy is just another area where white men dominate and the rest are considered insufficient. Congratulations, America: you did it again.
Another issue with women in the comedy world is that — apparently — women only speak about “female issues” which are not understandable to the general public. Many male comedians have claimed that all women talk about are issues with men, shopping, and their menstrual cycles. I’m sorry, but last time I checked, there is much more to a woman’s life than phalluses, Louis Vuitton, and tampons. On top of that, men have even gone as far as trying to eliminate female comedians altogether.
In Yael Kohen’s “We Killed: The Women in American Comedy,” Anne Beatts, a writer for SNL, states that, “John Belushi used to regularly ask for us to be fired.”
Additionally, another comparable incident could be seen on the Oprah show, where cast member Jane Curtin “claimed that Belushi tried to sabotage skits penned by female writers by performing them poorly in so that they would never make air.”
The last argument is that men need to be naturally comedic because “women don’t need to be funny to get laid.”
“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,” said Christopher Hitchens, writer for Vanity Fair.
Gil Greengross, Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, and Geoffrey Miller, Department of Psychology University of New Mexico, who conducted a study in 2011 on how humor ability reveals intelligence said, “Intelligence predicts humor ability, humor ability predicts mating success, and males show higher average humor ability.”
If you want to thump around on the stage like a Neanderthal yelling “GIT-ER-DONE!” and sounding like you have the IQ of a fence post then please, be my guest and take all the intelligence you need.
So, I assume the bottom line is women aren’t funny because we don’t have penises. Obviously, this makes us so much more subservient to the male race.
