Salon’s Broadsheet (you’ll have to go through an ad) eviscerates Christopher Hitchen’s essay in this month’s Vanity Fair about why women aren’t funny. It’s not worth adding to their arguments—or Feministing’s, or Echnide’s—because a) they’ve more than gotten the job done and b) the entire piece is so obviously, patently about provocation that I feel a little guilty even drawing attention to it. But! If you read this and thought “But I’m a woman, and I’m funny,” and if you happen to be a member of the tribe, then you should be aware that Hitch thinks you’re an exception. To wit:
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. When Roseanne stands up and tells biker jokes and invites people who don't dig her shtick to suck her dick—know what I am saying? And the Sapphic faction may have its own reasons for wanting what I want—the sweet surrender of female laughter. While Jewish humor, boiling as it is with angst and self-deprecation, is almost masculine by definition.
What's curious about this is that his entire argument rests on the idea that women, being the wombier sex, are too close to the seriousness of reproduction to appreciate a good joke. Does that mean that Jewishness — with its angst and self-deprecation, two qualities never associated with any women — somehow negates being a messy, reproducing female? Because if so, ladies, than perhaps there's a cheaper alternative to Seasonale.
(Weak joke? Sorry, I was distracted by my fallopian tubes.)
Hiya, Might I copy your photo and use that on my site?