Pretty Women.

Alessandra Stanley, the New York Times’ TV critic, has a huge piece in this month’s Vanity Fair with this thesis:

“It used to be that women were not funny. Then they couldn’t be funny if they were pretty. Now a female comedian has to be pretty—even sexy—to get a laugh.”

This thesis is not true.

Many of the women Stanley writes about in the piece are funny (nice to see the extremely talented Kristen Wiig getting some shine). Some are not (how is Chelsea Handler getting *more* famous?). Overall, though, the achilles heel is that thesis: it’s fucking dumb.

Here’s another section-leading paragraph to ponder:
“It’s hard to remember or fathom, but there was a time when Phyllis Diller had to dress in drag to attend a Friars Club roast. There has been a epochal change even from 20 years ago, when female stand-up comics mostly complained about the female condition—cellulite and cellophane—and Joan Rivers and Roseanne Barr perfectly represented the two poles of acceptable female humor: feline self-derision or macho-feminist ferocity. (The fact that both those pioneers are now almost as well known for drastic cosmetic surgery as for comedy is either a cautionary tale or a very sad punch line.)”

Huh? Twenty years ago, was Ellen Degeneres complaining about cellulite and I missed it? How about Paula Poundstone? Those are the first two female comics I thought of from the era, and they’re both completely at odds with this crackpot assertion. Both pretty good looking, too, if not heterosexual. And you know what? Before she became a freak show, Joan Rivers was quite good looking as well.

Honestly, the article is such a fucking mess that I really have a hard time following it, much less criticising it. Amelie Gillette does a nice job mocking it over at the AV Club. Why not just read that? You won’t have to hear about how the new breed of comediennes are “almost beautiful.” (actual quote).

Anyway, none of this is an attempt to defend any of the hoary cliches about women and their alleged lack of funniness. Women most certain can be funny, and many, many women are hilariously funny. The worst part about the article is that it seems to want to make me choose between its inanity and that of Christopher Hitchens. So instead of buying into that baloney, why not check out this very old TSOYA with Dr. Joanne Gilbert talking about her book “Performing Marginality,” a scholarly (and coherent) look at women in standup.