Stand-up seems to be the golden standard with which we measure just how funny someone is (or is not). It seems to be by this golden standard that women have failed (or at least not conquered the way men have). So, maybe stand up lends itself more to men, but aren't there other kinds of humor? Why is this the way we measure a successful comic?
As the selections we read for this week prove, women can be funny in print. (I think they can be funny in stand-up, too, but so many of the examples we watched felt forced, out of place, like they were trying to fit in at the boys club they didn't belong to.) Women can also be funny in situational comedy, which I think parallels with many of the stories we read recently.
"Xingu" and "The Petrified Man" are good examples of this sort of situational humor. In both of these stories, the narrative revolves around character interaction. The humor is largely in creating the characters and the back-and-forth dialogue that transpires between them. We see this constantly in sit-coms.
I was reading a piece once (though I cannot remember the title or author, I know, what a horrible grad student!) that talked about the difference between women's mode of composition and men's. Women were more circular, less direct. If women write differently, is it any wonder that they would be funny differently as well. If women "cannot be funny" as some of the critics of female humor have said, then it's because we're measuring from a very narrow perspective.
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Or perhaps we are measuring from a primarily male perspective and when using male rules women come up short. If methods of approaching humor differ by gender, it follows that appreciation and hermeneutics would differ as well.
ReplyDeleteOur continued discussion about humor reminds me of a less gendered discussion about intelligence. Definitions of intelligence changed throughout history, and at some point, people discovered there were different types of intelligence, ways of knowing, and meaning-making. Perhaps humor parallels that understanding. There are different types of humor and comedy for different purposes and intents. I think most people would argue that women can create at least some of those types of humor and might be better at them.