“Women aren’t funny.”
Consistently repeated and supported by journalists, comedians, and researchers, this statement is an old standby whenever someone wants to shock an audience and spark heated conversation. Though it is constantly refuted — by funny women, progressives, and common sense — this easily defeated opinion refuses to die.
At lunch recently, I was seated near a group of people talking about Kristin Wiig and how funny she is. A man in the conversation said, “I like her because – you know, normally women aren’t funny.”
When I told him he had to take it back or I was going to flip a table in Real Housewives fashion, he asked me to list funny women – like it was going to be hard. Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler, Wanda Sykes, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball – the list of famous female comedians, while perhaps not as long as that of male comedians, is still substantial and distinguished.
These are women and they are funny.
Since we all know a woman – in our family, on TV, at work, in line at the grocery store – who is hilarious, can we all just agree to let this statement go?
Instead let’s celebrate how funny women obviously are by watching the new Women in Comedy documentary coming out in June from Makers, a foundation dedicated to documenting awesome women and their achievements. Here’s some more about it:
[media url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOBo4hnk2g0”]
Sara Omary is a semi-recent grad from UC Berkeley in Marine Science and Environmental Politics who loves very little more than she loves pizza and the company of her cats.
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