deep-throated mirth
This may be only tangentially related to being single, unless you suspect that antiquated ideas of men and women interfere with your pursuit of an equal partnership. Recently, Christopher Hitchens made the claim that women aren't funny.
Be your gender what it may, you will certainly have heard the following from a female friend who is enumerating the charms of a new (male) squeeze: "He's really quite cute, and he's kind to my friends, and he knows all kinds of stuff, and he's so funny … " (If you yourself are a guy, and you know the man in question, you will often have said to yourself, "Funny? He wouldn't know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce béarnaise.") However, there is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: "She's a real honey, has a life of her own … [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] … and, man, does she ever make 'em laugh."Lovely. Hitchens tries to be charmingly subversive with his explanation that might as well have been written on a Vegas marquee for the way it seems as if he's saying, "Hey! Hey! Did you see that? Did you see how I twisted that around? Eh? Eh? Did you see it?"
Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about.
If I am correct about this, which I am, then the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of women. Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates. This is the unspoken compromise. H. L. Mencken described as "the greatest single discovery ever made by man" the realization "that babies have human fathers, and are not put into their mother's bodies by the gods." You may well wonder what people were thinking before that realization hit, but we do know of a society in Melanesia where the connection was not made until quite recently. I suppose that the reasoning went: everybody does that thing the entire time, there being little else to do, but not every woman becomes pregnant. Anyway, after a certain stage women came to the conclusion that men were actually necessary, and the old form of matriarchy came to a close. (Mencken speculates that this is why the first kings ascended the throne clutching their batons or scepters as if holding on for grim death.) People in this precarious position do not enjoy being laughed at, and it would not have taken women long to work out that female humor would be the most upsetting of all.
In Sunday's Washington Post, Gene Weingarten responded to Hitchens' claim by gathering rebuttals that prove the opposite.
Hitchens has written what is perhaps the most forward-thinking essay of 1918. - Mandy Stadtmiller
He asks: "Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she's just had?" Well, sure. How about a detailed analysis of potential NFL draft picks? A description of every step (and misstep) taken in upgrading one's operating system or wiring one's home theater? No, wait. How about a staggeringly pompous, interminable, uninformed, dishonest spasm of intellectual chicken-choking in a major magazine? How 'bout that? - Sarah W. Gaymon
Some people have argued that Hitchens was employing an old journalistic table-turning trick or that he was trying to incite women to demonstrate that they indeed have no sense of humor. Others thought he's jumped the shark and has very little left to say of relevance or recognize that he probably does speak for many men. Your thoughts? (I personally find women hilarious.)
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3 comments:
After completing Hitchens' article, dashing to the toilet to retch, and then finishing the post, I grabbed my Nicotrol and inhaled deeply to soothe the nerves. Speaking of "not funny," did anyone emit a giggle reading that slop? Women aren't funny because they can bear children. Fabulous argument and very comical. Provocateur, indeed. "If I am correct about this, which I am..." Obviously, Vanity Fair is paying him too much per word for this harebrained regurgitation. Had Hitchens delved more deeply into why our society doesn't value humor in women and has a hard time laughing at what an attractive (er, not "hefty or dykey or Jewish") comedienne is parlaying, perhaps he could have done more than simply provoke but then that would have required putting his cocktail down. My vote is that this wishy-washy neoconservative nutbag (Left, right, left, right) or, more accurately, self-serving hypocrite has "little left to say of relevance." Women are hilarious but it requires listening, Hitchens.
isn't humor in the ear of the receiver? in other words, perhaps SOME men don't find women funny because they have no sense of humor themselves, whereas SOME women often find men funny because they find many other sad things to be funny as well. I personally find this "Hitchens" character to be downright hilarious, although perhaps not in the way that he intends.
Hitchens obviously never reads Go Fug Yourself (http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/). Them are some funny women.
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