I'm a little behind the eight-ball since
this article by Germaine Greer was written in March, but the subject of whether women can be funny is one I'm very invested in, since I've had a lot of personal experience--and and experienced a fair amount of opposition--in trying to disprove that. The part that hit home for me was when she mentioned briefly women in improvisational situations:
Given an opportunity to perform a finished comedy routine, a female comedian will make you laugh as hard as any man. Put her in an improvisation situation along with male comedians, and she is likely to be left speechless.
Having been in that situation, I can say that it's true. In my experience, most men do improv like stand-up--it's all about the jokes, and it's all about you--even though the entire basis of improv comedy is collaboration, to make your partner look better than you. The article made me wonder if women are "bad" at stand-up (and thus in most people's eyes, comedy) because we are more collaborative in nature. Maybe women work better when they work with someone. Most of the female comedians I know are part of duo or a group. To me, that was the fun of doing improv--seeing what we as a troupe could build, or where we could go. Unfortunately, most of the men I worked with didn't feel that way. The most crushing experiences I had on stage were not when the audience didn't laugh at what I said, but when my troupe members didn't back me up.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, girls rule boys drool. Girl power!
Also, let's go see
I Eat Pandas at WET's summer series. Only $5! One of the girls in it played Jenna to my Liz Lemon last year and she is awesome.
