GIRLS AREN’T FUNNY*

*or are they?

In which we put this tired argument to rest forever.

THERE ARE WOMEN THAT ARE FUNNY. I get it, comedy is subjective, and we all think that different things are funny. I’m not saying that we have to agree that the SAME women are funny. I’m saying that even the most ardent non-believers can still find one or two women that make them laugh. Are most women funny? Of course not. But most men aren’t either. The difference is that most men think they are. Most men think that there is not enough comedy in the world, or at least not enough of their specific brand, so they thoughtlessly fill quiet rooms with their inane banter, thriving off of the polite snickers and random “you’re so funny” statements of “fact.” This is mostly due to the fact that nobody wants to fuck them. Meanwhile, any girl, whether she’s hot, or looks like she just fell out of the Ugly Tree, hitting every branch on the way down, only to be struck in the face by the Ugly Bus upon landing, can find some lonely dude to fuck her, whether she’s funny or not. It’s about priorities. It’s about assets, and using those assets to their highest advantage. Most girls don’t need to be funny to get attention, and most guys do. But it is undeniable that there is a large group of women out there who are smart enough to see the world as it actually is, and are able to hit the ball to all sides of the field. This group is so large, in fact, that this argument can finally be put to rest forever.

 

Alright, homies, close your eyes and imagine you’re at a bar. You came with a group of your friends, but you’re in the midst of a major dry spell. You must spit some game tonight; you can already feel the pressure. You’ve purchased a color of Axe that you’ve never worn before, hoping that it will be the intoxicating lucky charm necessary to get, at the very least, your fingers wet. You walk over to a girl, and she decides that she is going to dignify you with a few minutes of awkward, judgmental conversation. You’re on your best behavior: you ask questions, you listen, you try to only look into her eyes. She moves her body towards you, she’s suddenly more responsive. And then you realize something. The more into it she is, the more boring the conversation gets. You can hear your friends back at your table, scream/laughing harder than they ever have before, about how great the past was/future will be, and you’re missing all of it. You stay and talk (you’re going to take a bullet for your fingers), but in the back of your mind, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re missing the creation of a new catchphrase that you’ll never know the meaning of. Years from now, your friends will still be calling people “monkey bucket”, but anytime you use it, it just sounds forced and misused. Why can’t this girl be fun like they are? Here’s the thing, asshole: you don’t want her to be. As much as you are projecting an image of yourself that you think she will like, she is too. And here’s the other thing, asshole: being hilarious is not even a thought in her mind. If she was funny, you would think one of two things, depending on the kind of guy you are. If you’re a douche, you’d think she’s a nerd, and if you’re a nerd, you’d find her intimidating. You secretly don’t want her to be funny. And she doesn’t want to be funny. She wants to be a lot of things, maybe sexy or cool or walled in or above it all or nice or mean. But funny doesn’t enter into it. Funny, more often than not, means making an ass out of yourself, and not giving a shit at all what people think about you. And that’s harder for girls to do than guys.

 

Generalities and blanket statements are fun and easy. They involve no science. If you disagree with me, I’ll just think whatever I say is the case for everyone but you, and that you’re probably lying. But let’s look at some examples, to see if I can prove this anyway.

 

Bridesmaids is an important movie for a lot of reasons. It is good because it makes people laugh. It is great, because it nails the functions, and dysfunctions, of female friendships better than any movie I’ve ever seen (although it doesn’t have a lot of competition, most movies that try to do that are awful). But it’s important because it made me realize the difference between boys and girls and comedy. Early in the movie, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are sitting in a restaurant, talking about god knows what. They begin to talk about sex in a frank way. Then Kristen Wiig does her imitation of a penis in need of a blowjob. Then both her and Maya Rudolph get a bunch of cake in their teeth, and smile at each other. Pretty standard stuff, right? WRONG. Pretty standard stuff for guys to do, in a funny movie about funny guys being funny. Girls, in “funny” movies about girls, are only allowed to mildly crack wise about the salesman that is helping them try on designer shoes, all the while looking as beautiful as any other star. These two women, who are both pretty hot in their own ways, make themselves look like gross asses, because that’s what the scene called for. That’s how you get laughs.

 

I think there are some girls that are funny. But there are also girls I find terribly unfunny. Hopefully they will all work together to prove my thesis. Let’s start with the unfunny.

 

CHELSEA HANDLER

 

 

The website and the podcast have been unkind to this trainwreck since its inception. So why beat a dead whore? Because it’s fun. Handler talks about her harder times, the fact that she’s a drinker and a slut. But it’s all so controlled. She’s leaking out the information so she seems as cool as possible to her fans.

 

KATHY GRIFFIN

 

Admittedly, Kathy Griffin’s schtick, of repeating the things she saw in tabloids and reality shows in something that resembles a stand-up act, would never be my thing. But I can’t think of someone who is more concerned with their appearance than this chick. Countless plastic surgeries, all of which have created a monster much less attractive than what she looked like before, are mixed with a thriving need to prove to everyone in the room how popular she is. She’s not out to prove to people how funny she is. Just how liked and popular she is. For everyone who hates female comedians, Kathy Griffin is their dream, as she embodies everything that sucks about comedians and girls.

 

OLIVIA MUNN

 

I was unaware that this chick was even a comedian, as she has never made even remotely come close to laughing once, but she was on multiple lists of “favorite female comedians”. Oh! I get it. Because you think she’s hot. NEXT.

 

ZOOEY DESCHANEL

 

A lot of people (like everyone I’ve ever met) finds Deschanel’s mentally challenged hipster routine (or as I call it, tweetarded) adorable. Maybe, but adorable almost never translates into hilarious. The least funny person on her own show.

 

See, was that so hard? SOME chicks aren’t that funny. But check this shit out:

 

TINA FEY

 

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. While most internet fanboys are drooling over the “comedy” “stylings” of Olivia Munn, there’s one common thread between all of the people, boys and girls, that I hang out with. The girls want to be her, the boys want to marry her. She created a character on 30 Rock that she knew would not only be tied to her forever, but people would assume is just a carbon copy of her. She didn’t give a shit. Liz Lemon is a nerdy loser who would ditch out on a night of passionate sex for a night of eating cheese and farting. If you told me this before 30 Rock came out, I would have been disgusted, and thrown in my Singled Out: The Best of Jenny McCarthy DVD. Now that 30 Rock is over, it has changed my entire perception of what a dream girl should be.

 

AMY POEHLER

 

For those that only know her from Parks and Recreation, which is more than enough to make this list, check out Upright Citizens Brigade, a show she created with three other very funny guys, all of whom she crushes.

 

AMY SEDARIS

 

Sedaris might be the champion of “game for anything.” Few people know how attractive Sedaris is, as she decked herself out in awful to play Jerri Blank in Strangers With Candy. I don’t know anyone with the nuts to pull off the shit she did in this show, man or woman. Sedaris should be roughly 50 times richer and more famous than she is now. At least at Kate Hudson level, right?

 

SARAH SILVERMAN

 

It shouldn’t impress me, but it does. It impresses me when girls say that they are not going to use their cuteness and childlike personality to get all of the things they think they deserve, but instead use them to fuck with people’s brains.

 

ROSEANNE BARR

 

Roseanne is Adam Carolla’s go-to example to prove that women aren’t funny. That’s bullshit. Instead, Roseanne should be my perfect example. Not the most attractive woman in the world, Roseanne relied on an equal amount of wittiness and truthiness to represent a whole faction of unrepresented women. Then she got rich. Then she was more concerned about the way she looked. Then she wasn’t funny anymore.

 

MEGAN AMRAM

 

The queen of twitter. Check out that avatar.

 

LISA LAMPANELLI

 

I understand if you don’t think she’s that funny. I like her a lot, but she’s a little one note. But watch her on the dais of the various Comedy Central roasts, getting attacked by her fellow comedians for equal love of both food and black wiener. No one laughs harder than her. Being funny isn’t just about making the joke; it’s also about taking the joke. A heightened level of sensitivity is another thing keeping a lot of ladies down.

 

LENA DUNHAM

 

We know she’s talented, but is she funny? Girls might not have the same amount of belly laughs as other such feminist torch holders, like 2 Broke Girls, but every episode makes me laugh in a different way. And she is following in Tina Fey’s footsteps, as far as creating a character that will always be attached to her, having blurred lines between the actress and the character, and still putting it all out there for us to see.

 

You do not have to be gross to be funny. Aisha Tyler is super funny, and real, and maintains a heightened level of sexiness throughout. We don’t laugh at Melissa McCarthy because she’s fat, we laugh because she says and does funny things. She just probably learned how to do that at an earlier age than most, because she was fat.  A great example of this is Julia-Louis Dreyfus, who has never relied on being gross, or R-rated, or like a dude, but has also never relied on getting attention through T and A. I wish I had a better way to say this, given the topic at hand, but you just have to be able to put your nuts on the line. There’s no funny without risk. Lay-ups are boring. I want the slam dunk that has just as much chance of going in the basket as it does clanging against the back of the rim and shooting backwards. If you’re careful, untruthful, and too concerned about your appearance, then you’re boring, and nobody cares about what you have to say. I’ll leave you with one final example, a debate that has raged through the PopFilter Headquarters for the last four years: Brita vs. Annie. I don’t care who you want to fuck. I care who is funnier. The answer has never been clearer to me. Annie is a cute character who has a cute line every once in a while, never pushing her character any farther than an immature, pouty little girl. Brita is responsible for this:

 

So ladies, take off your Brita filter and remember you don’t always have to be Annie. Kick this reputation in the dick. And if the dude you’re talking to looks at you funny, as if you’re not being a lady, kick him in the dick, too. Just try to use funny jokes, not actual kicks. The next time you’re at a high school reunion, and your totally hunky, heartthrob crush walks up to you, don’t stammer through an exaggerated version of how great your life is. Instead, tell him that you’re a poop artist, and that you travel around the world, digging in sewers from all across the globe, trying to find the best human poop for your next project. Say all of this while shaking his hand. Say it, even though the only person that will know you’re kidding is your best friend standing behind you. Everyone else will think you’re a weirdo. But who gives a shit?

 

-Ryan Haley