Women in Comedy
Like I’ve said plenty of times before, I am not perfect and I have been directly curated from the society that raised me. I sometimes forget that when a sexist thought comes into my head it isn’t because I believe these thoughts, but because I was taught to believe these things. Sometimes the sexism comes from learned ideas past adolescence. I like to think of this as gender malleability. Meaning the thoughts are what predominant voices say to be true and the mind follows the lead to mold into these gender specifics. This came up recently when watching a Netflix special that featured a female comedian. At the very beginning I thought that her jokes were subpar, kind of nothing special, but then the jokes split through this bias. I had to pause in the middle and start to think if I didn’t find her funny at the beginning because of her jokes or because she was a woman. There is a societal belief among men that “women aren’t funny”, that somehow they lack the understanding to be. Which I have always found as ridiculous as my sisters and their friends are the funniest people I’ve met. My first girlfriend made me laugh hysterically and my latest girlfriend knows me so well she could make one sound and I’ll be splitting at my sides. So where does this idea come from? My mind goes back to jesters in the king's court and how they were given the job to make their king laugh or keep them entertained. Also in early plays where men would play female parts instead of hiring female actresses. In their minds there wasn’t any room for women in the arts. But as the 20th century progressed we began to see more women on television portraying hilarious roles. Shows like I Love Lucy, where Lucille Ball would be the star of the show and entertain hundreds of thousands of people. Then we can see comedians breaking through like Joan Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg, and Wanda Sykes. All of these comedians made jokes in a heavily male dominated industry which they broke through to perform for the masses. But why even now, seeing all of these great people and stars growing up, do I still have an ingrained need to dismiss these talented women? I believe it's about men not wanting women to be funnier because it's a skill many men value in themselves. I don’t see myself as lesser if someone is funnier than me, but men whose egos might be easily bruised will take a heavier beating. Believing that women might take over the world of comedy and leave us in the dust. This says more about how men feel in a world that is just allowing women to become more active players. With more women getting better jobs, graduating and going to college, and escaping the role of the caretaker. Men feel threatened by this change, and when they feel threatened they start to close off access to once gender neutral grounds. This can look like men telling women they aren't funny to keep them out of comedy or it can look like men killing women in the army for just existing. The more fear that fills men up the more close minded and violent they become with careers they believe are male dominated for a reason. So your mind isn’t right when you believe that women aren’t funnier, it's this need to control something that will eventually be even. This worry that a gender will take all the space for a role is ridiculous. There is a lot of room in a company for all different types of people, and you might want to rethink if you didn’t get hired because they just gave it to a woman and start thinking if you are qualified enough for a role to begin with. Relating back to comedy, they made it on the Netflix special for a reason. With years and years of hard work and being told that they aren’t funny enough, or not relatable enough for a male audience. They got to where they were in life because they were great and not because they were given it. I can now see where my thinking went awry and in the near future I hope to watch many more female comedians and grant myself the opportunity to laugh to my heart's content.
