Sunday 9 March 2008

Alcohol Doesn't Make Women Funnier (it does make the ugly-ones pretty, though)


An average man has just one, outside chance: he had better be able to make the lady laugh.
Christopher Hitchens


Following up on yesterdays promise, Mcmoogol offers his undercover piece on whether or not alcohol makes women funnier. He also wraps up the debate on women being funny in general. Seeing as last nights undercover work was in it's nature alcohol-related, this piece is written in a cloud of headaches and "hung over-ness".

Ok, so this all started yesterday when I brought you the story about the ongoing dispute between Christopher Hitchens who has proclaimed that "women aren't funny", and Alessandra Stanley who begs to differ. If you haven't read the story yet, you might want to at this point. At the end of the piece I promised to do some undercover investigating on the subject. The premise being that I find alcohol often helps people and things be funnier. I would go "undercover" and see if alcohol did make me laugh at women. I guess you've already found out my conclusion by reading the headline.

The first problem I ran in to was of course the factor I touched on yesterday, and which Hitchens points out as being his main argument. There is no need for women to impress me! I'm already impressed. Men want women to like them, whereas women already know that they're wanted. Humour is often the only thing men can use to impress women and make themselves attractive. This was also the problem last night.

I found myself continuously trying to make jokes and be funny, while the women around didn't even attempt to be funny in any way shape or form. They sat idly by while waiting to laugh at the next joke (a man) came up with. It's all on a very evolutionary scale. I guess it all comes down sex (doesn't everything?) in the end. Men go looking for it. Women doesn't have to.

For this reason the project didn't really culminate into anything. I guess other than confirming that women in general really aren't that funny. However, it also told me that this really isn't women's fault. It's biology! So I guess I'm still in Hitchens' corner in a way. But I do agree with Stanley's main point about there being many great female comediennes out there at the moment. I love the comedy of Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Susie Essman and Chelsea Handler. One does, however, wonder if I like them because they're telling men's jokes. Kind of like "I'm not a man, I just play one on TV".

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2 comments:

Dan said...

Its probably more a case that women dont get a chance to be funny as so many men are tripping themselves up for their attention. Its funny on the ship as there are usually 45 men for 3 women, so the competition for attention is intense - he who makes her laugh hardest may win the prize...

mcmoogol said...

You could a have point about the whole "they don't get a chance"-thing. However, I think I'll stick with the evolutionary-argument. It sounds so much cooler :-)