What it boils down to is the idea that men generally don't think women are funny. Even a lot of women don't think women are funny. Which is odd to me because most of the people that make me laugh — in real life or in the media — are women. But the problem is that many of the male directors and screenwriters in Hollywood all too often give the male characters all the jokes while the women are supposed to be the "straight man" that they bounce their punchlines off of. A movie like Knocked Up is a perfect example of this. The only ways in which women are allowed to be funny is by being dumb (any role Anna Faris has ever played) or by being slutty (Edie Britt on Desperate Housewives) or by being annoying harpies.
While I think the bromance genre is killing the one area where funny women dominate (romantic comedies), I can at least say Paul Rudd's latest film I Love You Man had great female characters. They were human, they were hilarious, and they were relatable. Rashida Jones and Jaime Pressly had me cracking up all through the movie, and about ten minutes in, when I saw the female characters weren't annoying stereotypes with no sense of humor, I immediately knew it wasn't a Judd Apatow flick.
Hopefully as more female screenwriters come to the forefront (yes I mean you, Diablo Cody) Hollywood can start to convince America what I've always known — that women are funny too.
Article comments
1 - Christine Lakatos
Great article, especially when we all need a good laugh. I love Ben Stiller and most of the movies he does, however, some of the comedy today I find way to crude. I prefer the clean comedy back when I was much younger, like Saturday Night LIve (Gilda Radner was a favorite) , In Living Color, and even Monty Python. Wish we had more of that!