Tina Fey is too funny to be a girl.
Girls aren’t funny. We’re not. Really. Everyone knows this. It’s canon.
Jay and I spent the weekend playing video games (we HAVE to, he says, “it’s research”), but we managed to tear ourselves away for a couple of hours to watch the first season DVD of “30 Rock.” We were late to the party on this one, but holy crap, what a great fucking show. When “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” came out at the same time…on the same network, with the exact same concept…I pretty much pooh-poohed “30 Rock.” If I was gonna watch a behind-the-scenes comedy sketch show, I was betting on Sorkin. Then it turned out that Aaron Sorkin was a massive, ego-wanking douchebag. Ragingly masturbatory, preachy rants didn’t seem so bad on “The West Wing,” as politics naturally lend themselves to preaching, rage, and masturbation. However, if you make a show that’s “saving” television through the magic of comedy, you might want to make it, you know, funny. We deep-sixed the thing two episodes in, it was just that painful, but apparently we’re a little more prescient than the NBC programmers who let the crap-fest quietly finish out a good 13 episodes of self-righteous, audience loathing doggerel. Suck it, Sorky.
Anyway, back to “30 Rock.” Everything Aaron Sorkin did wrong, Tina Fey rocked out of the goddamn park. Absolutely brilliant. It’s a pitch-perfect show, top to bottom. If you’ve worked in entertainment (me), are a comedy writer (Jay), or have ever lived in New York (Jay, me, our dogs, couple million other people), “30 Rock” is like looking in a painfully real, utterly hilarious mirror. Even if you haven’t done any of those things (you’re a better person because of it), the show is still the smartest, funniest thing on television right now. And it was created and written by a GIRL.
Tina Fey is my new girl crush. I can’t make her have my babies, of course. But I’d like my husband to knock her up. Knock her up real good.
Thinking about how great “30 Rock” is, I found it really sad that when a Vaginal-American does something that’s legitimately hilarious it shocks the hell out of me. I mean, the whole “girls aren’t funny” thing should have gone the way of “black people hate swimming” by now, right? It’s a blanket statement, a stereotype. Surely there are plenty of exceptions. But goddammit, if it is just a stereotype, then why do so many female comedians (I refuse to say “comediennes”) suck? REALLY suck. And even if you find a chick that is funny, she’s just not as funny as a guy.
Sarah Silverman is funny. Or she can be. You’ve got this super cute but not traditionally gorgeous chick saying completely awful things. I don’t want to denigrate the act she has, because it really is good. Her show is awful, and she’s best in small doses, but Silverman is legitimately funny. I like Sarah Silverman, but Tina Fey is a fantastic writer and has the kind of comedic timing that makes me want to stab her in the throat from pure jealousy. She’s that good.
And those are the only professionally funny women I can think of off-hand. Oh, and maybe that chick who started “The Daily Show,” but even that didn’t get really good until Jon Stewart came in.
The thing is, girls don’t have to be funny. I think that cuts to the core of the issue in a nutshell. We got vajay-jays. We’re judged by other standards, we don’t NEED to be funny.
Think back to high school. Think of the guys that were athletic, good looking, and had loads of personality. Those three guys got laid. Everybody else had to be funny. It was the only way they could get someone to pay attention to them.
Girls don’t have that. Think of the ugliest, dumbest, most hideous woman you’ve ever met in your life. That woman, should she so desire, can get laid any time she wants. It won’t be pretty, but she can get some. That is the power of the vagina. We don’t have to be witty, interesting, intelligent, or by any stretch of the imagination attractive…by merely possessing a squishy pink wet thing between our legs, we can make some guy out there toss us a high hard one.
Dudes don’t have that advantage. So guys developed humor. Smart funny, dumb funny, weird funny…all of it came about because somebody sucked at football and needed to get laid. You might not be the strongest or smartest, but you could be funny. And sure, a couple girls needed that coping mechanism just as badly. In high school, I was a 4’10” brace-faced four-eyes with a limp - you bet your ass I’m fucking hilarious. But fewer girls had the type of experiences (wedgies and swirlies being a near exclusively male domain) that create the roiling resentment, cynicism, and burning frustration that is the creative cauldron of really good comedy.
And guys value that comedy over everything because they EARNED it. If I tell Jay I have a smoking hot fantasy about Clive Owen whisking me off to a magical sex island, he won’t blink an eye. If I told him another guy made me laugh really hard at the dog park, he would freak the fuck out. Now I think my husband is incredibly attractive (and I’m not just saying that because he will read this and Christmas is coming up and I want some big ass diamonds), but my insistence that he’s the funniest guy in the world is what keeps him married to me.
Sure, women value humor, too. The most common response to “What the hell do you see in that guy?” is invariably “He’s really funny!” rather than “He’s got a trust fund and a dick that looks like a baby’s arm holding an apple.” Girls like to laugh. And they like to THINK they’re funny. “All my girlfriends say I’m hilarious after my third green apple Cosmo-tini!” In the end, though, we just don’t have the same appreciation, or need for humor that guys do.
So unfortunately, when a girl decides she does want to be funny, we tend to end up with either Erma Bombecks (“Oh when will these kids pick up their laundry, am I right?”) or girls who act exactly like guys (“Look, I said “cock” and I’ve got tits! I’m AWESOME!”). The cunny crowd seems to have major difficulties developing something that is legitimately unique AND funny. Most of the female comics I’ve seen tend to stick to the gender equivalent of “Black and/or White people be talking like this.” Men are helpless imbeciles, gynecologists have cold hands, babies poop a lot. Even the “edgy” lady comics just cuss more when talking about tampons and how stupid their boyfriends are, what with their dicks and all. And it makes me sad.
Which is why Tina Fey is my new girl-crush. “30 Rock” isn’t chick humor, it isn’t guy humor, it’s just plain funny and smart and interesting. If we can get a few more like her working their way up the ranks, the bitches might have a shot. But I think it’s gonna be a bit of a wait.
In the meantime, I gotta go get me a green apple Cosmo-tini. I hear I’m hilarious after a couple of those.
I’ve watched a lot of comedy for a lot of years, and I think you’ve neglected to understand the stellar truth that 98% of comedians of any race, gender, ethnicity, ability, religion, or tribe suck rocks.
Men aren’t immune from sucking, and most do. Fat chicks are gross; my wife is fat; my fat wife doesn’t put out enough; my name is fekkin’ Raymond. There are fewer female comics on the circuits, generally, and that 98% of them blow and suck at the same time should not be taken as proof of chicks being unfunny. It should be taken as proof that people are morons, because the dudes suck and blow as hard.
But I’m mainly writing because it doesn’t make much sense to me, the women can get laid easy argument, because although it is true that even the grossest chick can be used as a cum sock, I’m not entirely sure what you think that gets the chick. Not orgasm; not love; not… well, fuck all, really. And all the fun parting gifts; maybe getting knocked up, raped, left in parts in a dumpster, herpes.
This does not seem something that I’d be thinking is an advantage, since your average wash cloth could have all the advantages of being used as stroke material, and none of the disadvantages of disease or pregnancy.
Well, maybe the same risk of being trashed.
Whereas guys have a pretty simple point and shoot mechanism which means it’s a hell of a lot easier to get the rocks off, and generally are bigger, so it’s unlikely it’ll end in their castration or death.
Sure, its harder for a guy to find a living masturbatory tool than it would be for a woman to find a dude who will masturbate in her; but stats show that women have a hard time cumming with intercourse alone… and it’s not so easy for your sex in the city chick to find someone both good at oral and manual and willing to stick around long enough to learn the controls.
So let’s compare getting off to getting off, shall we, rather than getting off to getting used? Which to my eye seems like both chicks and dudes have similar disadvantages in the field.
I think y’oughta reconsider your theory, there, it’s got some rather major holes.
Fair enough, though I might not have made it clear enough that women are the ones in CONTROL of the pussy, not just jizz socks. We got ‘em, we use them, we decide who gets to squirt their foul effusions into them. It’s power.
Some women use sex as an emotional bargaining chip (for love, a relationship, a Lexus), or just a plain physical release (have you read the Orgasm guides? It’s not THAT hard to have one, sheesh). Sure, some men are utter horndogs who treat women like garbage cans for semen. And then there’s all the men and women who simply see sex as a healthy part of a loving relationship. Freaks.
Where I was going with the whole “women can get laid anytime they want” thing was trying to point out that we don’t have the same kind of pressure to get someone in the sack that men do, and we’re judged on different standards. Was I flip and oversimplifying? Sure, but there’s a reason why no one’s hiring me to give talks on “Gender Roles in the 21st Century” at Stanford. Or hiring me to do anything, actually.
You’re totally right that there is plenty of crappy comedy from all sides, including this one.
Mostly I just wanted an excuse to google pictures of Tina Fey. She’s dreamy.
Looking past all that women can have sex anytime they want (it’s true). You’re also right about the humour thing. Mostly ugly girls develop a kind of shyness instead of developing a funny bone. You could say guys have more tendency to bone stuff when found unattractive.
I’d 30 Rock her…lolololol.
…
Sorry, I just started having regular sex again after a dry spell…clearly my comedy has suffered.
Mary Colleran here. Probably haven’t seen you since Jenny and Patrick’s wedding- or sometime around then. The other day I thought to myself, “I wonder if that drunk funny slut Karla is still posting on her website.” And lo and behold, here you are.
This is a brilliant friggin essay. I agree wholeheartedly with your theory. I can’t stop laughing about how unfunny Erma Bombeck is. “If life is full of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?!” Oh, Erma! Yer killin me.
The depths of my girl crush on Tiny Fey go to places I can’t fully comprehend. The jealousy. The respect. The delusion that we’d be great pals because she’d totally get me and think I was HILARIOUS. And then there’s that cute little scar of hers.
A baby’s arm holding an apple…you sure Jay didn’t write that line? It’s too funny for a girl.
Hey Mary, hope you’re doing well. And thank ya’. It’s good to have another lady type backing me up on my half baked theories. Just wait until I get ahold of those Zapruder tapes…I’m gonna be unstoppable.
On a serious note though:
In hindsight, I think I was a bit too apologetic to “C.M.” (what with my being all ladylike and such). In hindsight, I should have taken to task the following:
“There are fewer female comics on the circuits, generally, and that 98% of them blow and suck at the same time should not be taken as proof of chicks being unfunny.”
It’s not that there are FEWER female comics on the circuit…it’s that there are hardly ANY. And once you apply the same “98% of all comics suck” rule to them, you end up with, [drumroll please] a precious goddamn few funny chicks, and a much higher ratio of legitimately funny dudes. Where are the female Dimitri Martins? Where are the Jim Gaffigans with boobs?
So after a bit of thought, I’m gonna take back my “fair enough.” My acquiescence of C.M.’s opinion is officially retracted. I WAS right, and you’re actually wrong. You’re still totally entitled to your opinion, but at this point I think I can get more backing for my theory than your post-feminist “we’re all equally awesome” whining.
Take a moment to be completely honest with yourself. Name 10 guys that are legitimately hilarious and witty, famous or otherwise. It can be Jon Stewart, or some dude from your senior English class.
Now name 10 girls that make you laugh just as hard as the guys you just listed. Again, famous, or otherwise.
If you can honestly answer me the same amount of names for both questions, please send me their email addresses/websites. Because I’d TOTALLY love to meet them.
I agree. Completely.
I learned this sad fact of life (girls can be funny, but boys are WAY funnier than girls) when I was writing for Golden Words in the company of your hubby and some of the funniest motherfuckers I have ever met (or since met. I was the only female writer and while I knew I was funny for, you know, a GIRL…the boys were funnier. I couldn’t ever hold a candle to Jay and Matt and still can’t. Granted, I was uberfat and ugly and greasy and bespectacled in highschool, so I can definitely hold my own, humour-wise. But those guys? They’re like another LEVEL of funny.
You. Me. Tina. Three-way. Deal?
“You. Me. Tina. Three-way. Deal?”
Done and DONE.
*smokes a cigarette*
(The long elegant kind with the holder that old timey broads and hot bi-curious bitches who just had sex like to huff on.)