funny girl
Saw this link on another blog (that of Frank Wilson, the Inquirer's book editor, in fact) and it got me to thinking. I've long held the theory that pretty girls don't develop much of a personality because, frankly, they don't need to. It's the girls like me, who spent most of puberty and adolescence hidden behind scrawy, underdeveloped bodies, thick eyeglasses or books who developed personalities because being good company to oneself was the only way to survive. That and the only way to get boys to even be seen with us was to find common ground with them.
Since none of the pretty, popular girls had a need to be into good music, sports, comic books, D&D or any other boys' domains, we could, armed with those interests, slip right in as friends. Boys are much less judgemental about looks when it comes to their friends than girls are. How many cute boys had geeky friends, versus how many pretty, popular girls had ugly friends? The boys I knew as a kid were far more accepting of me and my thick glasses, tomboy ways and voracious love of books, cartoons and Bruce Springsteen than any girls I knew.
The funny comes in because in order to hang with the boys, I had to be funny. That is the one thing most guys DO value most in their friendships. How many friends, guys, do you have that you DON'T consider funny in some way? Probably not many. Ask most women the same question, and you'll get a very different answer.
So I take exception with Hitchens' theory that women aren't funny unless they're hefty, dikey or Jewish, since I am none of the three and never have been, and I think I'm pretty damn funny. And most women think bearing children is funny as hell; just ask any of my mommy friends who've told me hair-raising yet hilarious stories of episiotemies, crapping during childbirth and post-birth sex.
Tell me what you think. Laura and Vicki, I'm interested to hear your theories on women and whether or not we're funny. Were you geeky girls like me who gravitated toward boys as friends? Or did you have girls as friends growing up, and if so, what were they like?
Comments
I was not "pretty," "popular," or "funny" in high school, I was "smart," and not in a good way, but in such a way as to guarantee social retardation. I was in a program for gifted kids in NY state that separated us out from our peers and kept us together in different classes until we graduated from high school. So there was no chance we would find any of the kids in the group attractive - we had grown up with them and they were all social morons as well. And, for the other kids in school, this was our defining characteristic; we weren't just the smart kid in the class who knew all the answers, we were the smart kids who weren't even allowed in the same class. Needless to say, I didn't date until AFTER high school.
So, explanatory notes aside, I do think after I got past that high school period, I did become "funny," or rather, I let that part of my personality show more in social situations. In my family, we always used humor to relate to each other. And later, I started using it as an all-purpose social strategy - to relate to both men and women, to make friends, to flirt. I do think I tend to get along better with men than women, but I think that is because I tend to like men better than women - except for Phaedra and Laura, cause you guys rock.
Also, I found this article horrible and unfunny and sexist.
"Whereas women, bless their tender hearts, would prefer that life be fair, and even sweet, rather than the sordid mess it actually is."
Yes, that's us women. So tender and sweet and apparently unable to even read a newspaper.
"...women also fall more heavily for dreams, for supposedly significant dates like birthdays and anniversaries, for romantic love, crystals and stones, lockets and relics, and other things that men know are fit mainly for mockery and limericks."
Women are so irrational! How charming!
"Men have to pretend, to themselves as well as to women, that they are not the servants and supplicants. Women, cunning minxes that they are, have to affect not to be the potentates."
This is the kind of sentence that I absolutely hate - "Sure, I'm distinguishing between the sexes in a horrible, black-and-white-no-middle-ground kind of way, but it's because men are the lowly ones and women have all the power." Which explains why we still make $.80 to the male dollar, and can't walk the street at night.
Also, I can not guarantee the safety of anyone who chose to call me a "cunning minx."
Posted by: Victoria | December 8, 2006 2:13 PM
Hitchens's essay reads like something from two centuries (or maybe 5 decades) ago. How is it that he even gets published anymore? what a dingbat.
Posted by: evan | December 8, 2006 3:26 PM
yeah, i read this article thinking, i don't think hitchens has ever actually met a woman with a brain. how sad for him.
i'll agree that there are tons of unfunny female comedians out there, but there are a hell of a lot of unfunny male ones, too. (Jeff Foxworthy springs immediately to mind.)
But the funny ones--old-school ones like Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett, and modern ones like Jeanine Garofalo (before she lost her mind) and Sarah Silverman are as funny as any male comedian around.
And in my personal experience, the funny women i know DO tend to be the ones who are more drawn to men than women as friends, but i'm not sure which is a consequence of which.
here's what i do know: i'm funny. my friend allison is funny. laura is funny. vicki is funny. melissa pollitt is funny. my friend eileen is funny. and all of these women are that way because they have brains and distinct, interesting personalities.
Posted by: phaedra | December 8, 2006 5:14 PM