Twenty or so years ago I remember a debate flaring up about whether women are funny. Jerry Lewis was quoted as saying there were no funny women comedians. Christopher Hitchens went into a whole evo-psych thing about how humor was just a male tool for finding a mate or something. New Atheists, man.
Complicating this argument is the fact that most women who think they're funny aren't. The same holds true for men who think they're funny. The sexes may differ in the various ways they're unfunny, but it's hardly an earthshaking difference. Even funny people aren't all the time. As in baseball, anyone hitting one third of the time is doing pretty well.
2 comments:
I'd have to say I never found Jerry Lewis to be especially funny and Hitchens is even less so. Finding a mate, eh?
You're right that not everyone is funny all the time and thirty percent is pretty good. Who but a man could come up with this one?
“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Of course GBS was unique.
Lewis was certainly energetic and determined as a performer, but not quite the thing for making me laugh. Hitchens eventually got to be just a sad case.
The Shaw quote is especially funny given the fact you just informed me of tonight that cricket games can go on for multiple days.
"It is so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it."
- Ronald Knox
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