accidental feminist

women in comedy- more thoughts March 5, 2007

Now that I am back in the world of comedy and improvisation, I’ve been hearing a lot of opining about the role of women in comedy. Some of the things I have been hearing
* You’re the funniest non-lesbian woman I know.
* You will have a better chance of making it in the improv word because they always need “strong women”.
* “Ladies, fight the power” (a photo in TImeOut Chicago of something Tina Fey wrote on the Green Room wall at Second City)
* Lesbians do stand-up; straight girls to improv (yeah, that might have been the same person from comment #1; okay, we get it…)

At any rate, this is all very interesting to me, and I wonder how far women have come in comedy. Can we walk out onto an empty stage and assume some universal, everyman (loaded term) role, or are we relegated to a necessarily female persona? Are we expected to be not quite as good as our equivalent male counterparts, but it’s okay, because it’s so impressive just to see us actually be pretty funny sometimes?

All I know is, I have met some damn fine improvisers over the past year, and I’d say they split about equally down gender lines. Maybe I just happen to have been lucky enough to have come in with a new crop of exceptionally talented women. So is comedy affirmative action still a reality; and is it really a compliment to be told: “You’re so funny, for a woman!”