On humour and funny women

Penelope has a hypothesis. She says all funny women are gay.   

Unless she has been using the word “gay” in its original sense, when it meant happy or jolly, I have to wonder about what company Penelope has been keeping and whether she really needs to get out of Madison more! 

I happen to know some outrageously funny women, who are straight as a plumb line. Their sense of humour has a vast range, from filthy, sailor-like jokes to clean, literary puns, from terribly saucy double entendre to extremely literate, well-grounded irony. They have great comic timing and a deadpan delivery, which doubles the puissance of the punch line. Hell, they remember their punch lines! May be the common factor is their Britishness or their having been exposed to British humour from a very young age. So, there! An additional qualification to women being funny.

That said, humour does not translate across contexts or across some media. Perhaps this is why I find that when I write a post with a grand dose of irony, I get a lot of serious comments from those who, well, take it all very seriously.  

Humour also does not translate across cultures which is why one finds that even British slapstick (”Monty Python” or “Mr Bean”) is subtler than American attempts at humour (such as “Everybody Loves Raymond”, a series which begs the question “Really? Everybody? Why? Are they that desperate?” because it is not remotely funny.) My bi-lingual jokes have to be held back at times, because my English-speaking friends would just not get them. Why waste a good punch line? 

There is however some cracking humour on offer on the US version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (The idea was originally British but I do not want to harp on and on about it, you know.) I prefer the episodes anchored by Drew Carey to those anchored by Clive Anderson. Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles are funny but hats must be taken off to Wayne Brady, who seems to specialise in making up songs on the spot. An exceptional mention must be made of Frasier, where the Crane brothers are modelled on a particular, repressive style of Britishness.

Humour in the workplace, which is the original intent of Penelope’s post, is a double-edged sword, one we must try and not fall on. She says try and be funny, even if you are not. Why? Because people like funny people and funny people get promoted more often. 

She does have a point. 

The trouble however is that one either is born with a sense of humour, an absurdity gene or shows clear signs of a SOH bypass. Like leadership, there are limits to how much of it can be taught. You disagree? Have you watched Borat’s attempts at learning to be funny the American way? Clearly not! 

Being funny also is a sign of above-average intelligence. One can only make puns in real time if one’s mind moves laterally even amid a serious discussion. Such lateral thinking is also a sign that a person does not take himself too seriously and is likely to be a fun colleague to work with. Now who does not like a combination of intelligence and pleasant company?

But if you work with such a person, beware! During one of my summer jobs, I sat next to another summer intern, who made me laugh every 10 seconds. He kept a straight face and I got a reputation. I could tell you who he is but he is the CEO of a mega-TV network in India and it may not do well for his reputation now.

Back to the workplace.

More important than a sense of humour is an appropriate sense of humour.  It does not matter how much your colleagues like your sense of humour, many of them are unlikely to find jokes about their wives, girlfriends, husbands, boyfriends etc funny. The PC-police now dictates that jokes based on race, gender, colour and sexual orientation can now not be made without receiving a letter from HR. The upside? Sorting an inappropriate joke from an appropriate one requires even more intelligence in real time than the joke itself might do. 

Coming back to why Penelope thinks all funny women are gay, I think it is a combination of things.

Even in the soi-disant developed countries, most people are societally conditioned to consider an extremely intelligent, outspoken and straight forward woman an aberration. A man’s sense of humour is prized, a woman’s sense of humour is seen as covering up for nervousness or some shortcoming. A man’s joke is received with guffaws, a woman’s joke is often derided. The more probable real reason is that people are threatened by a sharper intellect, especially if it comes wearing a skirt. 

A woman, if seen as threatening, may find it hard to find a partner (yes, my funniest women friends are single too). And the speculation, that she therefore must be gay, gains ground. Why it happens I cannot say but it happens a lot. 

This however does not mean that the funny women are always gay. The funniest British female comediennes - Victoria Wood, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Shappi Khorsandi to name a few - are/ were all married to or partnered up with men. What is common amongst them is the combination of their razor-sharp smarts and their pat delivery. 

Now with all that clear as mud, here is one for you to think about.

Behind every successful man is a woman, who rolls her eyes; and behind that woman is that man’s wife. And the man? He probably wishes he were gay!