
He said, 'women just aren't funny,' and I agreed...
6 days ago
... with those sitting with us who disagreed with him.
Sorry for the misleading title. As if I'd ever agree with someone who thinks women aren't funny.
Quick scene set:
We were by the beach on Australia Day chatting about recently released movies.
From that broader topic, we narrowed in on last month's Golden Globes – the winners, the losers, and the amazing host. Who, we all agreed upon, was amazing.
All except for this one dude.
I'm not going to use his real name, but I probably shouldn't just call him 'dude,' because that's disrespectful, so let's call him... Vincenzo-Tom (V-T). Even though he wasn't Italian. And doesn't look like a Tom.
"I thought the host was horrible," Vincenzo-Tom said. The host being Nikki Glaser. "Not that she could help it."
"Why couldn't she help it?" asked one of the girls in the group.
"Because she's a woman, and women just aren't funny."
I let the girls respond to his ridiculous statement first, before I went all Madeleine Wu and Ryan Lafferty from Dartmouth College (World University Debating Champions of 2025) on his a***.
Those in the room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel certainly found Nikki Glaser funny, and the response by critics and those on social media was overwhelmingly positive. As it should have been – Glaser nailed it, in large part because she used a number of proven joke types:
Observational;
Anecdotal;
Irony;
One-liners;
Self-deprecation and;
Misplaced focus, among others.
Much like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did when they nailed hosting the Globes from 2013 to 2015.
"Except that Nikki, and Tina and Amy, had writing teams who did most of the heavy lifting for them," Vincenzo-Tom countered.
He was right, but being funny doesn't just begin and end with the writing; you've got to be able to deliver the jokes, as all three – Nikki, and Tina and Amy – did, and have done, time and time again.
Not that I'm disregarding the fact Fey created and wrote Mean Girls and 30Rock (as just two examples), Poehler wrote episodes of Parks and Recreation, and Glaser has written numerous stand-up specials.
To further support my argument, I listed more women with exquisite comedic talent:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Kirsten Wiig.
Elizabeth Banks.
Jane Krakowski.
Kaley Cuoco.
Jenna Fisher.
Toni Collette.
The late Betty White for crying out loud!!!
But Vincenzo-Tom's responded by echoing his initial declaration, "Yeah, and none of those women are funny."
A couple of women in our group began to take V-T's stance personally, so I suggested changing the topic of conversation, which we did, but not before V-T naively tried to soften his take on the previous topic, "It's all subjective anyway."
I say 'naively' because women being funny is not subjective. It's objective. It is not something based on opinion, feelings or perspectives. It is based on evidence.
And as it just so happened, Vincenzo-Tom validated evidence of women being funny some five minutes later, when the woman sitting next to him said...
"Like the time we were having burgers for lunch and I asked my boyfriend to get mince from the shop, and he came back with a tube of Mentos."
... and Vincenzo-Tom laughed.
I didn't wish to embarrass him in front of the group, and point out he'd just found a woman funny, but I mentioned it to a couple of the girls later.
And told them I'd have probably got mints, not mince, from the shop as well.
Footnote: I've been asked who Stewart Granger was and why he's on the featured image for this column. I should have explained, sorry.
Stewart Granger was a British actor who played the lead male role in the 1948 British film Woman Hater. It's a romantic comedy with a very funny Edwige Feuillere playing Granger's love interest, and concludes with a happy ending.