In 2007 Vanity Fair published a celebrated article by Christopher Hitchens, Why Women Aren’t Funny.
Our thanks to the good people at UK Men’s Rights Action, our official supporters’ Facebook page, for this. An extract:
After consulting writers, producers, agents and performers, [J4MB: Not, of course, viewers, who don’t give a rat’s a*** about the gender of comedy writers, and nor should they] “the first thing I did was I changed my terms of commissioning,” she told Channel 4’s Diverse Festival in Bradford on Monday. “I won’t commission anything with an all-male writing team.”
Ms Schuster has launched a scheme called Comedy 50:50 to encourage more female comedy writers. She said female writers struggle because:
- It is difficult to compete for jobs with men who have more writing credits [J4MB: Oh dear, we can’t make life “difficult” for female comedy writers, by expecting them to compete with experienced comedy writers, most of whom are men. We need more white runners in the Olympics 100 metre sprint final. Black runners have been privileged for WAY too long, since at least Jesse Owens]
- They can’t find producers who “get” their voice and can develop their script to its full potential [J4MB: They’re probably not funny, then. If they were, why would their scripts have to be “developed”, presumably to make them funny / funnier? And who would have to do the “developing”, anyway? Men, probably, who’ll go uncredited.]
- They don’t thrive as the lone female voice in a writers’ room [J4MB: Possibly because they’re not remotely as funny as the men. Unfunny men would face a similar problem. Katherine Ryan would have no problem.]
UK Men’s Rights Action, our official supporters’ Facebook page, is here.
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