Women Aren't [Supposed To Be] Funny

I just read an article about this Oprah clip on NYmag. At first glance at the article title ("Jane Curtin Says John Belushi Was a Total Sexist"), I was like "Well DUHHHHHHH!" But that's when the "women aren't funny" idea started dancing in my brain, and now I can't get it to stop. I should point out that I've only been able to load about ten seconds of the clip so far, so I've only watched Chevy Chase bring up sketches about "women's issues." I'm excited to see the rest, but I can only really speak to the first few seconds of the video. Don't worry, it's more than enough.

It's no secret that the early years of SNL provided an uncomfortable atmosphere for women. Chase, Belushi, and Lorne Michaels were infamous rumored misogynists, maybe not in a universal sense but certainly within the realm of comedy. I still haven't read all of Shales and Miller's Live from New York (a supercomprehensive oral history of SNL), but I've read bits and pieces and they generally support this depiction of women - that they weren't particularly funny. 

fig. 1

Before I even get to my own point, I've already gotten stuck in this logic. The early women of SNL ran the gamut of funny in my opinion (with Gilda as emperor and Laraine as fence post), but I'd have to say that none of them was a big-time sex symbol. I mean, Jane Curtin was pretty, but she definitely wasn't sexy, and neither were any of the other original girls. So it's clear to me that they didn't book this gig by being sexpots (see fig. 1). 

But why else would they have been cast in a comedy show? Because someone in charge of the show, like Lorne Michaels, considered them funny? But that's the opposite of what I thought he thought! Potential solution: I was wrong about Lorne Michaels, and his extant working relationship with Tina Fey proves me wrong further. Regardless, at least SOMEBODY thought these women were funny. Because they sure weren't boner material in a strictly visual sense, yet they still made it on the air.

I digress. My own point has more to do with John Belushi and where he must have been coming from when he said "women are just fundamentally not funny" (according to Jane Curtin). One of the most significant differences I can see between 1975 and now is how women are perceived by society at large. In '75 there was still a lot of Housewife vs. Whore duality, and it just wasn't widely accepted yet that women were, in fact, thinking human beings just like men. I was lucky to grow up during a time when people (for the most part (but then again, I wasn't hanging out with anyone from SNL during the late 80s)) accepted that basic fact. I had some gender-specific toys, but I was never made to feel like I would get stuck forever in some repressed feminine role. I was told that I was just as good as boys at whatever I set my mind to and that I could have whatever kind of job I wanted, and of course all of this led to some serious shock when I graduated college, but that's not the point. My point is that what sets modern women apart from women forty years ago is the public's perception of them and what they should be focused on. "Fundamentally," they weren't supposed to be funny.

So in 1975 John Belushi was hanging out on set, believing all women were about as funny as his mother (who was probably actually pretty funny), pooh-poohing sketches by female writers because, as Chevy puts it on Oprah, their bits were largely about "women's issues." First of all, "women's issues" already sound like a comedy GOLDMINE to me. What on earth were those sketches about, surprisingly heavy periods and how to be jealous of your friends? But everyone knows periods are! not! funny!!! And John Belushi and Chevy Chase did NOT want to hear about them! Secondly, here's something that actually isn't funny: "I'm a zit, get it?"

I happen to really like (the funny parts of) Animal House, but I have to tell you, I've been trying for 25 years and I still don't think John Belushi playing a human zit is all that funny. I want to, but I just can't. This is only a guess, but maybe the intrinsic joke is waiting for the debutante across the table to get grossed out? Because it's funny to gross out girls? I'm still trying to figure it out. But I think the human zit quandary illustrates a big facet of his mindset: Belushi, undeniably loveable despite his reputed personal opinions, clung to the tenets of perceived gender roles in order to play Bluto. What's more guyish than a fatass alcoholic? And what's more funny than a fatass alcoholic with great comic timing and a rubber face? It's like Belushi's Law of Comedy = the natural schlubbiness of his gender + exaggeration + tons of booze.

That's my explanation for Belushi's opinion. In his mind, it might have been a "girls play girly girls, guys play guys' guys, and never the twain shall meet" situation. Obviously this is only a rudimentary idea based on my limited knowledge of what was really going on back then, but I'm really trying to get to the bottom of this idea about women not being funny. It seems to me that women weren't SUPPOSED to be funny. That just wasn't the role they were there to fill.

There are a million reasons to love Tina Fey, but I think my favorite thing about her is that she's just "a comedian." No qualifiers, no distinctions. She's obviously a woman (and an attractive one at that, and that's a whole other situation), yet she's more than capable of doing comedy as "one of the guys." The fact that she's not choosing, that's she's simply a hilarious person, is a great sign. She may not have been the first woman to realize that she could be funny without checking in with her femininity, but she's one of the first to be praised for it this publicly. Hopefully, more of that will lead to more little girls realizing that they can make jokes about whatever they want when they grow up - including periods.

And frankly, I think that if I could reanimate John Belushi just for a day (and if his zombie self were even capable of laughter), I could make him laugh at women's issues. That shit writes itself.