Soporific Marie Claire article

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on July 19th, 2009

What famous comedian said the following:

“I remember seeing beautiful girls do stand-up, and it was a disaster every time. Not only were people not gonna listen to you because you’re a woman, if you’re good-looking, people really don’t want to listen to you. “

Was it:

A. Jerry Lewis

B. Milton Berle

C. Orson Bean

D. Margaret Cho

E. None of the above

If you answered “D. Margaret Cho,” then you’ve obviously read the latest yawn-inducing article in Marie Claire entitled, “We’ll Show You Who’s FUNNY.”

Written by Yael Kohen (no doubt at the suggestion of an extremely unimaginative editor), the article gathered quotes from “the pioneers, the visionaries, and the chemically imbalanced.” That’s a real knee-slapper, that there! The chemically imbalanced! What? Were the editors a little cranky because it was their time of the month?!?? Bang! Zoom! Fight stereotypes with stereotypes, we say!

Perhaps these articles wouldn’t be such snoozers if they tried to emphasize the positive. If they resisted the temptation to stroll down memory lane, to dwell on the bad old days, the articles might serve a purpose.

This Leno quote could have served as a jumping off point for a positive article:

They used to say in the ’60s and ’70s that if you were an attractive woman, you couldn’t be a comedian because it would be really distracting. Well, I think Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman and others have proved that wrong. Now you have a generation of women that doesn’t have to do self-put-downs. They talk about exactly the same subjects as male comics– drinking, carousing, dating.

It just might be that victimhood sells magazines. Especially in a magazine whose theme (according to Wikipedia) is “More than a Pretty Face.” Right away, the mag is defensive. (And, notice that the title of article is mildly defensive as well.)

One of the few who makes sense in the piece is Jay Leno.

We have two female writers on the show out of 20. You don’t get a lot of women submitting. I’m talking joke-writing, like two-guys-walk-into-a-bar gags. That tends to be primarily male.

Hear that, female comics/comedy writers? Start submitting. Whaddya know… practical information buried in a giant sobfest.

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