Funny women aren’t anything new. If you don’t believe me, watch an episode of I Love Lucy, The Carol Bernet Show, or my personal favorite, The Golden Girls. Women like Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, Kirsten Wiig, and Mya Rudolph carried Saturday Night Live in the 2000’s. Today, women like Chelasea Handler, Anna Farris, Mindy Kaling, Rebel Wilson, Zooey Deschanel, and Amy Schumer are making sure women maintain a strong presence on TV while Melissa McCarthy, Jane Lynch, and Anna Kendrick continue to act on the big screen. Lena Dunham and Liz Meriwether, writers for Girls and New Girl respectively, are powerhouses when it comes to writing comedy.
Then why in is crazy world of ours are funny women not acknowledged as actually being funny? It really grinds my gears when I hear someone say a movie/ show/ what have you isn’t as funny as a male centered movie/ show/ what have you. Haven’t we as a species evolved past the point were we believe that women can’t viewed as hilarious?
I’m not trying to make the case that all movies that women star in, write, or direct are outstanding works of art. We’ve all seen movies that were less than fantastic and made us feel sad on the inside, but both men and women are guilty of this (I’m looking at you Hangover 2). But these poor mistakes shouldn’t write off everything good and wonderful that women have to offer.
I think Bridesmaids and The Heat director Paul Feig sums it up best, “I’d like to get away from ‘men’ movies [and] ‘women’ movies, and just be like, a movie’s a movie. If it happens to star all women, guys shouldn’t be going ‘Ugh, I can’t go see that.’ That to me is the long-term goal. But clearly it’s an uphill slog. More people need to do it. If it’s just going to be me doing it, it’s going to be once every two years.” And that’s just not gonna cut it.
