Women ain’t funny, even if they make you laugh

June 18, 2009 at 6:41 pm (Society, love & relationships, politics, sexuality)
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Christopher Hitchens is a writer I really respect and even, dare I say, love. He has no fear of getting right up your nose and twitching the short & straighties. He’ll even give a yank, hold up one of those snotty pieces of dead keratin, and say, look at what came out of you! Tsk tsk.

I won’t say I always agree with him, because I don’t, but we generally find ourselves on the same side of the primordial fence. Slightly left of center, slightly more on the side of the little guy, slightly mistrustful of authority, and more than slightly pissed off at the way that power not only corrupts but that that corruption is apparently the only thing that follows the supposed law of trickle-down economics.

But, man oh man, Chris-baby. On this point you are so wrong, and I don’t even know how to begin.

A progressive in many ways, Hitchens seems determined that, in the field of sexual politics, we are incapable of behaving in anything but the most stereotypical and base ways.

Take a look at this Vanity Fair article from 2007, in which he propounds his theory that men are funny because they are supposed to impress women, and women aren’t because we were merely put on this earth to laugh at men’s jokes.

It would be laughable, except I don’t want to encourage him in thinking I find HIM funny…

The corollary to this intellectually insulting supposition is that women appeal to men enough just by our existence, and therefore need do nothing more than be objects to get a man.

Can I stop right here; are you laughing enough?

I won’t just trot out a list of very funny women in the entertainment biz (or for that matter in my own life). That kind of argument is the easiest to counter. What, for example, if he has never found Megan Mullally the least bit amusing, or figures that Sandra Bullock is a comic actress and not a comedian, so it doesn’t really count?

Hitchens, who has a well-deserved rep for seeing through the bullshit to what’s really going on seems to, when it comes to women at least, see only what he wants to.

For example, when he is forced to admit that women have been successful in comedy or comic writings (and no journalist can really dismiss Dorothy Parker as unfunny, or else burn in a special hell fired by Press Club brandy), he is quick to state that it’s no wonder some women are celebrated as wits: after all, men are stupid and will laugh at anything.

What a fine double-edged sword. If they make us laugh, it is a triumph, because we are coldly intelligent and look down our fine long noses at the ape-like man who must impress us with his humor because we are not naturally inclined to sexuality otherwise. And if we make them laugh, it’s because they can’t tell a pun from a fart-joke, and find both equally amusing, and by the way, do that think where the milk comes out your nose again.

Maybe Hitchens is not so far off his view of man as dumb ape?

Maybe Hitchens not so far off in view of man as dumb ape?

Underlying it all seems to be the premise that Hitchens just thinks humor is unladylike, while laughing politely is not.

Hitchens nails the seedy core of his own argument when he states that “…Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.”

He goes on to talk about the “huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit.”

Well, duh. Chris, baby. What you’re really saying is that you’re not ready for the same kind of exploitation used ON you that has typically been the province of people LIKE you.

Welcome to an egalitarian world.

I thought this was what you wanted, a world in which Western values of freedom and democracy could apply to everyone, where religious pluralism and universal emancipation as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson could be a global phenomena.

Or do you share Jefferson’s opinion that husband, hearth and children was a woman’s natural lot, and we should leave the big stuff to the men?

The men, who in your estimation, are less intelligent, unable to overcome either their prejudices or their sexual urges?

Damn, it’s enough to make a girl lose her sense of humor altogether. And then where will you be, Chris?

LINKS

WILDsound Film Festival

jen frankel dot com

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Beauty Tips for Real Women

October 30, 2008 at 1:40 am (love & relationships, politics, sexuality)
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What happened to the idea that dressing up is fun?

I’m calling for a full-out revolt here, against the revolting brainwashing that has made so many otherwise sane women believe that clothes, shoes, makeup, jewellery, and handbags are anywhere on the list of the important things in life.

Please, god, there must be a place in this world for people who don’t need a hour of lead-time to leave the house, who don’t rate their success as an attractive human being on the evenness of their skin-tone, who don’t spend more on footwear than on promoting their own career.

I remember my first makeup kit, a Christmas present received as a miniature rug-rat with a definite yen for getting got-up as something else. My dad’s only caveat was that I was not allowed to wear the stuff out of the house. I can still remember the horror dropping down on my over-made face as I realized I’d run out into the street after the ice cream man.

Ah, the good old days!

Now, it’s painful to imagine the number of hours persons of my gender spend prepping like a chef before the dinner rush: wash, tone, moisturize, foundation, eyes, cheeks, lips… Not to mention the money.

Not to mention the underlying thesis, that there is something wrong with us that requires all the resources of the cosmetics industry to solve. And even then, it’s clearly framed as a losing battle.

Well, I say, screw it all. Not the hair and makeup and fun clothes. But the attached concept that dress-up is anything more than fun, that should go down in a bonfire of night creams and hair gel and tweezers and diet pills.

Put your looks before your insides, and you’re asking for more than trouble and less than a worthwhile life. It’s time to get a little perspective on vanity, because while yes, being overweight can cause you health problems, it won’t kill you.

The sad part is that we’ve come to believe that being anything other than a perfectly polished and turned-out 10 means that we are failures. We are unlovable and in all probability worthless.

I can’t say I’m even particularly impressed with the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty,” although it’s a teeny step in the right direction. Really, how seriously can you take a self-esteem campaign launched by the very guys who’ve been selling you the shit for years? It’s like a drug lord spouting, “Just say no!”

There’s nothing stopping you from flipping off the fear-merchants who need you to obsess about what’s wrong with you to make their cash. What you need to do is look in the mirror and say, what do I want to look like, today and now, not “what’s intrinsically wrong with my appearance that I may be able to minimize with the latest beauty product?”

So join me in a little bit of social disobedience. Dress for yourself, not to be loved or lusted after, not to be admired or bitched about by the girl who didn’t get the latest Gucci whatever. Dress up, dress down. Go out without a scrap of makeup because you can’t be bothered. Laugh at anyone who suggests that your uneven skin tone is going to cost you any potential happiness that otherwise might have entered your life.

Who knows? Maybe you can take the time you’d have spent shopping and primping, and get to know something more substantial about yourself.

Of course, maybe you think I’m some kind of weirdo, like the chick who ridiculed me for not knowing what kind of handbag she was carrying. I have to admit to being rather disinterested in most things commercial, including any product name emerging from the mouths of Sex and the City women with the possible exception of “Stoli.”

Maybe you think I’m just being a bitch to suggest that your wardrobe does not in fact make a big impact on the world, and contribute vastly to your self-esteem.

So be it. I’m not out to demean what you love. All I want to do is give you a bit of perspective on two things: what the time you spend working on your looks might say about you, and what you might otherwise be able to accomplish in that time.

And put the primping in its proper place – make it fun and flirty, and an expression of your mood and yourself, instead of a societal imperative. And have a LOT of fun this Halloween!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

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Spelling Doesn’t Count, But Denotation Does

October 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm (politics, writing)
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When I think of how much time is spent by bloggers and professors alike obsessing over the accuracy of spelling and grammar, it gets my goat that a similar discussion on the meanings of words is all but non-existent.

While u probly hv no trubl undrstndin dis sentance despit me havin tttly f!$*ed up the use of the gerund…. our true problem with communication seems to have far more to do with the fact that not only do we not agree on what words MEAN, the idea that we might NOT agree is not even in the line of fire.

Consider, for example, the obvious confusion resulting when any two people don’t, for example, agree to the same rules for a game. Not only does it make for unsatisfying play, but you could never build something as complex as the National Football League if teams refused to discuss, and accept, a common set of parameters.

Define your terms and use those to build more complicated ideas. This is basic to success, and basic to understanding.

It’s like our obsession with the concept of “freedom” has extended to the belief that you can use a word however you want, and through sheer force of will or personality make it mean what you want.

For a solipsist, maybe this is a fine idea. But communication is about mutual understanding, and that understanding requires that at least the building blocks of discourse are agreed upon.

My fascination with language results primarily from the observation that everyone communicates slightly differently, even given the same basic tools. Add to that a world culture constantly in flux, with new words drifting between languages, new words being coined to address new situations, and you have a dynamic system with the complexity and subtlety with the potential to facilitate any number of brilliant new descriptions and synergies.

But if you decide that the tools don’t matter, you halt exploration and growth at its most primative level.

Is it ignorance or deliberate deception that causes people to redefine language to mean what suits their purpose instead of what would make their intentions plain?

The blatant misuse of simple terms has made the current American Presidential race into less of a discourse and more of a marketing campaign. After all, what the hell does “Family Values” even mean? It’s a slogan, not a concept. It may carry a certain emotional connotation, but the words themselves are empty.

You have to wonder every time a politician is caught in an adulterous relationship after espousing those phantom “values.” Without definition, a word or phrase can mean whatever someone wants it to, and can change its definition on a whim. What’s to say that adultery wasn’t considered part and parcel with Family Values if no one said it wasn’t? Who’s to say that asking for forgiveness after an affair doesn’t make it all go away?

If you refuse to agree on your terms, nothing is a lie. Your words were merely misinterpreted by someone who didn’t know how you were using them.

If “freedom” can include giving up the rights that the American founding fathers considered unalienable, we’re in big trouble. If words cannot be redefined by common consent so that “All men are created equal” can be understood to include blacks and women, we are similarly, in a word that has managed to never really be misunderstood, fucked.

You don’t have to go as far back as Orwell to watch people redefining language at will, calling Freedom Slavery or War Peace. You don’t even have to look at the greater, more sinister uses of misdefined language.

Communication problems exist everywhere in everyday life. If you and your spouse don’t have a definition of “sharing the housework,” you’re going to have problems. If you and your spouse don’t have a solid understanding of “infidelity,” you’ll probably have more.

Bad spelling and grammar are a combination of laziness, lack of standard education, fluid communication techniques like texting and blogging, and of course a sense that they really don’t matter that much.

But please, let’s try to decide that the meanings of the words we use are important, no matter how we choose to spell them or what language we say them in. After all, my freedom includes the dictionary definition.

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The Mistate of the Union

October 6, 2008 at 11:26 pm (politics)
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This comes from January 25th, 2007. Now here we are in the “end times,” the last few weeks of the double-whammy Bush regime, and I realize — I still haven’t got used to the idea that they’d put this guy in charge of a WalMart, much less a whole country.

All this time has gone by and it still sounds so wrong:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

And he walks out, and all that goes through my head is – you’ve got to be kidding.

I’ve really tried to warm to George. He’s supposedly a very likable guy. I’m sure I would have fun with him at a barbecue, if I could get over the fact I’m almost certain he would mostly ignore me.

He’d want to talk baseball, one of his favourite subjects. I think he’d assume I knew nothing about sports, so would tacitly exclude me.

Or maybe when I spoke up, if I found something to say that caught his attention, he would do what some guys have done before if I surprise them, cock his head and suddenly give me a disproportionate amount of attention.

Maybe he’d even call attention to me, around the grill, handing me a beer.

“Here you go, Jenny, I guess you’re drinking with the boys!”

I might even be charmed by it.

That’s how I see George W. Bush’s likability working, on a very down-home, casual conversational level. He’s the kind of guy you want to hang out with, to tailgate with. The kind of guy you want running your son’s little league.

I don’t quite get why anyone would want him for President. How far can likable get you in the tangled world of politics, semantics, religion… How far is it supposed to get you, in other words, when you can’t just invite everyone out to a barbecue to charm them with brewskies and good old-fashioned common sense?

My partner has a theory, and I’d probably put money on it. I wonder if Vegas already has odds.

Matt met Bush once a long time ago, at a ball game, when he was just a good old boy who happened to be wealthy enough to have his own team. He knew every stat; he understood every nuance of the game.

I’ve seen nothing like that kind of attention paid to his current job, nothing like that paid to the intricacies of domestic policy, or the minefield of world affairs.

So yes, I’d put money on it.

Just like people often take jobs they don’t really want as a stepping stone to their true ambitions, so I believe Matt when he says he thinks it’s true of Bush:

He’s only President so that someday, he might get to be Commissioner of Baseball.

Comforting thought.


Footnote:
Forgive me, but I can never tell during his speeches if Bush is saying “tourists” or “terrorists.” And they say we Canadians talk funny.

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