Is Sir Michael Parkinson within his rights?

[flaviaritt]

Says men are funnier than women. He says, ‘It's a very contentious statement, but they're much better'.

My view is that, by the age of 85, if you think men are funnier than women, it’s just your opinion based on your experience and nobody should be getting riled up about it.

Reasonable?

It’s definitely sexist though.

He can say it but it's only his limited experience and my gal pals are fcking hilarious just saying

He can say it but it's only his limited experience

Each of us only has that to go on.

He is 100 % allowed to say it, since when are people not permitted to have an opinion. Why do we feel the need to condemn and silence.

I'm perhaps in the minority here but ice always found male comedians and comedy actors funnier then females. I used to (of course not atm!) go every Tuesday night to our local comedy club. It was probably 80/20 in terms of sex of comedians (80 male 20 female) but in pretty much always found the males to be much funnier. In fact, the majority of the females bombed. This could be, as the poster above says, that males have spent more timendevelooing confidence on the stage. I don't know. I can only tell you my own personal experience.

Ok, the post a few pages back!

It just seems such an odd thing to say on Twitter and deliberately goady.

I just came on to say, please listen to the Audio series of "Dear Joan and Jericha" podcast series. It's absolute filth, hilarious and very dark.

@AwaAnBileYerHeid

I'm perhaps in the minority here but ice always found male comedians and comedy actors funnier then females. I used to (of course not atm!) go every Tuesday night to our local comedy club. It was probably 80/20 in terms of sex of comedians (80 male 20 female) but in pretty much always found the males to be much funnier. In fact, the majority of the females bombed. This could be, as the poster above says, that males have spent more timendevelooing confidence on the stage. I don't know. I can only tell you my own personal experience.

Also probably because people insist that women are less funny - Ken Dodd used to joke about it (‘I know a lot of funny women’) about twenty years ago. So it self perpetuates, until you can not only visit a comedy club where 80% of the talent is male, but also blame the women for not being funny enough. Like they don’t belong.

Boring - so he has an opinion which he is entitled to? Obvious statement. A more interesting question is how to dismantle the patriarchy that he is part of. Discuss.

Boring - so he has an opinion which he is entitled to? Obvious statement.

And yet passionately debated. Discuss. The legitimate limits of freedom of thought and speech aren’t boring at all, to me.

Also probably because people insist that women are less funny - Ken Dodd used to joke about it (‘I know a lot of funny women’) about twenty years ago. So it self perpetuates, until you can not only visit a comedy club where 80% of the talent is male, but also blame the women for not being funny enough. Like they don’t belong.

This is a really important point. There are structural barriers in existence which still means there are levels of deep rooted inequality across many parts of society - and this would include working as a comedian. Plus, as it's previously been mentioned, societal expectations around how men and women are supposed to behave will still have an impact.
Saying men are funnier than women is a very simplistic statement to make. It's like saying rich people make betters lawyers ( as more people from wealthy backgrounds enter the law profession) or women make better nurses but men make better doctors. It ignores the structural issues at play.

@Pumperthepumper I agree, the audience is primed to find a man funny.

The audience is primed to absorb at least some of the fear that a female comedian will ''bomb''. I think women have to be funnier. They can't risk one bad joke. There are no coat tails. Never coast on the good grace of their last joke (like men can do)

There is so much more going on than PURE funniness.

@Gcgjiut

Boring - so he has an opinion which he is entitled to? Obvious statement. A more interesting question is how to dismantle the patriarchy that he is part of. Discuss.

I think flaviaritt has proved over and over again on this thread that flaviaritt is incapable of looking into this any deeper, and is mainly looking for post after post of ‘well, it’s his opinion!’ as a way to ruffle some lady feathers. That’s why flaviaritt only quotes tiny bits of posts and refuses to admit it’s a sexist statement.

[quote OwlOne]@Pumperthepumper I agree, the audience is primed to find a man funny.

The audience is primed to absorb at least some of the fear that a female comedian will ''bomb''. I think women have to be funnier. They can't risk one bad joke. There are no coat tails. Never coast on the good grace of their last joke (like men can do)

There is so much more going on than PURE funniness.[/quote]
Yes, and I think too there’s an awful lot of ‘I bet she talks about her period too’ kind of scoffing. I’m not a massive Victoria Wood fan but I can appreciate that she really targeted that type of humour that hadn’t really been seen before, at least not on mainstream tv, because it was overwhelmingly male experience that the audience were given. So it becomes a kind of catch-22 - periods and childbirth etc are looked down on, but trying to be one of the lads, ie trying to emulate what the men are doing, doesn’t work because you’re trying to break into a crowd that doesn’t want you there.

That’s horribly put sorry, but I can’t think of another way to word it.

Boring - so he has an opinion which he is entitled to? Obvious statement. A more interesting question is how to dismantle the patriarchy that he is part of. Discuss

Yes!! A far more interesting and valuable discussion.

The legitimate limits of freedom of thought and speech aren’t boring at all, to me.

It’s always really funny when people get on their high-horse about freedom of speech, on the back of a rich man making a sexist statement in a public sphere, which is then put in print and sold all over the world.

Real censorship going on here 😂

He wasn't talking about performers though-specifically. He was talking about all women in general life situations.

He is wrong. He probs my reads eve Telegraph.
He’s from an era where men were truly stroked by society in many ways.
Not anymore.
There’s an uprising of not only brilliant female comedians who have won their space in the spotlight but for ALL women to take the lead.

He was talking about all women in general life situations.

Same logic. He just finds men funnier. It’s not a crime.

He was talking about all women in general life situations.

Same logic. He just finds men funnier. It’s not a crime.

It is sexist though

@sashagabadon

He can say that if he wants. I just think sometimes men prefer men’s humour and women prefer womens. I like a lot of female comics and female led comedies that my husband doesn’t. We have slight different senses of humour. Mine is better of course

Oh you were doing so well until your stupid last sentence. I think that this thread proves that there as many sexist women as men! People do differ, not just along male/female lines, they find different things funny. Personally I can think of few funny women, Victoria Wood was one of the best and I can think of some women 'comdians' who are dreadful, like the Ryan woman who can talk about nothing but sexism.

@Pumperthepumper it's not a case of "blaming the women for not being funny enough". I pointed out that it was simply my personal experience of who I found funny and who I didn't. I've come across a few male comedians that were shit and one or two that I actually cringed for. But that doesn't change my personal experience in that I've always found male comedians funnier than females.

Also, a genuine question. Why is it ok to say women are better at this and women are better at that yet when one says that a man is better at something, there's outrage?

@AwaAnBileYerHeid

Also, a genuine question. Why is it ok to say women are better at this and women are better at that yet when one says that a man is better at something, there's outrage?

It's not okay