What an idiotic thing for him to say.

But at least he's aware that Lucy was a stunner. Lots of people aren't.

Last edited Wed Jan 26, 2022, 05:23 PM - Edit history (13)

The funniest women I grew up with rooted their humor (and success) in exploting either their inadequacies (Goldie Hawn, Joan Rivers, Marlo Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, Katey "Peg Bundy" Sagal, Juila Louis-Dreyfuss), their lack of desirability by men (Totie Fields, Phyllis Diller, Minnie Pearl, Moms Mabley, Patricia "Hyacinth Bucket" Routledge), or both (Roseanne, Mo'Nique, Lucille Ball, Jennifer "Edina Monsoon" Saunders, Fran "The Nanny" Drescher). The only woman I can think of who might qualify for Eisner's "highly beautiful, highly funny" category is Barbra "I Dream of Jeannie" Eden.

Just as Goldie says, she didn't start out in life as being beautiful -- she learned to "cure" her "ugliness" by getting others to join her in laughing at her. And I remember reading that when Gilda Radner was asked if she would rather be funny or glamorous, she replied, "Glamorous is too hard."

To answer your question, it does matter, because Eisner doesn't seem to realize that his "problem" finding beautiful, funny women is caused by what Dr. Bell Hooks calls capitalist patriarchy -- a fancy way of saying that Eisner does not fret about highly attractive, highly funny MEN being in equally short supply. From Fran Leibowitz:

"The cultural values (of humor) are male: For a woman to say a man is funny is the equivalent of a man saying that a woman is pretty. Also, humor is largely aggressive and pre-emptive, and what's more male than that?"

That's why Phyllis Diller had to tone down her looks. There's a great story that came out about her a few years back and how she had to purposefully make herself unattractive. Traditional female beauty as defined within patriarchy objectifies the beautiful woman, thereby rendering her subjective humor absurd or terrifying or both.

There are plenty of brilliantly witty women who are "beautiful" by traditional standards, but only recently has that become conceivably tolerated. Who was it who said that women fear men will kill them, and men fear that women will ridicule them?

The male approval one gets with "beauty" is fleeting, and every "beautiful" woman knows that. Humor isn't about knocking one's self out. It's an outlook that congenitally funny people feel compelled to share because that's the way they see the world. "Beautiful" women are just discouraged socially over and over and over again from being witty--they're usually punished for it.

Last edited Sat Apr 1, 2017, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

I can buy the Phyllis Diller story: she was certainly as funny as any man, and getting everyone to laugh at her looks was the way she avoided threatening them as an "equal."

Who was it who said that women fear men will kill them, and men fear that women will ridicule them?

And conversation/information like this is the reason I hang around here. Thanks.