Men are from Mars, Women are from Bleak, Humorless Asteroid B-43098
Mood:  quizzical

Well now, here's an unusual thesis:  Men are funnier than women, according to Warren Bell, writing in the National Review Online (one of the least funny publications ever.  And that includes Meat & Poultry Digest, which my gynecologist subscribes to for some reason.  She enjoys making patients look at photos of plucked chickens while they wait to be poked and prodded).

Now, as empirical arguments go, Bell's thesis is what we humor scientists call "a ton of horse manure in a half-ton bag".  First of all, how do you measure average funniness across entire populations?  By median number of pies thrown?  Number of pairs of underpants worn on head?  Secondly, humor is so deeply subjective, you can't even begin to make generalizations.  Most women aren't deeply tickled by Jim Carrey, armpit fart noises, or the Three Stooges, but that doesn't mean our sense of humor is underdeveloped.  On the other side of the coin, none of my straight male friends would be caught dead watching Ab Fab.

Bell also fails to make the distinction between being funny, and acting funny.  For example, he asks:  "How many girls memorized all the dialogue from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when they were 14? No one? Not a surprise. But I did, and a ton of other guys did, followed by Steve Martin routines, Coneheads sketches, and the big John Belushi "Who's with me?" speech at the end of Animal House".

But quoting Monty Python skits doesn't prove that you're funny.  It only proves that Monty Python is funny (and that teenage boys are more willing to act like idiots than teenage girls).  And besides, nobody ever recited entire Coneheads sketches.  They simply looked for opportunities to say "We come from France" and "Consume mass quantities".

So Bell's original question, "Why are there so few female comedians?" remains unanswered, and he goes off on a straw-man tangent.  A more useful question might be "Why isn't funniness valued as highly in females?"  Or, "If a girl looked like John Belushi/Chris Farley/Michael Richards/John Candy would she have an equal chance at a successful show biz career?"  Or "Why do men have greater latitude for humor?  Why is it funny when men cross-dress (hellooo Audrey), but not women?"

An even more useful question (for purposes of this blog) would be "Is David Wenham funnier than David Wenham?"  That is, on average, has David done more funny roles or more serious roles?

A quick glance at David's career reveals that, of 30 randomly sampled characters going back to Horrie Young, 11 roles were Funny, and 19 were Not.  David is therefore 37% funny.

Methodology notes: Theater roles were excluded, since they skew heavily towards drama, and also they weren't listed.  Two characters fell into both the Funny and Not categories (Sam Flynn and Diver Dan), so I counted them as half a point each.

One interesting observation: David has not done a funny role since the Murray Whelan telemovies.

This really doesn't prove anything scientifically.  I just wanted an excuse to go look at imdb.

And now, I leave you with a joke that people of all genders can enjoy:

A man walks into a bar with a chunk of concrete under one arm.  He says to the bartender, "I'll have one for me, and one for the road."