Christopher Hitchens Has Jumped The Shark

Nov 08, 2007

Christopher Hitchens is a drowning man. His neo-con politics aren’t sexy any more, on account of the whole Iraq War thingy, and him being a bitter old drunk. So Hitchens is reaching for attention, as evidenced in his article in Vanity Fair, “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”

I can just see Hitchens in the Vanity Fair story meeting, desperate to convince editor Graydon Carter, while draining his last bottle of Peach Schnapps.

Hitchens: On me life, Graydon, people’ll buy the Chrissimus issue, just for me article.
Graydon: But Pro-Rumsfeld stories are dead …
Hitchens: Wait for it, Wait for it. You ready? “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”
Graydon: Just because they’re not laughing at YOUR jokes.

And therein lies Hitchens’ faulty reasoning. Just because the media doesn’t reward funny women doesn’t mean funny women don’t exist. For men to complain that there aren’t enough funny women is like the Nazis complaining there were no more Jews in Warsaw.

You got rid of us.

Men don’t want women to be funny; you just want us to look good in a thong.

Hitchens says that “the chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex,” and that humor is his best shot at winning a woman. That may be true, humor is a big aphrodisiac for women. But then Hitchens claims women don’t need to work at attracting men: “you’re already appealing.”

I beg to differ. If “Ugly Betty” doesn’t say it all, there’s this whole cottage industry called Women’s Magazines, and the covers don’t advertise stories about how women are fine just as we are. They don’t show a woman how to win a man by using her biting, incisive wit. Not even with her non-threatening apple-pie wit. They’re all about how to get a man by losing ten pounds, using the right lip gloss and getting Jennifer Anniston’s Japanese flat perm.

Let me reiterate: men don’t want women to be funny; men just want women to look good in a thong. And this says more about men’s inability to value humor than it does about a woman’s inability to be funny.

Hitchens admits that humor could be threatening. “If humor is a sign of intelligence, perhaps men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.” Well now, that’s the first bit of honest writing the man has done.

But he doesn’t go anywhere with it. He writes that, for women, “cunning minxes that they are,” humor is secondary to our higher calling of bearing children: a job so wondrous and serious a matter, we can never laugh about it.

Hitchens has never been to a MOPS meeting or a baby shower or Chick Night. I used to do chick nights once a month with friends from church. We’d get together and eat chocolate and cheese, and laugh our “larger-than-Size-1” asses off with stories about men and dating and (married) sex and episiotomy scars. But those meetings are kept private under a sacred, solemn oath; so I cannot disclose their grave and mysterious content.

And excuse me: cunning minx? Who calls a woman a cunning minx? Hitchens must have moved on from the Schnapps to Mad Dog 20-20 when he wrote this. Lifted a little Mickey Spillane and phoned it in. What a hack.

——

Well now, Hitchens and Jordan aren’t totally off their rockers. It’s quite true: there are far more successful funny men than funny women in entertainment (I assume we’re omitting the clowns in politics, economics and astrophysics). Check the cast list of TV and film comedies: it’s always an average, nerdy or dopey but likable guy, cast opposite a hot woman. Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne Smith. Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston and Renee Zelwegger and Jenny McCarthy (no Jenny, standing with your mouth agape in a silent scream doesn’t make you funny). Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale. Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate. Will Ferrell and Leslie Bibb in “Talladega Nights”. Who in the H-E-Double toothpicks is Leslie Bibb? Just some bimbo. Geeze, fat-boy Kevin James got Amber Valetta in “Hitch”. Who are we kidding?

There are many funny women in entertainment: Molly Shannon, Anna Gasteyer, Tia Leoni, Amy Poehler. Diane Keaton. But you don’t see Hollywood developing sitcoms with Anna Gasteyer getting it on with Josh Duhamel, or Molly Shannon with George Clooney. Even pairing Diane Keaton with Jack Nicholson in “Something’s Gotta Give” was scandalous, she was so close to his age.

Again: funny women are out there; we’re just more likely to be successful based on looks.

I’ve worked as a comedic actor for many years; I read scripts when I was in graduate school for screenwriting. And the hot comedy scripts featured an average, even nerdy guy; paired with a astrophysicist chick who looks good in a thong by a pool sucking a mai tai through a straw.

But it’s a fallen world. The market has spoken. And the market wants funny goofy men paired with hot women. And while I’m decently arranged, I’m not Hollywood Hot. So I might as well be Gertrude Stein.

I don’t think Hollywood’s beauty bar was set so high forty or fifty years ago. Leading women had to be attractive, of course; but they didn’t have to be smokin’ hot. Take for example Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell. In “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” it was Jean Arthur who saved Jimmy Stewart, using her humor and intelligence. Lucille Ball was pretty, but she wasn’t Greta Garbo.

So what changed?

Sex.

Well, sex and the decline of Western Culture. But let’s start with sex. We all know that when dating, if we don’t jump into bed, we’re forced to talk to each other, get to know each other, and maybe discover things like intelligence and humor. Before the sexual revolution, film and TV characters were forced to win the audience based on things other than just sex. Actresses could carry a picture based on their humor and intelligence. Even sexy movies, like “To Have or Have Not”, were sexier for their subtlety.

There were plenty of good things that happened because of the sexual revolution. Like ... well, like pantsuits. If you invested in pantsuits, condoms and vibrators, the sexual revolution was a good thing.

On the downside, since women were free to have sex with no repercussions; and men were free to desire women solely for sex, with no repercussions. Playboy had a lot to do with turning women into mute, two-dimensional sex objects. You’ve come a long way, baby. A long way down.

And this is a lot of what we are dealing with: the demise of western culture. There’s no higher authority to call us to any greater standard than our id. Our infantile sex-addicted narcissistic id. So men turn women into blow-up dolls, and women turn men into money machines. And there’s no better example than Donald Trump and his wives.

Yes, women aren’t the only victims. Men have also suffered from the sexual revolution. Women are free to desire men, not for character or intelligence but for their pocketbooks. Men are even becoming sex objects. And that’s gotta be frightening for men like Christopher Hitchens. Because have you seen that guy? He is no Abercrombie & Fitch Model. And judging by his slide down the credibility ladder, he’s scared and angry. So he blames the fact women don't laugh at his jokes on the women. We're just not funny.

Hitchen says that religion is the enemy of all humor. If that's true, and men are the figureheads of religion, then men are the enemy of humor. And girls win.