Women Comedians . . . What Am I Missing?

It's the same problem any minority comedian has. People expect black people to make jokes about being black and gay people to make jokes about being gay. Which is thrilling when it first enters the cultural milieu and is outrageous and naughty but soon becomes tiresome when that's all you get. As with music, the best comedians do not give a sh*t about audience expectations, though they may find it hard to survive commercially. I used to do comedy myself and I know some failed comedians who are pretty much inarguably better than some guys who've made it big. Thing is the guys who made it big dumbed down or pandered to crowds. I also personally knew a guy who is one of the biggest comedians in New Zealand now and I'll tell you, the reason he's big isn't because he's funny but because he's a merciless opportunist.

Trouserpress wrote: My double-act partner is female, and we've had some very detailed discussions about the lack of decent female comedians in the UK. The main problem seems to be that a lot of female comedians are overly concerned with being female - most of their materials seems to hang on the fact that they are women. Now, the material we write together is utterly gender-neutral. Our comedy is generally surreal, metatextual and often quite profane - we'd sooner quit than write a sketch in which we explored the supposed differing attitudes of men and women.