May 05 - Are Women Funny?

Written by YGTV Team on 05 May 2015.

By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga

La verdad por delante: I'm writing this on a lazy Sunday evening, lying down in bed, on my iPad and about two months from the time that - in the same situation - I decided I would write about this. The reason I've taken this long to get round to it is because quite frankly I'm scared of those of you who will stop reading right about now and start accusing me of being a monster. Hear me out.

Two months ago, in the midst of a YouTube binge I came across a TED Talk by actress/comedienne Ellie Kemper titled "are women funny?", and, naturally combining a few of the things I like the most (TED Talks, things that make me think, and of course funny women) I had to watch it. Needless to say, I recommend you watch it. She's extremely funny, makes total sense and you'll probably end up YouTube-ing her for more. For a bunch of years now comedy is something that has crept up in conversation in my social circle every so often; Gibraltar is full of funny people yet we have no comedy scene. I love a good stand up, and no, not the kind of sweaty ape-like man that somehow sells out huge arena tours (I'm sure you know who I mean), but really funny people. And watching that video made me realise, a lot of these funny people were women; women that will make me laugh for ten minutes straight with one less-than-140-character tweet. Don't get me wrong, male comedians will make me laugh, I recently almost wet myself and laughed like a chimp at a London comedy club where all but one of the five or six performers were male, but there's just something about these funny women.

Of course, thinking about the fact that there is no stand up comedy in Gibraltar, regardless of gender, made me think about the larger picture of performance. Think about it, and I'm not trying to be funny, but how many women are getting on stage in Gibraltar? We have choirs, dance academies, beauty pageants and (fantastic, it must be said) singer-songwriters. But we have just the one woman in a rock band and I don't really know any women who are challenging the stereotype of the delicate lady who loves picking flowers. Why aren't there any women speaking out about women's issues beyond the few posts on a Gibraltar Feminists Facebook group? Just the other night, whilst I was getting ready to go out, I was listening to this all-girl Spanish band on the radio and they were SO COOL I left the house late because I couldn't stop listening. A few years ago we had a couple of female-fronted bands in Gibraltar and I even recall seeing all-girl bands; so what happened to women? Why does it seem like they're now afraid to get on a stage and be awesome? And not just in music, but in any other art form; let's see you, ladies! We need some sort of balance and I'm tired of seeing men take the limelight. So here's what I propose: get yourselves out there, get your voices heard. Women are funny, and I'd even go as far as to say that a funny woman is a hundred times funnier than a funny man. How about Gibraltar's first stand up comedian is a woman? Let's do this.