Fox News Claims the Comedy World Finally Freeing Itself of Unsexy Women

The world’s leading resource on women, comedy, and spelling school ‘skool’ published a riveting piece on funny ladies and their need to be hot. Fox News claims that the current comedy landscape is becoming inhospitable for the usual frumps that litter the world of funny people.

frump

I disagree. I don’t think it’s important for female comedians to be hot. It’s important for WOMEN to be hot. Welcome to the fucking world Fox News.

Clearly, previous funny women haven’t been conventionally attractive prior to this momentous occassion in history. Among those listed in the article that recently have revamped their looks to fit in with this brand new fad of being attractive are Jennifer Aniston, Jane Krakowski and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Here’s a picture of Jennifer Aniston in her “awkward” Friends days.

What an ugg

Carrie Keagan, of Reno 911! and Playboy Magazine‘s “Babe of the Month,” contributes this to the article:

“The mentality that funny and sexy can’t go together is on its way out, because trying to be sexy is pretty damn funny!”

She is surprisingly not the creator of New Girl. I think they should have interviewed Tina Fey and Kay Cannon for this article based on how they handled the “Is Funny Sexy” question.

It’s not like people have been going out of their way to find “unattractive” women to put on TV or that women have been uglying themselves up to succeed. If anything, funny women have been portrayed as frumpy because comedy is one of those (many!) zones that men don’t want infringed upon. All female comedians are frumpy in the same way that all athletes are lesbians. If it makes men uncomfortable, then it has no place in entertainment, and vice versa; men don’t want to watch women being athletes or funny, so the women who do those things must not be worth watching.

Patrick Wanis, entertainment expert (whatever the hell that means) had this to say:

“For women, frump isn’t funny any longer. The new female comedian has to be the sexual aggressor, sexually provocative, dominant and successful. Hollywood is now portraying women as the dominant force – the boss, the rescuer, the heroine, the hunter. Now women are being sexually provocative and sexually aggressive, rude and funny without the femininity or the class. Lucille Ball would never have played the aggressive, domineering nymphomaniac that Jennifer Aniston portrayed in ‘Horrible Bosses’.”

There were so many aggressive, domineering types back then so this is a particularly apt comparison. Lucille Ball definitely wouldn’t have counted as hot either. I mean, she only began her career as a model. They let anyone be one of those, or at least that’s what I hear from none of my model friends. Wanis reminds us that lesbians and women of a certain age can’t be sexy.

Rosie O’Donnell and Janeane Garofalo will be relegated to playing the female versions of Chris Farley. Hollywood doesn’t want a woman that is not sexually enticing like Rosie; it wants the sexual alpha female.”

What are they even doing in this article? They’re both circa 50 years old. How do you jump from Olivia Munn, Anna Faris, and Mila Kunis to Rosie and Garofolo? And in what world are they comedic peers? Also, he says playing the female version of Chris Farley is a bad thing. He’s right. Being the answer to someone regarded as a comedic genius sounds awful. Women would much rather be the female version of an attractive but oft shat upon comedian like Dane Cook. Oh my God, is Whitney Cummings the female version of Dane Cook?

I'm hot and I make you do what I'm doing in this picture. This is a new thing.

The “entertainment expert” goes on to say this isn’t only happening on the scripted side of things.

“The same trend is being seen on reality TV [with] Snooki and all the ‘Housewives.”

I’m just confused. Snooki and the Housewives are leading the charge for attractive reality personalities? I thought being attractive was a prerequisite for reality shows except Jersey Shore and the Housewives.

Everyone’s favorite way to dispute the article’s claim is to name drop Melissa McCarthy. But the list of women who won’t be in Playboy anytime soon yet have had and continue to have successful comedic careers goes on. Amy Poehler, Casey Wilson, Martha Plimpton, Maria Bamford, Kaitlin Olson, etc. All funny as shit and have their fair share of admirers. But hot? Not by Fox News’ standards. Still I don’t see them stooping to the mediocre comedic stylings of Olivia Munn types anytime soon.

On the bright side, maybe this means we’ve moved past the “Are women funny?” question.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Brittani

Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.

Brittani has written 328 articles for us.

25 Comments

  1. The fact that Fox News thinks Carrie Keagan is a legitimate source on anything already makes me give them the side-eye. That, and the fact that they are Fox News.

  2. Wait. I must not be a lesbian, because I had no idea Janeane Garofalo wasn’t hot. I need Fox News to explain who is hot and who is not.

    • I’m not a big fan of the tattoos, but, yeah, Janeane is a babe. She’s a woman who’s hot, smart, and funny, which makes her a triple threat to the pea-brained trolls who run Fux News.

  3. So….hot girls aren’t funny, and funny girls aren’t hot?

    Has the 30 times I’ve watched Mean Girls just been a figment of my imagination?

    OH GOD. WHAT WAS I ACTUALLY DOING DURING THAT HOUR AND A HALF?

    No….don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know.

  4. This is the most perfect possible response to this article. Also, this is maybe not the point, but Melissa McCarthy looks super cute in that picture.

    • And Tina Fey? I think Tina Fey and I are married in an alternate universe.

      …except I think she’s old enough to be my mother. What are these feelings I’m feeling?

      • in an alternate universe, you ‘suffer’ from a severe oedipal complex. its ok, you’re not alone. and you’re not suffering. with tina fey, the only thing you suffer from is sore abs.

        i’m severely jealous of your alternate life.

  5. um. last time i checked, fox news never had a sense of humor so goodness knows what their 1950s standards for attractiveness are.

  6. I expect this from Fox News, but what’s really irritating is some of the shit certain female comedians (mostly Whitney Cummings, but also Chelsea Handler and her “sexy funny lady” entourage) have been spewing that fit right in with this horrid viewpoint. Like, Whitney genuinely believes that “sexy” women are underrepresented in television comedy. She actually feels like she is doing something radical with “Whitney.” Of course, then there’s awesome HBICs like Martha Plimpton, who had this to say in response: “She’s right. There’re way too many old, ugly, fat women on television. The time for ugly fat ladies is OVER! Too many ugly old stupid ladies get all the attention. And jobs. UNTIL NOW! GD it! If I have to see ONE MORE TV show about old ugly fat women. Hey Granny, move over and make room for sexy young chicks. It’s OUR time!”

  7. I wanted to say that I thought this article was funny, but the picture of the writer was too small for me to determine if she is hot or not. Now I don’t know what to think.

  8. The thing that always gets me about these types of articles is, who decides which women are “sexy” and which aren’t? Last time I checked, attractiveness was subjective.

  9. Well now I feel stupid. I didn’t know there was one definition of “hot”. And I always thought being funny MADE people hot, anyway. Boy, was I wrong.

    Also, when was Jennifer Aniston ever not hot? WHAT.

  10. I think Mila Kunis is funny, I’m kinda confused by the idea that people don’t think that. Also, that Fox article made me want to tear my face off.

  11. Its a shame they seem to have forgotten Britain, we’ve had incredibly funny women around for a while, both attractive and unattractive, watch a few episodes of mock the week and you’ll see both making the audience laugh just as much

  12. Pingback: Fox News Claims the Comedy World Finally Freeing Itself of Unsexy Women | Social Supply Chain Network Blog

Comments are closed.