"Are Men Funny? No one has a panel on that!" says Susie Essman of Curb Your Enthusiasm as she kicks off the panel, Look Who's Laughing.
A recent Vanity Fair article claimed that women are less funny than men. But these five leading ladies insist they are not an exception to the rule.
"Women can't be raunchy and gross" says Rachel Dratch of Saturday Night Live. People love seeing Will Farrel run around naked and fall on his face but somehow the demand is not the same for women.
Suzie doesn't have the patience for stereotypes. "Funny is funny" no matter who is delivering lines. "You have to make it funny for yourself, so funny that you can't be denied."
Jay Roach admitted right at the start that he is "gender impaired and comically impaired" to moderate this panel. But he did offer great the insight into why men act ridiculous and find the most banal humor hilarious: "men are equipped to be idiots."
"The thing about men is that even if they aren't funny, they think they are." agrees Susie.
And what about "the male comedy mafia?" Much to my dismay, both Rachel Dratch and Samantha Bee of the Daily Show said that even thought there are shockingly fewer female writers on their respective shows, they were always treated like equals. (I think we all wanted to hear some horror stories but they had none to report!)
Samantha was eager to get the problem of test audiences off her chest: "So much great comedy never makes in on air because they test shows in the bottom 1/4 of the gene pool." Apparently, Mr. Middle of Nowheresvillle can watch a show and say he doesn't like someone's blond hair or the doesn't understand the jokes and boom- the show gets canned.
As for Will & Grace, the success of the show apparently hinged upon was Debra Messing's breasts. "When we shot the pilot, I was handed chicken cutlets in the wardrobe," Debra said. "They're like silicone boobs for women who have mastectomies. And I wore them. After the show was picked up, I said, 'I don't want to wear these.' I actually like the idea that she's completely flat-chested. I think there's comedy in that." After shooting 3 episodes without them, the president of NBC called to see "What happened to her boobs?" In a show about gay men, Debra had to play the woman but she refused to wear them and eventually, NBC let the boob issue drop.
"It is much harder to be a mediocre woman than it is to be a mediocre man but who wants to be mediocre?" Susie knows she's far from it and clearly these five hilarious ladies are getting the last laughs.
--Wendy Cohen
For more HuffPost coverage of the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, go here.
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