There’s no doubt that we find humour an attractive quality, but do we find attractive people funnier? Exploring the science of humour and sexual attraction in the Guardian, neuroscientist Dean Burnett cited a study by Cowan and Little, which found that physically attractive people were deemed to be ‘funnier’ than less attractive people when the subjects could see the speaker. The effect was less pronounced when presented with audio only.
One explanation is the ‘halo effect’, where our initial impression of a person causes a bias in all our other assessments of them. This could also explain why the ‘women aren’t funny’ cliché still persists – culturally, we still don’t expect women to be funny.
Moreover, the best comedy is subversive, tackles difficult subjects and is often just a little wrong. Think Tig Notaro’s phenomenal live show at Largo in LA in 2012 during which she tackled her cancer treatments: she had been diagnosed with cancer in both breasts only a week previously.
Being subversive and a little wrong is less socially acceptable for women than men. What’s more, it’s okay to be self-deprecating but taking the piss out of others can mean crossing the thin line between being funny and being downright mean. And who likes a mean girl? As Tina Fey said, ‘Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.’
