Christopher Hithens

[jack]

Katy linked to this, and I responded there, but as always someone, in this case Gene Weingarten, said what I said better and funnier.

"Have you read Christopher Hitchens's essay in Vanity Fair, where he claims that women aren't funny? Actually, he doesn't argue that point so much as he accepts it as an immutable and incontestable fact, then examines how this tragic state of affairs has come about.

The first thing I noticed about this piece was that it wasn't remotely funny, though not for lack of trying. Hitchens's efforts to inject humor into his essay were heavy-handed and painful, like a gorilla's efforts to inject Novocain into your jaw. ... his case boils down to this: Women aren't funny because they are, y'know, ladylike."

"This is obviously a man who does not know women to any real depth. If you see what I am saying."

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

They pulled that article to bits most wonderfully on the Language Log a while ago.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not surprised. Except that I can't remember it :) It hardly seems worth it, like fish in a barrel, except that someone has to make the obvious points until/unless one day they're no longer necessary.