What makes you laugh?

by Sarah Mayberry

There was a lot of fuss in 2007 when journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote an article in Vanity Fair entitled Why Women Aren't Funny. I won't bore you with the bulk of his theory, suffice to say that he thinks that because of our powerful natural sexual allure, women have never had to develop a sense of humour to appeal to the opposite sex.

Clearly, Mr Hitchens has never seen me in a mini-skirt. But that's a whole other story...

I don't know about you, but some of the funniest people I know are women, and some of the funniest books I've ever read are written by women. I don't want to get into a rebuttal of the rest of Mr Hitchens argument (mostly because it's just stoopid), but I would like to talk about the things that make me laugh, and in particular the women who make me laugh.

I love to laugh, and I love to make people laugh. In fact, I've wasted many, many hours of what should have been productive time in meetings thinking about the next funny thing to say instead of concentrating on the matter at hand (future employers beware!). If you gave me a choice of a sad, moving movie and a funny, stupid one, I'm going to pick the stupid one every time. Every. Time. Ditto for a good, sad romance novel versus a good, funny romance novel.

This became abundantly clear to me on the weekend when my mother was staying with us and we decided to raid our DVD collection to while away the evening. As I read out movie titles to my mother, waiting for her to express interest in watching one of them, I realised that our collection is a little on the, shall we say, lighter side. We have two copies of Happy Gilmore (not sure how that happened!), the extended edition of Something About Mary, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Zoolander, Kingpin, Borat, Ali G Indahouse, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid... You get the picture.

Everyone says that sense of humour is a very personal thing, that what makes one person laugh might not tickle another person's funny bone, but I think that there is a lot of overlap in what people generally find funny, otherwise funny books wouldn't be successful and comedies wouldn't rake it in at the box office. The best recent example of this, for my money, is Bridesmaids. I have been pimping this movie out to anyone and everyone, not just because it's hilarious (and it is!) but because it's got some great female friendship stuff in it that made it both warm and moving as well as funny for me. I laughed so hard during certain sequences of this movie that I cried and almost threw up the burger I'd eaten beforehand.

What made this story so funny for me? I loved the friendship between the two women. I loved the way they delighted in each other's company and I loved the way they "got" each other. The actress who plays the lead character - who also happened to co-write the movie, talented lady - is a fantastic physical comedienne, as well as being real and vulnerable in the role. Also, there are a couple of "set pieces" in this movie that are pure gross out comedy, and I have a weakness for good gross out humour. The rivalry (and jealousy) between the two bridesmaids who are vying for the bride's affections is also horribly familiar and hilarious.

I challenge Mr Hitchens and anyone else who believes women aren't funny to see this movie. I dare him not to laugh - and if he cries and nearly throws up I'll rest my case.

So. What makes you laugh? What are your favourite funny books, TV series, movies? What's your favourite funny scene from any of the above? I'll be giving away two copies of my August Superromance, One Good Reason, to posters. This is the sequel to The Last Goodbye, my March Super, and I will be talking about it more here when it gets closer to its release date, but since my author copies arrived this week I figured I should get some out there!

Over to you!

(P.S. I'm filling in for Wanda Ottewell this week - she's catching up with her in-tray after a busy time at the RWA Conference, but she'll be back next month, we promise. )