Katie Button has performed stand-up comedy and worries why being funny isn't enough...
It is the common back-up plan that everyone knows. You’re trying to sell your friend on a member of the opposite sex that you think will be just right for them. The only problem is that they’re not conventionally attractive. So what do you do? Yes, you whip out the "sense of humour" card. Everyone loves to laugh, whoever heard of someone listing a bad sense of humour as a desired quality in the personal ads?
This might be very well for funny men. After all, think of a comic male and chances are they’re not going to be rivaling Brad Pitt for the world’s sexiest man title. Woody Allen is the quintessential nerd yet he pulled Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton, and having a face made of rubber hasn’t stopped Jim Carrey from charming Jenny McCarthy. But, unsurprisingly, it’s not quite the same for women.
A wicked wit and spot-on comic timing are often not enough for a woman - we have to look good as well. Now I’m not going to point any accusatory fingers here, blame one sex, one nation, one culture. It’s never that easy and convenient. In the UK, things thankfully, aren’t too bad, with comediennes like Dawn French popular despite not being a size zero. However, look across the pond and a worrying trend has broken out amongst funny women – that of cosmetic surgery, and where the US leads we often follow.
Joan Rivers has been very vocal and honest about her trips to the surgeon, and frankly, she has to be. At 74, the woman doesn’t have one wrinkle on her, and has even appeared as a character on the drama Nip/Tuck referencing her own cosmetic surgeries. Her appearance has long been used as material in her stand-up routines, and with her dry, self-deprecating manner, it is clear that she has been unhappy with her looks. Comedy as a defence mechanism? Not exactly new, but for Joan, it has earned her a nice fortune.
When her self-named sitcom finished, Roseanne Barr headed back to the stand-up circuit a changed woman. She had her nose done, a breast reduction and some serious liposuction. Like Rivers, she has publicly discussed her surgeries and has since regretted some of her changes: "Now I realize that everyone has to get old and die, but it was still a very bad experience....No one looks better after plastic surgery. Just pink and shiny. At the end of it, you look like an idiot.”
Kathy Griffin, self-proclaimed D-lister on her E! reality show and regular on the Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan was on first name terms with her surgeon. The redhead has admitted to having 10 different procedures: nose job, brow lift, Botox, LASIK eye surgery, veneers, chemical hair straightening, micro dermabrasion, chemical skin peel, facial resurfacing and liposuction (more than once.) However, since a near-death experience on the operating table, she has spoken up on he subject: “I almost died from that - damn liposuction. I had it done all over and it didn’t work at all. I realized, `Oh, to change your body you have to eat less and go on a treadmill.’ So that liposuction landed me in the hospital. I had Lasik eye surgery gone bad and that’s not cosmetic but it’s elective, and now I have permanent vision loss in my right eye forever. So I haven’t had anything done for years. I’m not against plastic surgery, but I will tell that when stuff goes wrong it’s permanent.”
I’m always one for the honest approach, but am intrigued at the candidness of these funny woman at discussing their surgeries. Pop stars, actresses and other media darlings like to pretend they never had any work done while simultaneously flaunting their new, improved body parts. Why tell all? Because your career is based on your life and individuality, because it provides juicy comic material or because you’re happy to admit you weren’t born perfect? Whatever the logic behind the phenomenon, I wonder if we will prove to be immune here on this fair Isle, or if like the size zero craze, our funnywomen will be heading to Harley Street sometime soon?
Katie Button writes for TV Scoop, Star Trip and Who Ate All The Pies? and is all for a bit of ugly if it makes her laugh.
