The lack of women in comedy is no joke

Some brands have come a long way in terms of more realistically framing women: work such as Always' Like a Girl by Leo Burnett and Sport England's This Girl Can pay testament to that.

However, a question still remains: why is comedy creative lagging behind? 

Where is the funny female-led beer ad? Women like a cold beer outside the pub as much as a guy does. We also drive and buy cars, yet are so rarely featured in the driving seat.

Where is the funny female-led beer ad?

I have been pondering the subject and find some deeply rooted, dark beliefs ingrained in our culture. There is one old, yet persistent, stereotype: "Men are funnier than women" (or, sometimes more reductively: "Women are not funny"). 

If you happen to Google ´why are women not funny?´ you will find many questionable articles citing scientific studies explaining just why men get more laughs than women. 

Above: One of many articles online attempting to question the comedic abilities of women.

I'm sorry but... I'm a woman and I'm funny. 

My female friends are super funny.  

Fran Liebowitz is funny, Rebel Wilson is funny, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sarah Silverman .. all funny. I could go on.  

Ok, there are some ladies that won't crack you up, but it's the same with a boring man. Being funny does not depend on your genitalia.

Being funny does not depend on your genitalia.

We have grown up with an advertising culture of showing humorous ads of men being the funny and the silly ones, whilst the women being the serious ones that stop the party and have to deal with the fallout of the guy’s behaviour. 

90’s humour, and into the early millennium, was largely based on that: beer ads of men escaping their houses from their mean wives; men joking about hot women's bodies; about their infidelities; about men partying and the wife finding them out. 

Above: An example of the kind of work Zapiola is referencing.

Despite the best efforts of Free The Work/Free The Bid, the situation is pretty pitiful.  

One factor must be that the majority of creatives are men and they write about what they know: men. 

And what makes them laugh: men.   

We have a huge pool of amazing female comedy talent to cast, if only more spots were written with female leads. 

Women don't need to look peculiar or stereotypically beautiful to be funny; humour comes in all shapes, skin tones and religions. An exercise I started doing years ago to get more of these fantastic women on camera is proposing to agencies and clients cast both genders for the same role. This has succeeded many times because you double your chances of getting an amazingly funny actor you need for the role.

We have a huge pool of amazing female comedy talent to cast, if only more spots were written with female leads. 

Male humour has been thoroughly explored for years, yet women's humour in movies is relatively new and virtually untapped in the advertising world. It took the lockdown to convince my father to watch Bridesmaids, because for years he thought it was just a ´chick flick'; based on the fact it was all lead by an all-female cast. 

When he watched it, he loved it and wanted to talk to me about it at length. Bridesmaids is an excellent example of female humour. It doesn't need to be about tampons or breastfeeding to be a female ad, come on... I'm still waiting on that amazing beer commercial with a female group of friends who will crack me up. 

I want to direct that so badly. 

Above: A trailer for Bridesmaids.

The fact is, women still only direct 5% of the world's ads. Only 3% of the 61 Superbowl ads this year were directed by women. This does not reflect the talent out there. FACT. 

When you look at the movie business, female talent is embraced and inherently awarded: Chloe Zhao is set to win Best Director at the Oscars 2021, and the eagerly awaited A Promising Woman by Emerald Fennel is celebrated widely.

When you look at the movie business, female talent is embraced and inherently awarded.

Yet Adland lags behind. The awards for female directors at the recent British Arrows pay testament to this, as they were almost non-existent. I think I counted one individual Gold, albeit out of around five directors nominated versus the 88 male directors nominated for one or more awards. 

This is what we’re up against. 

It’s not the fault of the Arrows; it’s ad land and the lack of opportunities for women at the outset.