Opinion: Jokes at the expense of women are over, male comedians

After a truly unfunny excuse for an opening monologue at the Golden Globes, male comedians are on notice: We’re not going to laugh at your stupid jokes about women anymore, Eliza Barr writes.

After the year that brought us the culture-defining, stratospheric success of Taylor Swift and Barbie – men are still embarrassing themselves by making women the butt of their jokes.

We are simply not laughing, because it is simply not funny.

Jo Koy – allegedly a comedian, unsure – was apparently rather abruptly handed the honour of hosting this year’s Golden Globes and immediately proceeded to disappoint basically everybody.

“Barbie was based on a plastic doll with big boobs,” he uttered.

At this point someone should have hit the outro music because it was immediately apparent Jo Koy either didn’t watch Barbie, or so fundamentally misunderstood it he shouldn’t have been trying to joke about it to begin with.

Alleged comedian Jo Koy. Picture: Rich Polk/Getty Images

The film was nominated for a whopping nine awards – a pleasant surprise in and of itself since as far as I can tell (admittedly, not a film critic) awards season is quite often an ode to movies about men who are going through a thing, which I unfortunately find very boring.

It was also a film about fighting back against the impossibly restrictive and unreasonable expectations of women – be thin but not too thin! You have to be a boss but you can’t be mean! (these are direct quotes from the film, Jo).

And the best response this guy could come up with to this wildly successful feminist film was Barbie has large breasts.

How disappointing. How embarrassing for him.

Margot Robbie at the 81st Golden Globe Awards. Picture: Christopher Polk/Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images

Jo then followed that absolute clanger up with a “joke” about how the difference between the NFL and the Golden Globes is that musician Taylor Swift gets more screentime at the NFL.

It’s not clear because it’s not funny but I think the joke is supposed to be because she can be seen on screen when she attends boyfriend Travis Kelce’s games with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Swift didn’t laugh – and neither did we.

Taylor Swift after that “joke”.

Girl, same.

Male comedians: we are tired, we are not impressed, we are bored, we are not going to laugh at your stupid attempts at comedy that make us the butt of the joke anymore.

It’s not funny. You are not funny.

Old mate Jo then had the audacity to complain that no-one found him particularly funny, blamed some unnamed writers, and said he only had 10 days to prepare for this gig.

I personally am confused by this because in my career, if I was asked to perform a function which was fundamentally the thing I am employed to do – my area of expertise, the thing that I am trained and qualified to do – 10 days would frankly be excessive.

US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift arrives for the 81st annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on January 7, 2024. Picture: TRAN/AFP

How could 10 days not be enough for a professional comedian to come up with something funnier than “feminist film is about plastic doll with large breasts” and “beloved superstar has a boyfriend”?

How many days would you need, Jo, to realise that jokes where women are reduced to the sum total of their body parts and their partners are not funny and no-one is going to laugh?

In fact they’re not really jokes, they’re very embarrassing insights into the way you demonstrably think about us.

In a cultural era arguably defined by the extraordinary success of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Barbie, Beyonce, the Matildas and the women’s World Cup, Ash Barty, Coco Gauff, Simone Biles, Caitlin Clark, just to name a few – it is frankly passe as well as just humiliatingly unfunny to be so shallow.

Maybe the next awards show can give you 14 days’ notice to do better.

Originally published as Opinion: Jokes at the expense of women are over, male comedians