"Three women walk into a pub and say, `Hooray, we've colonised a male-dominated joke format'" - Bill Bailey
Panel shows ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘QI’ were among those criticised this week for not putting enough women in their programme.
It seems bizarre that such a objection could be raised – after all, comedy is a male dominated world. It always has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Why then, should shows that feature (primarily) comedians be forced to staff its teams in a way that is disproportionate to the business?
Should a fear of being labelled as sexist really stop creatives making the output that they want to? Perhaps we should ask the likes of The Wanted or The Saturdays to feature an equal amount of men and women?
If Mock the Week and QI are to be criticised, I feel it should be on the merits of the shows themselves, rather than the gender count. Indeed, there’s plenty to get worked up about. The infuriatingly faux-academic pretense of QI has us believing Stephen Fry is some sort of Einstein of our times for simply being able to read off a card. Meanwhile his Oxbridge educated friends on the panel take it in turns to congratulate each other for presenting knowledge that may or may not be hearsay.
Mock the Week on the other hand, serves only as a slim framework for comedians to read out the same stand-up material they have been espousing across every other TV panel show that month, propped up by the occasional excitement of a Frankie Boyle joke that crosses into very bad taste territory.
Maybe the BBC would be better advised to put quality content first on their agenda and difficult diversity issues second. Then the answer would be surely be simple – employ the comedians that are the funniest – irrespective of their gender, age or race.
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