Writers of funny top ten lists are well-aware that the characteristics of our audience largely determine whether or not a list will be considered funny. Therefore, it seems appropriate to take a brief look at the most important audience characteristic of all: males versus females.

Boys will be boys.

Biologically, men and women have one primary function: reproduction. Although the ways in which we actually conduct our reproductive roles may not appeal to everyone's civilized sensibilities, the following well-accepted facts accurately describe the roles that men and women are instinctively compelled to play.

A man's job is to make sure that his DNA is passed on, by having sex with as many healthy, fertile women as possible. Success is invariably achieved at the expense of other competitors; often, by permanently eliminating them. The unending series of wars which have been going on since the dawn of time has always provided the perfect excuse for this brutal elimination contest.

Since men go through life knowing that they may one day have to take the lives of other men, they instinctively maintain a certain amount of "emotional distance" from others. They are always concerned that rival males will interpret any display of sensitivity as a sign of weakness.

Surprise! Women are slightly more complicated.

A woman's job is to attract the DNA of men who have the power and resources to give her children the best chance of survival. However, Mother Nature has saddled her with an additional problem: although she is always in competition with other women for the best DNA, she desperately needs their cooperation in two important areas.

She must be able to count on them to take care of her children if she can not do so herself. She also depends on other females to give her the emotional support that is generally not available from men.

As a result, women are extremely careful not to offend one another, because they can not risk alienation and possible ostracism by other females. Yet many of these same women are potential competitors; and hence, not completely trustworthy! The upshot is that women go through life constantly analyzing each others' words for any evidence of un-sisterly behavior.

And make no mistake. Whenever women are engaged in the deadly serious business of competing for a mate, their never-ending search for verbal backstabbing is quite likely to hit pay dirt.

If the sandal fits.

Anthropologists agree that men are biologically programmed to take life, almost as casually as they create it. They are highly aggressive, and relatively insensitive to the feelings of others. Men are constantly striving to achieve a position of physical or economic supremacy over the competition, because it's the biological key to attracting the most desirable females.

Women, on the other hand, are far more sensitive, sociable creatures, whose biological imperative is to create and nurture life. They are no less competitive than men, but they chose to use their intuitive grasp of various emotional triggers, and their highly developed verbal skills, to avoid physical combat with each other. Their standard technique is to hurt each other's feelings (which can be devastatingly effective).

Not surprisingly, men's and women's respective senses of humor must conform to their sharply contrasting lifestyles.

You say tomatoes, I say frozen squash.

As we have seen, women are conditioned to carefully avoid the use of obvious personal put downs. The flip side of this ironclad feminine rule is that it's perfectly acceptable to attack anyone who violates the rule! And this is precisely what many women do, whenever comedy writers cross the "Painful Put Down" line.

Comedy writers often violate women's sacred code of communication, by making insensitive remarks about almost everything under the sun. Women generally dislike this type of humor. They spend so much time and energy trying to decode the put downs in other women's remarks, that they just don't care to deal with any more insensitive zingers and hurt feelings when they seek out a little comic relief.

Men, on the other hand, who play a lifelong game of one-upmanship with their male rivals, can never seem to get enough of these hurtful put downs. In fact, the more insulting the punch line, the better men like it. After all, even the most insensitive personal attacks don't seem particularly offensive to men ... when compared to actually killing their competitors!

Research has also shown that men and women are complete opposites when it comes to identifying with the butt of a joke. Men tend to laugh at those with whom they don't readily identify, while women prefer a style of humor that requires them to sympathetically identify with the object of a joke.

What's good for the goose ...

Men like to think of themselves as tough and superior. Therefore, they tend to laugh at otherpeople (with whom they never closely identified anyway). Men especially like insensitive put downs, because they serve to validate their own natural aggressiveness.

Women like to think of themselves as sweet and caring. Because they know from first-hand experience just how deeply words can hurt, they tend to reject humor that hurts other people's feelings. They are much more inclined to laugh at situations; especially those in which they can easily picture themselves.

All of this should serve as a red flag to the comedy writer. And on that flag is the following warning: "Always aim for a carefully selected target audience, because it's devilishly difficult to hit two birds with only one stone."


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