Who you calling unfunny? Vanity Fair took its sweet time, but after more than a year of letting the anvil of an essay “Why Women Aren’t Funny” weigh down the discourse, the magazine finally issued its own rebuttal with its April cover story, “Who Says Women Aren't Funny?” And to prove that point, it assembled some of the most sparkling female wits for a photoshoot with famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Yes, Amy Poehler appears to be grabbing Tina Fey’s boob. You really can’t argue with comedy genius like that. Answering the call to funny alongside them were Sandra Bernhard, Susie Essman, Jenna Fischer, Chelsea Handler, Leslie Mann, Maya Rudolph, Amy Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes and Kristen Wiig. I’m going to need a moment to soak in all this concentrated hilarious. Seriously, my sides are starting to hurt from phantom laughter just looking at them.

In response to (resisting the urge to use a profane adjective) columnist Christopher Hitchens’ decidedly unfunny article about why women are the unfunnier sex, New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley has penned a footnote-worthy essay that touches on everything from English novelist George Meredith to Virginia Woolf to tribes in Papua New Guinea. To which I say, sure, but where do the rubber chickens fit in? … continue reading

There’s a half-funny, half-embarrassing story concerning me and women on the cover of magazines. It involves the year 1998, a newsagent, Denise Richards, a copy of FHM, and my firm insistence — to a male friend of mine who happened across me browsing — that I didn’t realize FHM was a men’s magazine. I think he believed me ... just about.

Nevertheless, for most of my teen years I didn’t dare to cast more than a furtive eye in the direction of the men’s magazine section. Fortunately, they’re not the only magazines to feature lots of glamorous women. In fact, one of my favorite magazine covers was from around the same period as the FHM fiasco, in 1997:

Now, I couldn’t care less about Cameron Diaz, but Kate Winslet and Claire Danes in the same frame? Be still, my beating teenage Titanic- and My So-Called Life–loving heart!

What I didn’t realize at the time was that this cover was part of what has become an annual series for Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue, by a rather well-known photographer named Annie Leibovitz. VanityFair.com is currently running a retrospective of these foldout covers (which typically entice you in with three beautiful women on the front, and then open out to reveal about seven more). That means you can time-travel all the way back to the first one in 1995:

Um. Yes. Normally I think that the expression “legs for days” is an exaggeration, but in the case of Uma Thurman (pictured second from left), it might actually be true. And I’m not even going to get started on that picture of Nicole Kidman.

Also online is the latest cover, for 2008: … continue reading