Why do comic relief characters tend to be male?

vegan_vicky

In more serious movies there can be a role called comic relief character which is there to make you laugh a bit and make the movie more colorful. However, while I was watching a movie with a character like that in it, I noticed, that I can't remember a movie, where the comic relief character was a woman. I'm sure there is, but most of the time it's a guy. Heck, some purposefully funny movies have a character who is very serious, not like the...

Originally asked by Bálint on Stack Exchange (movies) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Some of the older Bond girls were comic, for example Goodnight in "The man with the golden gun" and Rosie in "Live and let die". Today many of the jokes appear sexistic, although they are probably not worse then Bond's attitude towards women (which has changed a lot since Roger Moore). So I guess that cultural change plays a role. Another reason could be that the stupid woman is still used as a stereotype, especially in sitcom. Any producer considering himself "serious" would want to avoid being considered "trivial" comedy, thus avoiding stupid female characters. Also the two peasants from "The hidden fortress" could have influenced the way we see comic relief, either directly or via R2D2...

Full answer by Jan-Christoph Schlage-Puchta: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/63469 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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