Adventures at Midlife

Vanity Fair, that bastion of impartiality, begs to differ that women aren’t funny in this.

“There is no question that there are a million more funny women than there used to be,” says Nora Ephron, the writer and film director. “But everything has more women. There are more women in a whole bunch of places, and this is one of them.” Ephron knows exactly why female comedians are currently much more successful than they used to be. “Here’s the answer to any question: cable,” she says. “There are so many hours to fill, and they ran out of men, so then there were women.”

Ah, Nora. Don’t miss I Feel Bad About My Neck, her collection of essays on aging. And for those of us of a certain age, there’s always Mrs. Hughes. Oh, and the ageless Rita Rudner, who claims that men are afraid of eyelash curlers. “I keep one under my pillow instead of a gun,” she says. And this: “My husband are trying to decide whether to get a puppy or have a baby. We’re trying to decide if we want to ruin our carpets or ruin our lives.”