Chelsea Handler

The Chelsea character is meant to be a mess, but she’s also meant to be hotter than any other gal in the room, and way more fun than her “judgy super-Christian sister.” She’s a natural “Happy Hour” companion to Whitney, she of similar sexy-dork shtick and the wacky jokes about drinking water like it’s vodka. Hilarious bits involving drunk driving, little people and homophobia ensue!

Of course, there’s plenty of genuine comedy to be found in excess, regardless of which gender is falling down. That’s why “The Hangover” wasn’t called “That Time a Bunch of Guys Drank Mineral Water and Nothing Happened.” “Bridesmaids” might still have been a runaway smash without Kristin Wiig’s liquored-up airplane scene, but it was an undeniable showstopper nonetheless. And it’s notable that “Chelsea” debuts the same week that one of the all-time champs of inebriated comedy has staged a brief return. “Absolutely Fabulous” always was – and blessedly remains – based largely on the humor inherent from well-dressed ladies face-planting out of taxicabs.

Yet there’s something different in the whole Chelsea-Whitney NBC Happy Hour. It starts with its weird assumption that the notion of Girls Behaving Badly (actual title of another Chelsea Handler show) is somehow, in this day and age, groundbreaking. That’s pretty much all it takes, by the way, for Handler to earn L.A. Times critic Robert Lloyd’s breathless accolade of “real” twice in a single recent paragraph. But what really sets it apart is the whiff of voyeuristic creepiness about building a prime-time block around willowy females who dress up sexy and get their drink on. Is this really the same network that figured out how to give us the complicated, hilarious – and very different – characters of Reagan Brinkley, Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon?

Worse, though, Happy Hour reinforces the stereotype of ladies as inherently less funny than dudes. Chelsea’s humor, after all, hinges upon her being like a guy — someone who sleeps around and gets “lady wood” — but has conveniently appealing blond hair and boobs. It’s an interesting if depressing ploy, especially coming on the heels of Meghan Daum’s recent declaration that Christopher Hitchens was right about women not being funny because “they’re afraid of what they’ll have to give up in exchange, for instance the coy mysteriousness that men supposedly prize above all else.” I think Daum is dead wrong, but I can’t help noticing what a neat workaround alcohol provides for the kind of person who does indeed believe that vaginas render a human unamusing. Drinking gives the female permission to be messed up and aggressive — all the things that make for comedy — and then go back to being “coy” and cute.

But there’s got to be more to a woman, even a fictional one, than “Look at me, I’m so naughty.” Some depth of character, some occasional jokes. Because the girl at the bar slurring “I’m sooooo drunk” is just a punch line, not a promising premise upon which to hinge an entire series. And alcohol only makes people interesting when you’re the one doing the drinking.

Not willing to let any grass grow under its zeitgeisty, metaphoric feet, today the Times notices “Female Comedians, Breaking the Taste-Taboo Ceiling.” Have you heard of this Sarah Silverman person? Because apparently she is rather raunchy. And lest you find yourself wondering how you woke up in 1998, and if so, whether Dawson’s ever going to hook up with Joey, let me assure you, this story actually ran in the New York Times in November 2011. Coming next, a piece on how people are using emoticons. Oh, wait.

In the first four paragraphs of his piece on taboo-busting babes, Jason Zinoman opens with a 1979 quote from Johnny Carson, segues into a 2007 Vanity Fair piece by Christopher Hitchens, and lands with a flourish on a decade-old Sarah Silverman joke. As those saucy lady comics might say, this story is dustier than your grandmother’s vagina.

After bringing us up to speed on Silverman’s latest rape jokes, what do you think Zinoman covered next? That’s right, Whitney Cummings, “another coarse, sexually frank female stand-up comic.” Despite also doing rape jokes, Zinoman finds her “not particularly risky.”

Cummings, like Silverman, is both attractive and comfortable around the F-bomb — and a reliable marvel to the Times. Just two months ago, Andrew Goldman was asking her about being “objectively attractive,” what she wears to meetings, and whether she  slept her way to fame and is “too dumb to own a car.” It was hilarious.

You’d think the next place to go from here would be Chelsea Handler. Last spring, after all, the Times lovingly noted that “her body has the pre-silicone lushness of a ’60s Playmate” while cooing that she admits, “I try to make fun of everyone as often as possible, especially minorities.” But shockingly – shocking like a rape joke involving a black guy shocking – the Times veers to Amy Schumer. Schumer, who is not Chelsea Handler, is “blond and bubbly” with “wholesome, apple-cheeked cheer,” and an act that “spouts proudly prejudiced views, mean-girl put-downs and meticulously recounted sexual exploits.” See, it’s completely different.

I’m just a cotton-headed set of ovaries on two feet, but I can’t help noticing a recurring theme. Whether it’s coming from Katie Roiphe or a culture writer, there’s a weird mix of fascination and repugnance toward the gal with a seemingly manly swagger here. She’s so cool, she can even laugh off sexual assault. Why can’t more women be like her? And she gets to say that stuff about vaginas that other people can’t. You know, like Jay-Z can say the N-word and gay men can call each other queer. Imagine the freedom! She’s also hot. Who else feels a 1,200 word think piece coming on?

It’s not that certain female comics don’t perpetuate this attention-getting shtick — if I never hear Sarah Silverman deliver an abortion punch line in that baby-talk monotone again, it’ll be too soon. But the bangable-broad-with-a-potty-mouth story is approximately as relevant as the moms-sometimes-wear-nice-clothes-outside one. What’s amazing isn’t that a woman can cuss with her pretty little lipsticked mouth. It’s that this jive-ass story is still being written, 10 years after it was vaguely topical. It’s the astonishment that Johnny Carson’s 1979 opinions no longer hold quite so much sway, and that sometimes people who can grow babies in their tummies can curse and talk about their periods or your erections. Guess the cat’s out of the bag on that one. So congratulations to the Times on something truly original there. They’ve made the notion of breaking taboos utterly boring.