Whitney Cummings Interview Wins Stereotype Bingo

If the ads promoting Whitney Cummings’s eponymous new sitcom are in any way indicative of the quality of the show itself, it will be at best mildly irritating and at worst a parody inviting but dismaying indicator of a lack of creativity in television, a harbinger of a new Dark Age in scriptwriting. An indicator that the future of the female TV character is offensive things Charlie Harper says about women on Two & A Half Men if they attained human form, sentience, and some cute cardigans.

While it’s never surprising to be disappointed by a sitcom, it’s surprising to read an interview with a female sitcom star that, in 2011, resorts to an impressive number of female stereotypes. It’s even more surprising to read such an interview in the New York Times.

Undaunted by precedent or the retirement status of outdated lady related generalizations, NYT’s Andrew Goldman makes himself sound like Mad Men’s Pete Campbell on one of his extra drunk and petulant days in his interview with Cummings, which is ominously titled “There’s No Escaping Whitney Cummings.” Over the course of the dozen or so questions showcased from his interview with the sitcom star, Goldman manages ask her if she slept her way to the top like her friend Chelsea Handler, if she has a career because people find her attractive, if she’s really “too dumb to own a car,” and what she wore to meet the creator of Sex & The City.

Cummings, to her credit, handles the questions with grace and manages to come across as charming and poised. She even gets a few barbs of her own in, at one point saying,

I don’t think I’m funny because I’m young and talking about penises. Just deal with it. Saying women aren’t funny is now like saying Asians can’t drive or saying black people have bad credit.

Clothes, boys, being bad at driving, and being dumb. If only he’d asked her if she’s bad at math, if she talks too much, or if she currently has PMS. But seriously, Whitney, tell the New York Times all about your dream wedding and the babies, babies, babies you yearn for. And what about your secrets to staying slim?!