Time & Perspective Quote by Julie Walters

Walters answers a patronizing question with the kind of blunt common sense that makes the question look ridiculous. “Can women be funny?” gets treated not as a debate, but as a malfunction in basic perception. Her comparison - “Can women breathe in and out?” - isn’t just a clapback; it’s a reframing device. Humor isn’t a rare skill women must petition to access. It’s as bodily, as constant, as involuntary as breath. By choosing an everyday biological function, she strips the gatekeepers of their favorite move: pretending “funny” is an elite credential handed down by mostly male tastemakers.

The line’s sting lands partly because Walters anchors it in lived media history: the Victoria Wood era, when women’s comedy was both wildly popular and still treated as a novelty act. That’s the cultural whiplash she’s pointing to - audiences laughing, industry and critics still asking permission slips. Her tone carries fatigue (“People still ask that”), but also strategy: she refuses to dignify the premise with a nuanced rebuttal. Nuance would suggest the question is complicated; Walters insists it’s embarrassingly primitive.

Subtext: the question isn’t really about comedy. It’s about who gets to be seen as fully human, fully expressive, and fully authoritative in public. Walters makes the sexist framing look not merely wrong but absurd, and that’s why it works. The joke is on the question.