Everything is funny

I have a philosophy that there is humor in everything, you just have to look for it. On the surface, this seems like a pretty easy statement to refute. There was nothing funny about the Holocaust, and to suggest any sort of lighthearted take on it is quite literally blasphemy…but didn’t they make “Hogan’s Heroes,” a mere thirty some-odd years after the worst crime in the history of humanity? Death at a Funeral just came out. I mean, just re-came out. Losing a loved one is probably the most devastating weight to bear for anyone, yet this movie, in either of it’s incarnations, is allegedly pretty funny. In Very Bad Things they kill a hooker, in Inglorious Basterds , Hitler’s super-evil is lampooned to perfection (though Tarantino really got it right when they blew Marvin’s head to bits in Pulp Fiction ). I’m not talking shock stand ups or obvious non-realistic comedies, but handling emotionally heavy moments or scenarios with a little bit of levity.

In college, I REALLY wanted to write a live sketch about 9/11. Now, I’m not a Bushy Conservo type, but I love America and 9/11 was pretty impactful on me, or at least on my latent racism. I knew that in good conscience, I couldn’t — for years if not longer — dare make light of that tragedy. It was even more so off limits because it occurred within my lifetime, in front of my fucking eyes. But therein lies the humor. I wrote an almost wordless scene where two guys are sitting at a table out to dinner. Awkwardly looking away from each other, trying to find something besides each other to look at, focus on or discuss. Are they gay? Retarded? What is going on here, the audience wonders, after a painfully unfunny silence. Finally, one guy just blurts out, “So 9/11 was fucked up!” to which the other guy emphatically retorts, “YEAH.” The scene fucking killed, because it made fun of the fact you can’t even talk about 9/11, joke or not, without ruining everyone’s day, when really all anyone wants to do is cathartically talk it out. Now, of course I’m giving myself some credit (you’re noticing this trend, no?), but you see what I mean: everything can be funny, or hold some humor, if you approach it from the correct angle.

Not every movie or script needs humor, but it couldn’t hurt, because I feel that in real life, people laugh at some weird stuff. I was recently getting sexually transmitted, uh, growths frozen off of my cock and in between the searing heat of near Absolute Zero liquid nitrogen freezing my flesh, I had to laugh because, well, I was getting sexually transmitted, uh, growths frozen off of my cock. Admit it. You just laughed. I suspect Pearl Harbor was one of the most terrifying things for anyone to ever have to go through, but try to find an interview of John William Finn describing his experiences that day, and it’s fucking hysterical. This old, racist, they-don’t-build-’em-like-they-used-to guy really makes war sound like a fucking party. I’m just saying, there’s humor all around us, even if you’re the butt of the joke, so don’t be afraid to embrace it, ever so slightly, in your screenplay, even if you’re writing about something not all that funny. Even Se7en had that whole thing with the elevated train going by the Pitt/Paltrow residence every thirty seconds.

I was recently told of a scene from The Jackal in which Bruce Willis obliterates a still character-acting Jack Black with uranium bullets or something, and it’s absolutely hilarious. There’s a line in Traffic that Topher Grace delivers to Michael Douglas as they’re looking for Douglas’ daughter that makes me lose it every time, even though I’m the only person to laugh in the theater or room or what have you. Denzel Washington’s “That’s $25,000 Alpaca, you blot that shit!” in American Gangster, the gladiator pretending to be poisoned from Russell Crowe’s soup in Gladiator, even Bill Paxton’s entire performance in Aliens. There’s plenty of precedent and plenty of successful examples. I know you know more than I.

Anyway, this isn’t going anywhere, I’m just saying. Of course you don’t always have to include some humor in your script, and conversely, if your movie is nothing but laughs, you’re doing something wrong. But you should at least honestly and openly embrace the lighter side of whatever you’re writing, because in real life, and therefore also in your script, it’s there, even if you don’t see it outright. Look a little harder, and throw a couple chuckles the audience’s way, if that’s your thing. If it’s not, then you’re an “artist,” not an “entertainer,” and there’s nothing funny about that.

But what the fuck would I know, I’m just an actor.