Why So Serious?

Comedy gets kind of a bad rap. On the one hand, a comedy might be considered a perfectly acceptable vehicle for a goofy little idea, an energetic lead, and a lot of humorous dialogue. But everybody knows that if you want fiction that plumbs the depth of human emotion, that has heart and soul and is willing to challenge you intellectually and empathetically, you need to look under serious drama.

The general phrasing of things gives away how we feel about this. If a writer has a story or character they want the audience to really invest in, or an actor wants to be appreciated for a deeply nuanced role, they want the audience (and critics) to take them seriously. The amount of respect an entertainer receives seems irrevocably tied to how serious they take themselves and their craft. And it applies to every media: either you're Leonardo DiCaprio, or you're Jack Black; either you're Stanley Kubrick, or you're Shawn Levy; either you're Radiohead, or you're LMFAO.

And this distinction is more extreme now that it ever was before. Silent actor Charlie Chaplin was incredibly well respected for his physical comedy and was able to perfectly balance silliness with anti-Nazi social commentary. With the exception of classic Star Trek, most of television's great strides in racial equality took the form of sitcoms. Jackie Chan made a career out of films where any moment could bring either unbelievable stunts or simple slapstick. Even as late as 1997, we got The Fifth Element, one of the best action movies ever made, and it was more than willing to engage in its fair share of schtick.

Great action movie, or the greatest action movie?

The point being that drama, emotion, social commentary, or just sheer undeniable skill as a performer used to cooperate with comedy, but nowadays it feels like the only action movies with comic relief are Michael Bay pictures.

And you really have to stretch to call those “humorous” or “relieving”.

This era of distinctly separate comedy and drama had its own beginning in each of the media individually, but the thing that seemed to spur it all on in the mainstream pop culture was the Bourne Identity. Despite the fact that it shares a nearly identical plot with Jackie Chan's arguably superior Who Am I?, this humorless and baleful look at the life of a rogue, brainwashed assassin started gritty and depressing, and would only get moreso in the following two sequels. Meanwhile, Hollywood (and the rest of the medias) have been playing catchup ever since, constantly one upping each other in terms of how dismal they can make life for their protagonists.

I think partly it's just that everybody wants their creations to be taken as seriously by audiences as they the creators take it, and the only way they know how to be sure it will be is to flat out demand the audience do so. Obviously, there's some commercialist creators who took a look at the Bourne Identities, the Dark Knights, and the Hunger Games and said, “Whoa, personal tragedy is way in right now, I need to get me some of that.”

“Put the plucky sidekick back in the box, we've got some expositional families to kill.”

But a lot of these I honestly think are the result of writers who don't want their hard work to go unrecognized. Take a look at Young Justice, for instance. It's actually been pretty decent so far, a little angsty at first, but it has recently mostly overcome that. What I consider its biggest flaw, however, is that it seems to feel embarrassed about being a cartoon. It has a tightly knit continuity, in depth character development, shifting status quos and beautifully realistic animation, but these partly feel like the result of the writers constantly working too hard to get noticed; that they're constantly vigilant to always be serious, as if a little bit of levity will undermine all the hard work they've done. Half the time it feels like they're looking right at the camera and saying, “This is very serious, you guys, we demand that you recognize it as such.”

Thankfully, there are others out there who do understand the benefit of balancing comedy. More than that, there is a growing underbelly that for perhaps one of the first widespread times in mainstream fiction has taken to attempting to tell drama and emotional depth through the comedy. Previously, if an important lesson or dramatic moment happened in a comedy, it occurred in a break from the humor; very special episodes, or moments where the laughter died down and an announcement was made that wiped the smile right off your face. But recently there have been more and more stories that have been giving in depth character or plot development while they never stop being funny. Kieth Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis' Justice League International, originally started in 1987, chose to portray its superheroes comically, even goofily, because it was a way to look past the veneer of superheroes' public face and show their personalities when they could be themselves. There's been a resurgence of this team as of late, with two miniseries written by the original creative staff within the last couple years, and multiple episodes devoted to them on the recent Batman: The Brave and The Bold. Brave and the Bold, meanwhile, just finished its three season run of being able to make me laugh out loud with scenes like this:

and then make me cry with scenes like this:

often within the same episode. If the death of a character brought tears to your eyes, it was because they worked their way into your heart by being hilarious. Kieth Giffen and John Rogers made headlines a few years ago by creating Blue Beetle Jaime Reyes, one of the most prominent Mexican superheroes, but what made his comic among the best I've ever read was the level of characterization given to the entire supporting cast, all done through humor, and the fact that there were only two moments in two years where it stopped (briefly) feeling like a comedy. Scott Pilgrim, the movie and the comic, wowed critics and audiences alike with its honest portrayal of modern love and romance, which it presented through a hyperbolically comedic series of challenges to the main character. Community has quickly developed a reputation as the most heartfelt and emotionally deep sitcom currently on TV by embracing the humor as a means to further our care for these characters. These are all stories that understand that the best way to get an audience to take them seriously is to get the audience to want to take them seriously. Not everyone will when you spend more (or even equal) time joking than chin stroking, but not everyone will get into a constant stream of grim and gritty drama. Not everyone agrees with me, but I took Batman: The Brave and The Bold more seriously than I ever could take Young Justice, because instead of constantly demanding my attention, it was willing to just entertain me most of the time, and only occasionally would it ask me (politely, even) to pause, reflect, and feel something. This balance, this style is out there, and hopefully we'll get to see more of it, because frankly, it's way less tiring than than the modern grit we've become so used to. Until we see more of this, I'll be forgoing most of the big summer blockbusters, the new drama shows, and the upcoming comic book crossover events, and I'll be watching endless reruns of the show that perhaps best blends humor and drama, silliness and seriousness. I think you know who it is.