I know, what a weird title for a blog post, right? But I’ve been thinking about this a lot
lately. Not just because the news
is full of death and destruction, but because the idea of death and our fear of
it, impact every kind of storytelling.
Even comedies.
In The Hero’s Journey, the notion of transformation for the main
character usually plays out through a journey to the land of “death” and back again. It’s clear what this means in a drama
or action movie, where actual physical death is part of the stakes created by
the writer.
But how does this threat of death play out in films like THE
4O YEAR OLD VIRGIN, or THE HANGOVER, or THE HEAT?
“Death” is just as front and center in comedy, and part of
the function of these funny stories is to help us process the fact that we’re all
gonna die. And we pretty much face
the threat of it every day, in all kinds of niggling, mundane and not so
mundane ways.
Let’s take the 40
YEAR OLD VIRGIN. Is Steve Carell
going to physically die if he doesn’t sleep with Catherine Keener? No. But can someone metaphorically “die” if they lack connection
and intimacy in their life?
Yes. The prospect of never
finding love is a kind of “death” in our human experience. The threat of this is just as
emotionally serious as the threat of being thrown off a cliff.
What about THE HANGOVER? Death plays out here in two ways. Doug’s groomsmen buddies are threatened with actual physical
annihilation from various sources (Mr. Chow, anyone?) But what drives these
guys to take so many risks? The
fact that their buddy might miss his wedding to the RIGHT woman. Again, “death” here is the threat of
the end of a relationship or dream. If they ruin Doug’s relationship, they will
have killed something really important.
This metaphorical death is so important, that they put their ACTUAL
lives in danger.
THE HEAT. Yeah,
they’re cops. And yeah, they deal
with bad guys. But even
more important in the movie is the connection between these two women—one who
has no friends due to the fact she’s not a team player, and the other, because
of her over-the-top disregard for other people’s feelings. When these two women bond, the
stakes are huge. Going back to
being alone, for each of them, is impossible. In this case, the threat of splitting apart their "team" is the death moment. This type of threat happens a lot in buddy comedies.
So think about it.
Does your comedy have the threat of “death” (metaphorical or actual)
included in the stakes?
In The Hero’s Journey, the hero faces death two times. Once,
at the end of ACT II (called The Ordeal), and again in the climax (called
Resurrection.) In comedies, the Ordeal usually involves the main character blowing up his/her relationship or making a mistake that causes them to fail at achieving their goal. This is then followed by scenes of them sitting
around in their underwear in a pizza box littered apartment, crying. Or walking sadly in the rain. They have lost their friendship or relationship or
dream.
Then they “Seize the Sword”—they get an idea of how to
pursue their loved one or dream in a new way, and they go for it in ACT III.
In “Resurrection” (the climax,) they must face this same "death" once more, but this time use the lessons they learned from The
Ordeal. They act differently in
this moment, they must change and grow, in order to to be resurrected and "live."
Does that make sense?
So look at your comedy, and ask, “Is there the threat of
some kind of death in my story? And if not, how can I go back and re-think the
stakes?”
Most great comedies make us laugh and appreciate life. And the only way to do this is to have
our characters face its opposite.
The Big D.
I'd love to hear from you. If you've written or are writing a comedy, what kind of death have you built in?
I'd love to hear from you. If you've written or are writing a comedy, what kind of death have you built in?
