Comedy After 9/11: New Doc Looks Back at the Struggle to Figure Out “How Soon is Too Soon”
“Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11” is a documentary directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Nick Fituri Scown and award-winning comedy journalist Julie Seabaugh that looks back at the attacks that took place 20 years ago through the eyes and experiences of some of the world’s most successful and talented comedians and comedy insiders. Although Scown and Seabaugh did an outstanding job paying tribute to the first responders and capturing the heartbreak and devastation that captured our nation, this documentary sets out to do more than that. “Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11” documents the role comedy played in helping Americans hold on to their ideals, regain a sense of normalcy and heal. Marc Maron captured it perfectly when he discussed our nation’s return to comedy and said, “It was a show of resistance and strength to not let this disrupt our way of life. We were not going to be completely culturally annihilated by this.” The comedians of the world may not have been in uniform, but there was still something incredibly patriotic about the service they provided. This documentary goes on to tell the story of the unsung heroes such as David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Jeff Ross, Todd Hanson and all the working comedians and writers who went back to work and got America laughing again, while at the same time walking a tightrope and begging the question… How soon would be too soon?
The adage goes that tragedy + time = comedy. So, in the wake of a tragedy as massive as September 11, 2001, how much time would it take before comedy could be created? The truth is, this is not an exact science and there was a lot of concern surrounding this question within the comedy community. Gilbert Gottfried asked, “How do you make a joke ever again?” and Eddie Pepitone mirrored that question with, “Can we laugh? When is it safe to laugh again?” These questions may seem unimportant to some, but for the multitude of people who find comedy and laughter to be their go-to coping skills, these are the most important questions a person can ask when going through a tragedy and processing loss. Likewise, Jimmy Carr shared that he doesn’t know how else to process something that horrific. Russell Peters agreed and said, “You need something to burst the tension in the room and that is what comedy is supposed to do.” As a school counselor, I regularly help students identify coping skills that work for them whenever they need to process stress, trauma, anxiety and/or grief and let me assure you, it is not a one-size-fits-all operation. Everyone is different. But for those of us like Saturday Night Live writer/producer Michael Schur, comedy is the key to releasing our negative emotions and sending them on their way. Schur said, “Ask any group of comedians in the world and they will tell you within 30 minutes or an hour someone made a joke. In that moment, that’s how you cry, that’s how you process grief and trauma and share your feelings with each other.”
Luckily, comedians and comedy fans did not have to wait long to relieve their pain and express their emotions. On Thursday, 9/13/01 the lights turned back on Broadway and The Producers starring Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane returned to the stage. Nathan Lane shared that he felt that it’s the comedian’s natural response to find humor, even in the darkest of situations and that reminded me of an educational theorist I studied in college named Howard Gardner. Gardner is famous for developing his theory of multiple intelligences. In it he states that intelligence is not one singular thing, but rather can be broken into 8 separate facets in which people can have intelligence within. He identified the 8 types of intelligences as verbal-linguistic, mathematical-logical, visual-spatial, intrapersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, naturalist and musical-rhythmic. But I would argue that he left one type of intelligence off his list. Wit and the ability to find the humor within any topic or situation is an intelligence that I recognize within people all of the time. Finding the funny is not something a comedian choses to do; but rather it is what they are compelled to do because that is simply the way their brain works. In the same way a mathematician can look at a bunch of numbers and just know how to solve the problem, a comedian can look at a problem and know how to find the joke. It’s an uncanny skill but unfortunately, since it is not recognized for being an official intelligence, their abilities are often met with anger or confusion when the masses deem their brain worked too quickly and it was too soon for them to have been able to find the humor within a sad situation or controversial topic. So, going back to the equation of tragedy + time= comedy, the answer to the question of how much time does it take to create comedy after a tragedy usually depends on the level of humor-wit intelligence the comedian has and the taste palette of their audience. In the case of September 11, 2001, New York comedy clubs reopened Friday, September 14th and audiences were just as eager to laugh as the comedians were to get back on stage. Then, on Monday September 17, 2001, late night TV returned to our screens and David Letterman was given the honor of gifting the country its first official laugh with the natural chemistry and banter that was shared between him and his final guest of the evening, Regis Philbin. A few weeks after that, Saturday Night Live returned to their regular timeslot on NBC and Jeff Ross was back to work at The Comedy Central Roast of Hugh Hefner where Gilbert Gottfried proved with a one-two punch of a September 11th joke followed by The Aristocrats that comedy was back and the world was well on its way to recovery.
“Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11” examines the complicated and inexplicably connected relationship between comedy and tragedy while at the same time celebrating the comedians, broadcasters and TV talk show hosts who ushered happiness and laughter back into our hearts during a time when we needed it the most. Watching this documentary served as a reminder that humor is healing for many, and it should never be taken off the table for those of us who need it to help process our emotions. This documentary did much more than brilliantly tell the story of comedy in a post 9/11 world, it defends a comedian’s right to joke about any subject matter, no matter how dark. And I promise you, that laugh is helping somebody, somewhere. As Marc Maron so eloquently put it, “Is comedy dead? NO! It’s necessary! How the fuck do you think you live every day in this goddamn world?” and I say Amen to that.
Read more comedy news.
Sara Dahms
Latest posts by Sara Dahms (see all)
