Funny on the Page
I tend to go harder on comedies than I do on other genres. After 15 seconds of soul-searching, I came up with three reasons why. The first is obvious: I like to pretend that comedy is my genre, so I fiercely protect from folks willing to pound out lazy clichés in place of actual humor. As they sit back, nodding and chuckling to themselves, I burst through their window and impale them on an indescribably deadly object. I take comedy seriously, and I’ve worked my ass off trying to assess something as subjective as humor in the most objective way possible. It all goes back to the golden age of The Simpsons: not everyone will laugh at every joke, but every single viewer will find at least one joke funny; if they don’t, they simply don’t have a sense of humor. Most “comedy” writers don’t have the ambition to utilize such field depth in their writing (admittedly, it’s a huge pain in the ass for someone to do alone), but even that’s okay as long as they work well within the limited styles of humor they choose.
After awhile, certain people — and I like to think I’m among them, although you may disagree — become so attuned to what makes humor work, it goes beyond whether or not they subjectively find something funny. Personally, I have an intense dislike of broad farces — but I can understand, objectively, how they work in terms of story structure, character development, and style of humor, and I can identify whether or not the script does well within what it wants to be. It’s the same as judging any genre. With comedy, like horror movies, you’re pretty much dealing with a bunch of subgenres that have to be considered on their own merits, whether I find them subjectively funny or not. I could say Farting Farce is a bad comedy because it doesn’t make me laugh, but that’s like saying Big Sloppy Action Movie is a terrible script because it doesn’t read like a Merchant-Ivory costume drama. I can divorce myself from what I find funny and say, “Yeah, somebody who likes farces would probably love this.” Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s a better-educated guess than you’d get from somebody with no sense of humor.
So I’ve honed that skill. I’ve done some of the worst stand-up, improv, and stage acting in the history of time, because there’s nothing like the sound of 300 people not laughing (I swiped that from probably the only insightful line Aaron Sorkin penned during his Studio 60 reign of terror, and he probably swiped it from somebody much better than he is). I’ve forced the most impartial people I could find (e.g., coworkers or classmates but not friends) to read my writing, because who cares what my friends think? Any asshole can make their friends laugh, and 90% of the time, they’re doing it with inside jokes that aren’t objectively funny. The trick is making other people laugh, which is something many “comedy” “writers” fail to do.
At long last, here’s reason number two: ignoring the issue of whether or not I find something funny, too many comedy writers tend to coast on important dramatic principles like character development and plot coherence because they think, “Hey, it’s a comedy! As long as the characters are wacky and the jokes are funny, who cares if the plot makes sense or the characters’ actions are clearly motivated?!” This philosophy is, for lack of a better word, fucktarded. Take a moment, if you like any comedy at all, to think about your favorite moments in comedies. If you’re not a chuckleheaded idiot, whatever came to mind was probably a moment that’s funny because of who the character is rather than what he or she is doing (or what’s being done to them).
The third reason is a little simpler and more personal: I’m a bitter asshole. Juno was terrible, but I only took it personally because it got made and its terrible screenplay won a fucking Oscar. I’m really, really hard on my own work, and I’d wager I probably make it worse by tinkering constantly instead of just leaving well enough alone. I’ll read through something I wrote and ask myself why I ever thought it was funny. It always shocks me — and should shock you — that when I read these “comedies,” I think, “Holy Christ, my shit is better than this.” It’s not an ego-driven thought, and I’m only pointing it out here because it illustrates how fucking bad this shit is.
That said, I have something to say to all the budding comedy writers out there: your shit isn’t funny until it’s funny on the page.
I didn’t think I’d need to explain this concept, but I’ve read too many comedies where the idea of making something funny on the page does not appear to enter the writer’s mind. It’s pretty simple: someone reads your script and laughs*. They’re not attending a table reading or a staged reading or listening to you read it because hey man, they just gotta understand that it’s funny the way you say it. Before your comedy goes out, it has to be vetted by as many people as possible — an even mix of people who know about writing, know about comedy, have a good sense of humor, or have no sense of humor at all. If you have any kind of self-awareness, you can take their feedback and figure out the strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it does read funny, but the people who know story are frustrated by the flaccid narrative arc. Maybe it has a strong story but not a single laugh. The only way you’ll know is if you have people who aren’t you read it.
What disturbs me about these scripts is that I’m running around saying it has to be this way or that way, but I haven’t taken into account that these are greenlit shooting drafts. Maybe they started out funny and the development wringer churned out another piece of trash. I don’t have any insider information about these shit heaps; I just get paid to read them. Whatever the story, though, this has been read by people — dozens of people — and these are the shooting drafts? These are the funniest scripts, with the best stories and most compelling characters? Are you fucking kidding me?
The most memorably bad of the bunch isn’t inherently the worst. Unlike the real dregs, this one has mildly interesting story and character arcs. Its biggest problems are (1) not a single goddamn laugh on the page, yet it’s written in an irritating, brash style that leads me to believe the writer is in love with his nonexistent wit, and (2) it’s about the wrong goddamn character. How does that even happen? How do you sell a script, have it read by a dozen or more people in various producerial capacities, a director, actors, whoever else — how do they read this and not realize the “protagonist” doesn’t do shit while the “sidekick” actually does the narrative heavy lifting and has the only character changes? Worse than that, how do they not realize the only funny moments are purloined from much better movies?
Here’s the plot: a loser with an absurd name sleeps with a woman he quickly discovers is married. The husband finds out and, for reasons too stupid to even contemplate (I know the writer didn’t spend any time trying to make it believable, so why should I try to figure it out?), he moves in with the loser because (a) he’s angry at his wife and (b) he now has a “gift card” to sleep with another woman, but his problem is that he doesn’t really want to. If I said he just wants to get in touch with his 20s, a decade he missed because he married too young and was too career-minded, I’m actually imbuing the character with more depth than he ever gets from the writer. However, by adding such depth, a compelling character and potentially interesting story forms.
The writer chooses not to tell that story, so an Odd Couple-type festering pustule of a rom-com ensues. The “loser” “protagonist” is just along for the ride. Here’s something people should know about drama, dating back to (at least) Aristotle: protagonists must be compelled to action. This loser just sits around until the husband grabs him and drags him to bars, clubs, parties, and double-date one night stands. Even in the third act, which revolves around getting husband and wife back together, the loser doesn’t do a thing — the wife’s personal assistant badgers the loser into helping stage some meet-ups to get the couple back together. Then, for no other reason than plot conventions, he and the assistant get together at the end. The loser has no internal motivation — no voice inside of him saying, “I want this obnoxious lout of my apartment now” — to make him take action; he doesn’t even have a bland external force like a dying grandmother whose only wish is to see her grandson get married. He’s totally inert.
Meanwhile, the husband is suffering. We don’t get to realize much of his depth until an on-the-nose scene at the end that spells it out, but everything he does in the script is a result of his pain, yet his actions just cause more pain. He doesn’t want to sleep with a college student — he wants to know why his wife would cheat on him, and through his experiences, he comes to realize exactly why, which is really the thing that gets them back together. This isn’t the most original plot for a romantic comedy, but at least it’s something to sink your teeth into. So why do we spend about 80% of the script paying attention to the absurdly named loser who does nothing?
Why would anybody make this script into a motion picture? It’s a reach, but I can think of one reason: it contains a variety of funny situational ideas. On the page, there are no laughs, terrible characters, a poorly structured mess of a plot that follows the wrong “main” character, but I could imagine some producer (even stupider than the writer) saying, “Sure, we get a few good improv actors in there, and this thing’ll be dynamite.” “Dynamite” might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I can’t disagree that the situations lend themselves to improv, and even the world’s worst improv comic (me, circa 2002) on his worst day will blurt out something funnier than what’s on the page.
This script had a couple of redeeming qualities, but to me it remains a memorable disaster because of the damn smug tone. I’ll get into this more in a future post, but a general note to writers: confidence is good, but cockiness is bad. It just makes people want to criticize you, so the thing better be hot shit or else the coverage will be more hostile than usual. (I’m sure it’s coincidental, but the scripts I’ve read with the cockiest attitudes have turned out to be among the worst, and not just because I’m looking for more to nitpick — it’s just another way people try to overcompensate.)
The really bad stuff started when I had to read the latest venture from the people who brought us The Hottie and the Nottie. (Now seems like a good time to point out that, unless it’s an obvious remake, adaptation, or sequel, I try as hard as I can to not seek out information about these scripts until after I’ve read them and written the story analysis. I made that mistake early on, and nothing colors judgment like reading a mediocre script that seems worse because you’re picturing the actors in their parts and it doesn’t quite work. At the end of the day, it’s a subjective opinion, but I still want to arrive at that opinion with maximum objectivity.)
It’s another romantic comedy, but this time around it has a somewhat clever premise: a loser boyfriend (I’m noticing a theme here) is at a turning point with his longtime girlfriend. He can either propose or let her spend a few years in Japan as part of a job reassignment. As he’s about to make his decision, he discovers that a version of himself from five years in the future has traveled back in time to keep him from making the wrong choice. After generating a small amount of goodwill with this premise, the script undoes it all within mere pages of Present and Future’s first meeting. The writer forgets that, even though they’re technically the same person, one has five years’ worth of experience and growth. Instead of mining that for comic possibilities, they become interchangeable, their dialogue stops having any conflict — it’s so bad that at a certain point, he starts to introduce random, new antagonists because Future (who should remain the true antagonist) no longer stands in the way of Present’s goals. Then, Future’s motivation does an inexplicable 180 and he resumes being the antagonist. It’s sloppy and annoying.
Let’s see: messy story, misshapen characters… Did anyone notice I haven’t even mentioned the love interest? Yeah, that’s because she has nothing to do with the story. It’s a bold move for a romantic comedy, and the gamble doesn’t pay off. As expected, the script pairs a loser with a woman ridiculously out of his league. It’s hard enough to believe they’d go on a single date, much less stay together for years, with the girlfriend desiring a marriage proposal from somebody she already describes as a “commitment-phobe.” “Gee, there’s no reason to discuss his commitment problems and try to work through them. I’m sure he’ll just figure it out one day and then marry me!” Because both Present and Future are varying degrees of asshat and Girlfriend gets no development, we never get any kind of picture about (a) why she’s so great or (b) why she’d put up with him for so long.
This is a common problem with romantic comedies, especially recent fare targeted at adolescents instead of adults. If these characters were 15, some of their less restrained antics would make sense; instead, they’re 30-year-olds trying to pander to teens, and the result is off-putting to anyone over the age of 17. I disliked There’s Something About Mary pretty intensely, but at least it attempted to examine real, adult relationships while throwing in fart and semen jokes for the kiddies. Producers want to hit that 18-34 demographic, but 18 is the bottom of that demographic — why would they want to alienate all but a very limited number of their demo viewers?
Despite their many narrative flaws, both of these comedies above had more than their share of smile-worthy moments. Nothing made me laugh — and I’m not particularly hard to make laugh — but they had faintly amusing moments despite their myriad problems. On the other hand, the final comedy I plan to rake over the coals this morning was a disaster from beginning to end. Aiming at religious and class satire (but missing both marks by a wide margin), the story rewrites the birth of Jesus Christ in late-’60s small-town Maryland, painting Mary and “Joe” as hippies clashing with the conservative denizens of Mary’s hometown.
The script contains two distinct and irritating joke types: “Gosh, the Bible’s silly!” and “Gosh, the ’60s were silly!” Seriously, jokes about low gas prices? Working the most convoluted possible series of narrative setbacks to get Mary and Joe into a barn? Tell me this doesn’t pass for actual comedy. But wait — it’s worse than not funny: nothing happens. Because the story of Jesus’ birth isn’t that analogous to present-day scenarios, the writer has to cut corners as he limps from one pointless moment to the next. The story is inexplicably told from the perspective of a local reporter who has no bearing on the story (other than representing one of the “three wise men”). An opportunistic hotelier is, I guess, supposed to be the local religious nut, exploiting Mary and Joe when she notices the vague similarities so she can make money from the tourists, but not even she generates any conflict or dramatic tension because she does everything in secret. The writer treats each character like a chess piece in his Bible-inspired story, but he never bothers to make any of them into real people.
I won’t even go into my irritation with the fact that, contrary to the usual depiction, the foretold Second Coming is not supposed to echo the original Jesus story at all; in fact, although I think it varies in different denominations, the usual take is that He will return after the Apocalypse, either leading the Rapture or establishing a new kingdom on Earth. That kind of shit frustrates me, and I’m not even religious.
No, the script’s biggest narrative/character problem is that it’s a Christmas movie and a satire but these people aren’t religious. Even the religious nut just uses it as a tool for exploitation (and, again, she can’t be that much of a nut since she doesn’t know what the Second Coming is), so it lacks the usual holiday themes of spirituality over mindless zeal, turning the other cheek, learning valuable lessons about not exploiting pseudo-religious tableaus for financial gain. I wouldn’t mind it not embracing these (mostly overused) themes if it embraced any others. There’s nothing here — no humor, no story, no characters, no conflict, no satire, no theme, not even a basic understanding of Christian mythology.
Just to create the illusion that I am not a seething cauldron of bile, I read one great comedy and two pretty good ones that give me some hope for the future:
- The great one is sports comedy about a drunken, ex-high school basketball star who takes a job coaching a girls’ team. It was astonishing — funny on the page, great characters (each of whom get enough face time to feel like real people and not genre archetypes), real conflict, not afraid to get dramatic. The narrative and character arcs are coherent and consistent, and did I mention it’s fucking funny? More than that, it’s kind of a spoof of the sports genre, but it works because the writeractually understands the genre he spoofs. Shocking!
- One is kind of a throwback to ’80s summer-vacation flicks like Summer Rental, One Crazy Summer, or any other movie with “summer” in the title. It’s basically a coming-of-age story with a beach-bum backdrop. Although it isn’t particularly funny, the story and characters work well enough to make me not care that it wasn’t gut-busting. (Sadly, this principle doesn’t work in reverse — the script still sucks if I laugh my balls off but it has nothing else going for it.)
- And then there’s the pot comedy, which follows two high school seniors on an epic quest to get the entire school high. Not a yukfest in terms of dialogue/jokes, but it had the situational humor of the bad scripts above, only with a story that makes sense and compelling, reasonably unique characters. The setup is pretty convoluted, but it’s surprisingly well-thought-out, as are the gags that litter the second and third acts. Is it sad that one of the best comedies I read this fall is aimed at potheads?
With that out of my system, I’ll shut up about comedies forever. Until February. March at the latest.
*Before I get a bunch of e-mails from idiots, I will point out that yes, there is certainly a difference between funny on the page and funny on the screen. In my experience, this is primarily the case with visual gags or ironic cutaways. It’s much more common to run across pure “funny dialogue” scenes that, no matter how many times you re-read it, no matter how hard you try to put inflections on different words or time the setup and response to derive some kind of humor from it, you come up short. You can’t fix that by going out and shooting it as-is — if something is funny on the page but not on the screen, you say, “Uh-oh,” and either cut or reshoot; if something was never funny on the page, but you try to go ahead and shoot it as-is, you wind up with Juno. [Back]
Posted by Stan on November 21, 2008 9:17 AM | Permalink | How Not to Write a Screenplay | Digg It
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