August 11, 2014: To Be a Comedian

When something tragic happens to a person, he or she can get angry, get sad, or find the humorous side later. Even soldiers in war-torn countries make light of their situations with what we call "gallows humor," as they do in the movie WALTZ WITH BASHIR. Comedians tend to be people prone to "laugh at it later." But all those "laters" do eventually add up to a whole lot of "nows," and then there IS no funny left, only oneself. Some of the funniest people in the world are also the saddest people. A comedian is often the slightly eccentric individual who finds the humor in the most tragically ridiculous life situations - death, innocence lost, insufficient parenting, and poverty can all seem humorous in a certain light. These are the characters that Mr. Williams played - a doctor who used humor to deal with the fact that most of his patients were dying, a sad little man who has lost his childhood and sense of wonder, an embittered professor dealing with the loss of his wife, a man trying desperately to win back the family he has lost. This is the true man that many never noticed - a man trying to cope with some kind of loss, inner demon, or tragedy in the only way he knew how - through humor. What happens to a human when there is no humorous side? What if there is nothing left to laugh about? What if you lose the ability to laugh at yourself? What if all people see is the Pagliacci mask that you portray to the world? What if no one ever sees that you are hurting? The genius of Williams is that he showed his pain through his laughter, at least, to those who were watching closely. It should be no surprise to his most intuitive observers that he was a deeply unhappy man. RIP, Robin Williams. La commedia è finita!