Comedy = Tragedy + Time

One of my favorite moments from Woody Allen's 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors," is a line that is said by Alan Alda's character (Lester). Lester, who is a pompous but successful television producer, is being filmed by his brother-in-law (Woody Allen - or "Cliff") for an autobiographical documentary. While pontificating at one point during the movie, Lester says, "comedy equals tragedy plus time." He explains that for instance, a person could not have made a joke about Abraham Lincoln's assassination right after it happened. It takes time for a tragedy to eventually become something that can be laughed at. As an aside, I learned in looking up this line for my blog entry, that it was actually Carol Burnett who said this phrase first.

Why am I bringing this up at all? Because I take every possible opportunity to compare movies or television to "real life." The "real life" in this case is that of Barack Obama and John McCain giving their speeches (really roasts) at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner held on 10/16/08. Their particular segments were televised. Obama may be the better choice as Presidential candidate, but McCain (in my opinion) was the better comedian. How can this be? McCain is always portrayed as being so angry. How can humor and anger compliment each other? Then I thought of it - the line from Crimes and Misdemeanors. Comedy is tragedy plus time. When you think about it, McCain's life story does seem to have had more tragedy in it than Obama's. The man has lived through a lot. And what about the time? Well, the time is definitely there as well. McCain is older and may, at some level, take himself less seriously. McCain's humor seemed to be more self-effacing and less mean.

This, of course, is my opinion. Humor is so subjective. Make the decision for yourself. I am including the videos of the speeches below. Oh - one last thing. The other line of Lester's involves another one of his definitions of comedy. It is - "if if bends, it's funny; if it breaks, it's not funny." Ok, no more Lester for today.