Film Courage: John why do you say that comedy is both truth and pain?
John Vorhaus, Author/Speaker/Artist/Screenwriter: Comedy is truth and pain because in every human moment if you are aware of it you can detect an underlying truth and pain of that moment. A joke is something that looks at and explores the truth in pain and gives the audience an opportunity to think about it in a slightly different way. Here’s a classic, a fellow is falling from a skyscraper and it gets down about the 33rd-34th floor and some guy leans out the window and says How’s it going? He says Okay, so far. The underlying truth in pain is here’s a guy who’s in peril. That’s the truth. The pain is there’s nothing he can do about it and his expression there, Okay, so far is an acknowledgment of the truth and pain but indirectly. If you look at any joke you can think of you’re going to find that it is an indirect acknowledgment of truth and pain.
Film Courage: By nature then are funny people cruel?
John: That’s a great question. I like to say comedy is cruelty. A thing isn’t funny to the person it’s happening to, it’s funny to the people watching. It’s not necessary that you don’t have to be cruel to make comedy but there is an element of cruelty in jokes because the thing isn’t funny to the person it’s happening to. We derive our emotional sustenance from experiencing vicariously the conflict or predicament or peril of somebody else and being observing it but far enough away from it that it’s not us that’s what gives us the emotional bond that makes us engage in the emotional separation that makes us laugh…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
John Vorhaus is best known for his comedy-writing classic, The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not. He has taught and trained writers in 37 countries on five continents at last count, and created TV shows of his own in Nicaragua, Romania and elsewhere. His writing credits include dozens of teleplays and screenplays, plus seven novels and some two dozen works of non-fiction. His latest book is the little book of STANDUP. Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He lives in Southern California and secretly controls the world from JohnVorhaus.com.
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