Can Comedy Save Us?

This weekend, my husband and I drove down to Port Aransas, a Texas beach town just south of Corpus Christi. Since we’ve both started listening to our favorite comedy podcast, we’ve made it a tradition to save new episodes for when we’re in the car together.

(Our other tradition is stopping for coffee, kolaches, and donuts on the way out of town, which I also heartily endorse.)

Pre-pandemic, this weekend would have been the closing days of the Moontower Comedy Festival, an Austin institution and annual gathering of comics, improvisers, podcasters, and fans. It’s something I looked forward to every year, and with the fate of the festival unknown (headliners have been rescheduled for next spring, but it’s no longer a 4-day affair), it’s tough to not get down about it, especially when Austin’s long-standing comedy club of 35 years also just permanently closed.

The pandemic has upended plans, shuttered businesses, and destroyed entire industries. Although the festivals are cancelled and clubs are closed, I have to ask myself: can comedy get us through this time?

Turning tragedy into comedy isn’t a foreign concept in my own life. I often joke about my upbringing and growing up a big kid to deflect from how painful it could be (hello, comedy 101) and bring levity to an otherwise heavy topic. Being able to laugh about something that hurts us is our way of taking back our power, and we’re seeing this unfold right now in the form of memes and wisecracks about #pandemiclife.

I look to ridiculous Instagram accounts to bring me up when I’m feeling down and joke around with teammates when work gets particularly stressful. Being able to laugh through a hard time is a coping mechanism: as long as we’re still grounded in reality and not using humor to downplay the seriousness of a situation that warrants our attention, it can be helpful to zoom out, maintain perspective, and lighten the mood.

Art and life have a way of orbiting each other in a predictable way that’s more pronounced during tough times. Think of the amazing art that’s going to come from this era: the writer hunched in their LA studio apartment in quarantine banging out a screenplay; the painters and makers and illustrators transforming their collective emotion into pieces that will bring people joy.

Great art doesn’t necessarily come from pain or hard times, but from vulnerability. Our willingness to be open and look into the mirror helps us see ourselves—and our surroundings—more clearly. The best comedy comes from seeing the unvarnished truth in a new way and being brutally honest about reality.

Truth isn’t just stranger than fiction; it’s fodder for jokes that kill.

So can comedy save us during this difficult time? Perhaps not, but it sure helps make a tough pill to swallow go down easier.

(The image for this post is a snapshot of original artwork for the We’ll See You in Hell podcast by superfan, artist, and comedian Will Pottorff. If you’re looking for a new pod to liven things up during lockdown, I can’t recommend WSYIH enough: become a Patron and access the archives plus new episodes every month. Not sponsored; just love plugging one of my favorite things!)