A Plum Reflection on the Disappearance of Comedy
Once upon a time, Hollywood made comedies.
Actual comedies.
Movies whose entire purpose was to make people laugh. Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, The Hangover. Ridiculous stories about ridiculous people doing ridiculous things.
Some were brilliant. Some were terrible. But at least Hollywood was trying.
Today, the traditional Hollywood comedy has become something of an endangered species.
There are still occasional funny movies, of course, but the great conveyor belt of theatrical comedies has largely stopped.
What the hell happened?
Did Everybody Lose Their Sense of Humour?
Plum has a few theories.
Perhaps Hollywood became afraid of offending people.
Comedy, after all, is frequently offensive. It exaggerates human stupidity, exposes our pretensions, makes fun of our peculiarities, and occasionally says things that polite society would rather nobody said.
That’s part of the fun.
But somewhere along the way, we developed a peculiar cultural habit of treating jokes as though they were sworn statements before a parliamentary inquiry.
Was that joke appropriate? Was somebody offended? Did the comedian consider every possible interpretation?
Good grief.
Imagine trying to write Airplane! with a committee of corporate lawyers reviewing every punchline.
There wouldn’t be a movie. There would be a mandatory workplace sensitivity seminar.
The Corporate Comedy Committee
Another possibility is that Hollywood has become so financially cautious that it has forgotten how to take creative risks.
Why spend $30 million making an original comedy when you can spend $250 million producing another superhero adventure involving the destruction of a major American city?
Apparently, buildings collapsing are more internationally marketable than people laughing.
And comedy has another terrible disadvantage. It requires imagination.
You can’t simply manufacture genuine humour by inserting another explosion, another computer-generated monster, or another dramatic speech about saving humanity.
You actually have to be funny.
Worse, the people deciding which movies get made might not have particularly good senses of humour themselves.
Imagine a boardroom full of executives discussing whether a joke will appeal to fourteen different international markets.
By the time everyone agrees, the joke has died of old age.
Perhaps the Audience Has Changed
There is another possibility.
Perhaps modern audiences have become so accustomed to short videos, memes, and instant entertainment that a ninety-minute comedy seems unnecessary.
Why watch a carefully constructed movie when your phone can deliver twenty ridiculous things before breakfast?
Humour hasn’t disappeared. It has escaped Hollywood.
And perhaps that’s where it belongs.
Meanwhile, in Newfoundland…
Plum finds the entire situation mildly amusing.
Because, frankly, he doesn’t particularly care.
He doesn’t need Hollywood to make him laugh. He lives in Newfoundland.
Plum encounters more genuine humour during his waking hours than Hollywood could possibly manufacture for him.
His friends are hilarious. His family is hilarious. His colleagues can be hilarious. Even the daily absurdities of modern life provide a virtually inexhaustible supply of comedy.
And none of these people is performing a rehearsed routine. They’re just being themselves.
A friend makes an outrageous observation. Somebody offers an even more ridiculous interpretation. Another person delivers a perfectly timed remark.
And suddenly everyone is laughing.
No scriptwriters. No corporate approval. No streaming subscription.
Just human beings enjoying one another.
And here’s another wonderful thing about laughing with real friends: nobody needs to worry about being cancelled.
Among friends, a ridiculous remark isn’t a public statement awaiting judgment by ten thousand strangers. It’s a joke between people who know one another, understand the affection behind the teasing, and can tell when somebody is simply being a fool for everyone’s enjoyment.
Of course friends can occasionally go too far. But good friends can say so, laugh about it, and carry on. They don’t need a public relations department, an apology written by lawyers, or a tribunal to examine what was said over a cup of tea.
That’s the beauty of real humour with real friends: the freedom to be ridiculous, secure in the knowledge that everyone is on your side.
In Newfoundland, we have a remarkable tradition of making ordinary conversation entertaining. The stories, exaggerations, teasing, affectionate insults, and gloriously absurd observations are woven into everyday life.
Sometimes the funniest person in the room doesn’t even realize they’re being funny.
That’s the best kind.
The Great Comedy Industry
Perhaps Hollywood’s greatest mistake was convincing itself that laughter needed an industry.
Of course professional comedians and filmmakers can be wonderfully talented. Plum has enjoyed plenty of their work.
But humour isn’t something invented by entertainers.
It’s a natural expression of human intelligence, friendship, imagination, and play.
And unlike a movie, it doesn’t have to end after ninety minutes.
The world is overflowing with ridiculousness.
Human beings are astonishingly funny creatures, particularly when they’re taking themselves seriously.
There is no shortage of material.
The Final Punchline
So Hollywood can make another superhero movie.
It can produce another unnecessary sequel, resurrect another forgotten franchise, or spend half a billion dollars making imaginary people fight imaginary monsters.
Plum wishes them well.
Meanwhile, he’ll be in Newfoundland, enjoying another evening with friends and family, laughing at things that nobody planned and nobody could possibly have written.
Hollywood may have forgotten how to make comedies.
But Plum hasn’t forgotten how to laugh.
And perhaps the real tragedy isn’t that Hollywood stopped making funny movies.
It’s that anyone might imagine they need Hollywood to have a funny life.
The best comedy in the world is happening all around us.
Admission is free.
— Captain Plum
Lifeology | The Great Work
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