Comedy in a time of tragedy
WE’RE LIVING THROUGH A SERIOUSLY UNFUNNY POCKET OF history. Anger over police brutality and racial injustice has spurred radical action that’s been a long time coming. A global pandemic has frozen us all in place, disproportionately harming or killing the vulnerable. People struggle to feed their families as unemployment soars. And we don’t even have the promise of summer movies—particularly the mindless summer comedy, watched in the dark with a bunch of strangers—to help us forget ourselves for just an hour or two.
Can a comedy streamed into your home, and watched alone or perhaps with one or two other people, offer any solace right now? This summer will be the test, with upcoming comedies including a new Will Ferrell film, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga; Irresistible, a political comedy written and directed by Jon Stewart; and Palm Springs, a rom-com in which Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti play wedding attendees who get stuck together in a time loop.
The good news is that the first big comedy of the summer, The King of Staten Island, directed by Judd Apatow and starring Pete Davidson, is a potentially auspicious kickoff. Loose-jointed and openhearted, a wink of reassurance in our age of anxiety, it’s that rare comedy that may actually play better in the living room than it does in the theater.
a 24-year-old Staten Island native who’s frozen in perpetual adolescence, still living at home.
