Beyonce Lied; Funny Hurts More

Robin Williams' death has deeply affected anyone who has been touched by his limitless performances. Reactions range from anger at his loss, tasteful commemoration of his acting triumphs, to open discussion about mental health issues. The last of which, is my personal favorite.

Our actors by definition have an obligation to distract us from reality. Though they often hit us with more real (It's not your fault,) within that distraction, it's calculated. It's on a screen, not in our lives.. for now. As we saw from Heath Ledger's loss, our actors are not immune from the feelings they fight to instill in us via their talents and efforts. While I'm not saying actors are all at risk or deserving of more attention, it's their entire profession to mirror human nature, so their work and their reactions say a lot more about all of us than we may care to acknowledge.    

Funny characters in a  work, the one's whose technical one dimensional purpose would be to make us laugh, have a tendency to also be the most honest and clear thinking. I believe the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear helped begin this tradition of "you're laughing at me because it's too difficult for you to acknowledge realities of these awful situations." The Fool has an unparalleled level of clarity, in contrast to his counterparts, and yet he will always be the Fool. Sometimes I'm interested in how Louis CK is even considered a comedian. His brand of humor specifically isn't even funny to me, it's a clear vision of the world. It's people watching on crack. He's just reiterating the world he sees with decent timing. But that is in so many ways the role of the comic. Show us the world in an idea or an observation, and we'll laugh at you because it's too fearful and hard hitting to our core to get near for ourselves.

 One of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quotes explains, "Humor is an almost physiological response to fear." As someone who has been considered "funny" by some.. I would say that this is the best summary of my inclinations. When I make a sarcastic side comment, it's a subconscious ploy to be loved that has worked time and time again. Which comes from an inherent fear of not being loved. Robin Williams in an '09 interview told us that his second descent into alcoholism was fear induced. "It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, this will ease the fear. And it doesn't." No matter how funny, talented, brilliant a man is, he never will be impervious to every day fears.

Everyone has fear, and everyone copes and reacts differently. I hope with William's death, we can continue to learn that no one is immune to fear, depression, or grief; not even the ones who can temporarily relieve us of those exact same plights with their humor and performance as a hilarious cross-dressing nanny. In sum, we've all got to look out for each other, even the ones we least suspect need our help.