Conan O’Brien finds it regrettable when creatives prioritize their political messaging over the story they’re trying to tell.
While talking with Michael Douglas on “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” the host brought up a part of the actor’s new memoir about the art of telling a good story. O’Brien said the section resonated with him because he’s felt the same about political messages throughout his career.
“There’s something you talk about in the book that resonated with me, which is you always saw your job – and many of these films have political elements, socially relevant elements – you felt very strongly all along your first and only job is to tell a good story, not to preach,” O’Brien said. “And you see in our culture now, there’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of work in comedy, there’s a lot of work in drama where people have a message to tell, and I think it’s often at the expense of the work.”
“Yes, we have a responsibility, but you make it very clear that you wanted all of these pictures to be entertaining and to be about human beings and tell a story, a multi-act story, and not first and foremost to tell you how you should feel about a certain issue. And I think that’s been a reason for the success of a lot of these films,” he added. “I think sometimes, as a culture, we can lose our way in that because people get really — ‘I know I have this point of view about a political issue, and I need to tell it to you’ — and somehow afterwards, you think, ‘Well, I didn’t love the story, but I surely understand where you’re coming from.’”
This is not the first time O’Brien has made comments about comedians trading in their humor in favor of anger towards politicians like Donald Trump. The former late night host thinks going that route is actually how comedians lose their true power to make positive change.
“I think some comics go the route of, ‘I’m going to just say, ‘F Trump’ all the time,’ or that’s their comedy,” O’Brien said during an Oxford Union event back in January. “Well, now a little bit you’re being co-opted because you’re so angry. You’ve been lulled into just saying ‘F Trump. F Trump. F Trump. Screw this guy.’ And I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger.”
The comedian went on to say that even during the most serious events in life or politics, being funny should be every comic’s first instinct.
“Any person like that would say, ‘Well, things are too serious now. I don’t need to be funny.’ And I think, well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny,” O’Brien insisted. “You just have to find a way to channel that anger, because good art will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox.”
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