Harold Ramis's Epiphany
From an interview with Harold Ramis by McSweeney's The Believer.
BLVR: I’ve heard you make some rather critical comments about satire. You’ve more or less said that as comedy genres go, it’s a fairly useless gesture.
HR: Somebody once told me that if you laugh at a George Bush joke, or you send an email cartoon to your friends that makes Bush look like a fool, you feel like you’ve done something significant. “I did my part, I let people know how much I hate George Bush.” But really, what have you actually done? Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn’t really accomplish anything.
BLVR: I suppose that’s true. It’s probably the most inactive form of social outrage.
HR: There were a lot of political films coming out of Europe during the late ’60s. Movies like Costa-Gavras’s Z and stuff like that. I used to go see all of them, and I realized that my righteous indignation was a form of entertainment for me. I loved getting pissed off at injustice. I didn’t do anything about it, I just liked the feeling of being pissed off.
BLVR: I’ve heard you make some rather critical comments about satire. You’ve more or less said that as comedy genres go, it’s a fairly useless gesture.
HR: Somebody once told me that if you laugh at a George Bush joke, or you send an email cartoon to your friends that makes Bush look like a fool, you feel like you’ve done something significant. “I did my part, I let people know how much I hate George Bush.” But really, what have you actually done? Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn’t really accomplish anything.
BLVR: I suppose that’s true. It’s probably the most inactive form of social outrage.
HR: There were a lot of political films coming out of Europe during the late ’60s. Movies like Costa-Gavras’s Z and stuff like that. I used to go see all of them, and I realized that my righteous indignation was a form of entertainment for me. I loved getting pissed off at injustice. I didn’t do anything about it, I just liked the feeling of being pissed off.
posted by Peter L. Winkler | 4:36 PM
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