Column: Once we had comedy. Now we’ve got ‘This is Us In Space.’
Just for a minute can we stop fighting about our politics — which essentially involves whether to tear up the Constitution and allow the tyranny of the majority to rule us forever — and concentrate instead on what America really cares about?
Feelings.
And TV shows that make us cry.
Like “This is Us in Space.”
It’s the latest hit cry show on the Obama/Netflix service, and it stars Hilary Swank and is about crying astronauts going to Mars on a space trail of tears.
They cry all the time. So does the audience at home, eating ice cream and chips on the couch. Sadly, I’m told that the astronauts weep only in designated areas, but never in zero gravity and that’s the rub. Floating rivers of tears in space would be Homeric, but apparently Netflix is too cheap to pay for zero gravity weeping. And that sucks.
“Why do you have to ruin everything? It’s not called ‘This is Us in Space,’” corrected my wife when half the family — and our sons' girlfriends — turned on me because they’re fans.
“It’s called ‘Away,’ ” she said, giving the proper title. “Not everybody wants to watch sports documentaries and action movies and spy thrillers. Stop making fun of ‘Away.’ People like it, including readers.”
Ouch. OK. “Away.” Yes, apparently some do like “Away” or as I prefer, “This is Us in Space.”
And why shouldn’t they?
It’s TV and therefore derivative, just as “Star Trek” was derived from “The Odyssey.” Even “This is Us in Space” comes from somewhere. I stupidly thought I’d invented it, but then I Googled around to find that Vulture magazine writer Halle Kiefer already called it that in her review of the trailer under the headline, “Mars Needs Moms, but Dammit, So Do We.”
I have not seen the trailer and only glimpse at the show while passing through the apartment as others watch and tell me to shut up, damn it, John. But in those short glances, I’ve learned that Swank is the commander mom in space who misses her family. Her teenage daughter is having daughter issues, at home. So is her husband, who’s now in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down, at home.
There’s also a sad botanist with a British accent who, just as I was heading to the fridge for leftover grilled Tuscan chicken, said something like, “I happen to be the preeminent botanist in the world!” before he began weeping. And a Russian scientist whose daughter hates his guts also cries. Even the astronaut from China cries.
They all cry, like many non-opinionated TV news anchors on that November night in 2016, though without the floating tears. Tears don’t have to float. But we demand they must flow.
So much crying on TV, so much crying on the couch eating ice cream. And TV fills the need, relentlessly, even in documentaries about wilderness survivalists. For a decade or more, we’ve had this collective yearning to watch TV and cry.
Once we had another pastime. We called it comedy. This involved strange creatures called “comedians.” They made people laugh by telling “jokes.” But these “jokes” always offended somebody, so comedy was dragged to the guillotine and put out of its misery.
Decades ago, just as the first crying seeds floated down from space and began to sprout in culture to become the great trees throwing shade on comedians, the philosopher Robert Plant shouted this at a Led Zeppelin concert:
“Does anybody remember laughter?”
No. Nobody. Once Plant was embarrassed for saying that. He cringed. Yet now he’s a prophet.
A few subversive comedians still try to make a living, though many avoid college campuses because students (our future) are offended. In an Atlantic essay on the death of comedy on campus — essays on comedy kind of kill the laughter right there, don’t they? — Caitlin Flanagan explained that students wanted comedy to be “100% risk-free, comedy that could not trigger or upset or mildly trouble a single student.
"They wanted comedy so thoroughly scrubbed of barb and aggression that if the most hypersensitive weirdo on campus mistakenly wandered into a performance, the words he would hear would fall on him like a soft rain, producing a gentle chuckle and encouraging him to toddle back to his dorm, tuck himself in, and commence a dreamless sleep — not text Mom and Dad that some monster had upset him with a joke.”
Ask yourself: Has anyone, from young student to geezer, ever tried to cancel those who help us cry alone on the couch, watching TV, while cramming various sugary or salty fats into our faces? No.
We love that. We’re all about feelings now.
Reason doesn’t cry. Reason isn’t feelings. Reason can be cruel. History tells us that cultures that give themselves to feelings often bring horrific cruelty to others. But we’re so invested in feelings now and our Constitutional right to cry, that we can’t even think about it.
And lest you think your so-called toxic masculinity prevents me from crying to Obama/Netflix, think again. I just cried my eyes out watching the documentary series “Sunderland 'Til I Die,” about the historic Sunderland soccer club on the north coast of England and its generations of heartbroken fans. Just listening to the theme song makes weep.
Comedy won’t return, though reason might make a comeback when we’re desperate enough.
In the meantime, we’ve got feelings.
So pass me the queso and the chips. And please, don’t forget the tissue.
Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.
Twitter @John_Kass
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