A new nightmare has come to haunt me: during a gala whose script I have co-written —what do I know, some Goyas—, a monologue, which in my head and in rehearsals sounded acceptable, when verbalized live reveals itself as nonsense. But this is not the drama, this fear is part of the job. The real horror takes place when the person who is releasing it blames its screenwriters at that moment.
It happened Sunday at the Golden Globes. During the gala's opening monologue, full of failed jokes, its host, comedian Jo Koy, wanted to point out that some had been written by him and others by "other people". Later, in the absence of complicity on the part of the audience, he specified that his jokes were the ones that had been funny. And none of this was a joke.
In the same way that it often denies us praise, the proverbial invisibility of the screenwriter sometimes shields us from criticism, correlative to our work. Most screenwriters fail, and you have to accept that the audience thinks so, because we write for them. Almost no one enjoys the genius to which they aspire and woe betide those who believe that they do. But never does a performer pause during a laugh-out-loud monologue to celebrate its creators.
The work of television, cinema, and theatre is collaborative, which complicates its success – it depends on many people and their machinery – and facilitates its failure – it only takes one card to fall for the castle to crumble. It also allows us all to benefit from the talents of others. Knowing that you are part of that castle consists of celebrating in public the successes of your colleagues and, at the very least, reserving the distribution of responsibilities for the private.
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