The scriptwriter's fault

A new nightmare has come to haunt me: during a gala whose script I co-wrote – what do I know, some Goya – a monologue, which in my head and in rehearsals sounded acceptable, when verbalized live is revealed to be nonsense. But this is not the drama, this fear is part of the job. The real horror occurs when whoever is releasing it blames, at that moment, the scriptwriters on him.

It happened on Sunday at the Golden Globes. During the opening monologue of the gala, full of failed jokes, its presenter, 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 were funny. And none of this was a joke.

In the same way that he often denies us praise, the proverbial invisibility of the screenwriter sometimes shields us from criticism, correlative to our work. Most of us screenwriters fail, and we have to accept that it seems that way to the public, because we write for them. Almost no one enjoys the genius they aspire to, and woe betide those who believe they do. But a performer never pauses during a monologue that is causing laughter to celebrate the creators of it.

The work of television, cinema, and theater is collaborative, which complicates its success – it depends on many people and their mechanism – 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 publicly celebrating the successes of your colleagues and, at the very least, reserving the distribution of responsibilities for the private.

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