It’s the scriptwriter’s fault

A new nightmare has come to haunt me: during a gala whose script I co-wrote, a monologue, which in my head and in rehearsals sounded acceptable, is revealed to be nonsense when delivered live. But this is not the dramatic part: this fear is part of the job. The real horror occurs when whoever is delivering the lines blames his writers.

It happened on Sunday at the Golden Globes. During the opening monologue of the gala, full of jokes that fell flat, host Jo Koy noted that “Some I wrote, some other people wrote.” Later, in the absence of support from members of the audience, he specified that his own jokes were the ones that were funny. And none of this was a joke.

In the same way that we are often denied praise, the proverbial invisibility of the screenwriter sometimes shields us from criticism derived from our work. Most of us screenwriters fail, and we have to accept that the public will see it that way, because we write for them. Almost no one enjoys the genius status they aspire to, and woe betide those who believe they do. But a performer will never pause during a monologue that is causing peals of laughter to thank his or her writers.

The work of television, cinema and theater is collaborative, which makes success complicated — it depends on many people and how they work together — 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 to the private sphere.

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