The Drama Comedy

Over the weekend, my wife and I rented a movie that was tabbed as a “Drama Comedy.” Initially, I thought, “How can that even be a genre?” The words are theoretically at odds with each other. Drama usually provides us sad, insightful, human interest stories while comedy gives us laughs and light hearted moments. How can you intertwine a potentially sad story with comedic interventions? Wouldn’t the comedy unravel the sense of drama while you were watching a heart wrenching movie?

My first inclination was to think that a drama comedy movie couldn’t be done, that it would only result in a half hearted attempt at a true drama or a true comedy. I thought the competing opposites would pull at each other leaving nothing more than a tattered mess of a movie. Well, to be honest, the movie itself wasn’t good and I didn’t get any of the “comedy” in it but I was left thinking. No, I wasn’t thinking about the movie, but the genre. Something about it kept pulling at my thoughts.

As I kept pondering over the term “drama comedy” in my mind, I eventually came to a conclusion… an epiphany of sorts. While trying to reconcile how these two seemingly opposites were paired together, I came to realize that our real lives are in fact, a drama comedy. Real life equals drama comedy. My days come and go and each is filled with their own distinct moments. These moments can consist of absolute hilarity and at the exact same time, be ultra dramatic events.

Our individual lives are the human interest stories. Drama is our daily life and comedic interventions occur on a routine basis. What initially began as an idea to write an article about how a drama comedy story could not be a viable product, I was left facing the fact that our real lives are described exactly this way. I like it when things turn out differently than expected. It adds a sense of randomness, and even comedy, to our lives.

Comedy does not have to mean laughing out loud behavior or hilarious moments. Comedy can come in the form of a comedic intervention… an instant break from the drama which allows us to function under distress. Sometimes, the comedy in our lives can be nothing more than a thought, or a look on someone’s face, or an action we see or do… it can be anything that alters the situation and provides us relief.

Do you view your life as a drama comedy? Should we interchange the words and label our lives a comedy drama? One pairing assumes drama as the dominant factor and the other, comedy. I think our lives are being consumed by drama these days with too little comedy. Our society is wrapped up in our economic worries, our political worries, our educational worries, our financial worries… drama has all but overcome the comedy of our lives. Just as the movie, a drama comedy without the comedy isn’t any good. A life of drama without comedy is not fruitful. We must find a way to reverse the trend and start living the comedy drama lives we used to have.

Personally, I’ve found the drama overwhelming my life. It’s an easy thing to do when we are inundated with negativity in our lives. What we can focus upon though is our family, our relationships, and our spirituality to return the comedy back into our lives. Without comedy, is a life of drama worth what you are giving up? Find comedy in your life and reclaim the joy of living a comedy drama.