Silly and Serious, A Balance

It's been an interesting week. I've started teaching again, and I'm deep into two creative writing classes this semester. It's a new experience teaching a class that isn't required, aka, most of my students (if not all) actually want to be there. It makes me want to be a better teacher so they're not disappointed.

Well, I promised that I'd talk about the balance of seriousness and silliness in stories. I said it would be about middle grade stories, but I think I can apply it to lots of stories.

I'm a big fan of balance in stories. In having tender moments broken up with action, and vice-versa, and humor met with seriousness. I think they allow the readers to recover from the heavy moments, to fully understand the character development, and to have a little fun with the story, because isn't that what fiction is about?

I also think that stories that use a variety of scenes and styles can really reveal character and growth in ways that one-note stories don't.

That said, I want to say that one-note stories have their places. Some stories are best served by unending tension, or sorrow, or levity. Some stories are goofy comedies from start to finish. That's what they're meant to be, and as such, they're doing a good job.

But me, I like a balance, and today I want to talk about balancing humor with seriousness. I think Marvel does a good job with this, to the point that people have used it as a strike against DC's cinematic universe: Marvel has a good balance, overall, of humor and heavy, while DC has a history of eliminating all jokes and humor (except in things like Suicide Squad. I'm interested to see what Shazam is like).

Which can work very well in genre. Think The Dark Knight: not a funny movie. But even that one has slowed moments in action, places where we see the characters in moments of relative peace, before the mayhem starts again. A serious movie, but balanced in its own way, and there are moments of humor. Dark humor, maybe, but humor. While I might argue that Dawn of Justice doesn't know how to strike this balance.

However, one thing I appreciate about Marvel is that allowing humor allows characters to respond to stress in different ways. Captain America takes it head-on, seriously as you'd expect a leader like him to take it. But he'll joke when things are going well, and will respond to others' jokes in kind. And then there's Tony Stark, who seems to use humor as a defense mechanism.

Character is revealed, when humor is used in realistic character-driven ways. The way characters react to humorous moments also shows character. Most people aren't serious all the time; what we laugh at says a lot about us, as does why we laugh when we do.

A balance in humor can also lighten or darken moments. When everything is going wrong in Age of Ultron, and Cap cracks a joke, the audience is assured that the characters actually can pull this off. Whereas moments without humor highlight the anxiety the characters feel. I'd also like to point out Spider-Man: Homecoming and how, on the whole, it's a hilarious movie. But then there's that part where Vulture drops a building on Spidey, and there's no quip or joke then. It shows us how serious that moment is in contrast to the rest of the movie.

I don't think Marvel does this well all the time; I think Thor: Ragnarok let the silliness overwhelm the seriousness too much, which led to things feeling lighter than they should of. Really dark moments passed me by in that movie, without me feeling much, because they were lightened. Balance is important in both directions.

I've noticed that the stories I like the most have humor, used well, to lighten light moments and contrast the darker ones, while revealing character, but also have weight that shows me the stakes for the characters and why the story matters. Why it hurts the characters and what they have to lose. The Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Even Shakespeare manages balance, even in his saddest tragedies. Light and dark both have a place in art, and writing is no different.