Given the political landscape of the past few years, the pandemic, mass shootings, rampant racism, the country has certainly seen better days, but Ghost + Cow aren’t afraid to address these issues with a bit of necessary comedic relief. Thoughts and Prayers, created for Funny or Die in 2018, garnered a big reaction. Darrel Hammond plays FBI Agent Thoughts accompanied by Agent Prayers (Julia Mattison) as they respond to a mass shooting at a ski resort. “You know when people are like, ‘it’s the least we can do’,” Agent Prayers asks, “that’s us!”
Since the content hits a bit close to home for most Americans, La Ganke explains, “we were constantly going back and forth with how much we needed to show, rather than how much we wanted to show. Especially because it’s supposed to be funny, we had to figure out how much to push it. We decided to put this much in because at the end of the day our short is a reflection of the real horror and real inaction. That’s way more fucked up than what’s happening in our film.”
It’s often a fine line between creating something edgy and something offensive, but comedy allows for a set up and reversal of expectations that allows us to think deeper about the issue at hand, as a way to process. “Comedy is a testament to humanity,” Carlucci says. “There’s an important moment when we’re able to laugh in the middle of our own misfortune. We are, as a species, joy-seeking.”
“We crack jokes during a eulogy, you know?” LaGanke shrugs. “It’s how we’ve been getting through this whole cosmic joke of a year. People need that laughter.”
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