The Healing Bridge Between Comedy and Tragedy: 'Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11' Review
As somebody who experienced the event, I can't stand when September 11th comes around. Beyond the emotional memories and the general paranoia of loud noises or low flying planes, what I truly can't stand is how insincere the yearly fanfare has become. I can’t stand that it's still treated as an event too tragic to speak of in anything above hushed tones – a practice that’s unhealthy at best, and a complete put-on at worst. I hate that it still inspires a fevered state of twisted patriotism and violent racism in my fellow countrymen. I’ve never had patience for domineering threats to blindly "Support Our Troops," as if critiquing corrupt leadership in any way reflects on the empathy for the individual. And most of all, I hate that every year, like clockwork, we get a parade of disingenuous news media that not only forces us to relieve the day minute by minute but exploits every exhausted and well-worn corner of it for higher ratings.
So with this in mind, I sat down to watch the documentary Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 (2021) and held my breath. Focusing on the effect 9/11 had on comedy, from how comedians navigated the days after to the lasting effects on the world of comedy since, directors Nick Scown and Julie Seabaugh map out a decade of satire, political commentary, stand up and one-man-shows. They bring with them an impressive who's-who of 2000s comedians, including Marc Maron, Gilbert Gottfried, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Nathan Lane, Al Jean, Aasif Mandvi, Cedric the Entertainer and a host of recognizable faces. The film’s fairly straight-forward structure and style can leave to be desired – not to mention a soundtrack that sometimes actively contradicts its own content by being so wholly generic that it reminded me of the randomized photo slideshows my phone likes to autogenerate – but as a platform for alternative voices and takes on how to process this now consecrated national tragedy, it’s invaluable.
Al Jean in Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11
While there’s plenty of time devoted to the question of how “too soon” is defined, one of the film’s more interesting concepts is in how 9/11 forced comedians to push the boundaries of sincerity. Too Soon provides great context for a lot of the genuine feeling that was going around New York at the time. More so than righteous flag waving, of which there was plenty, was an immediate sense of goodwill that fell over the city – the majority of New Yorkers were in such a state of shock they weren’t able to express much more than a sincere desire to try and help wherever and whoever they could. Where middle America is seemingly still to this day talking about 'those terrorists', New York City began to try and move forward as soon as later that very week. Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane describe a surreal return performance of The Producers, which had just opened on Broadway, playing to an audience that wasn't sure if it was ready to laugh yet. While David Cross, among others, describes waiting with bated breath to see how David Letterman would return to air – the first comedic voice to speak out in a sea of darkened comedy clubs and a largely shuttered city.
Letterman's sincere opening monologue, followed swiftly by Jon Stewart's tearful return, not only directly reflected the disoriented but determined mood that permeated the city in those days after, but helped to give their audience and contemporaries permission to move forward. These very public dips into genuine, heartfelt vulnerability helped to open up a new strain of comedy that mixed confessionals with bleeding-heart politics. Hearing in detail about how The Onion’s famous all 9/11-themed issue came to be feels strangely moving considering the amount of effort that was put into writing it – they took careful consideration to avoid insensitivity while still publishing a mere 16 days after the fact. The lauded praise The Onion team received almost immediately goes to show just how necessary comedic catharsis is in a time of deep pain.
Another striking aspect of this documentary is seeing just how long it took for mainstream comedy to get angry. Too Soon touches upon but doesn’t dwell long enough on how post-9/11’s good intentions and genuine emotion quickly soured into conservative bullying culture. With unfocused rage and war at America's door, politicians and cable news pundits became more toxic than ever in their insidious messaging on trusting your gut over your brain. As the country was given carte blanche to throw a permanent tantrum while the government took a mere, oh, huge chunk of civil liberties in return, the rise of political satire felt inevitable. Marc Maron and Jeanne Garofolo tackled these issues head-on, both of whom make a strong impact in this film for having spoken out at a time when they were positively reviled for doing so. Similarly, this anger also gave The Daily Show its second wind as the show shifted from general parody to sharp political commentary – pointing out daily lies and contradictions that mainstream media was letting slide in an undeserved act of good faith towards our otherwise unchecked government.
Stephen Colbert’s decision to leave The Daily Show and start The Colbert Report in 2005 feels like a true marker for when the balance between endearing charm and searing criticism was eventually honed and later weaponized. Too Soon boasts a handful of interviews with Colbert Report writers recounting how Colbert's infamous White House Correspondant's Dinner speech came to be. While Colbert never performed Gilbert Gottfried-levels of "too soon" (the latter of whom's distasteful yet genuinely funny joke a mere 18 days post terrorist attack remains the gold standard of the concept) by performing his blowhard act not only in front of the entire media but directly to President George Bush's face still manages to make jaws drop to this day. The entertainment world has a way of self-aggrandizing its importance, but surely effortlessly dressing down an entire room filled with the most bullying to milquetoast voices of a decade – without interruption! – was nothing short of heroic. I’m honestly not sure we’ve had such a feel-good patriotic display on television since.
Asif Mandvi in Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11
Too Soon also dedicates a solid amount of time to how hard it was like to be a Muslim-American comedian post 9/11. While the heightened xenophobia of the time was outrageous and heartbreaking to anybody with half a brain, it wasn’t until the second half of the decade that the conventional comedy world realized how much it needed to hear from Muslim comedians. In hindsight, it’s fairly embarrassing to look back on how long it took to get these voices out there. The Daily Show took until 2006 to hire Asif Mandvi as their first “brown correspondent” – whose initial appearance on the show was a blazingly funny condemnation of American colonialist practices in the Middle East.
Mandvi, along with Maz Jobrani, Negin Farsad and other notable Arab American and non-white comedians make for the most interesting interviewees in the entire film. Their interviews fill in an oft-overlooked gap by not only providing another point of view but also opening up on their personal experiences navigating the majority white world of mainstream comedy. Comedian Ahmed Ahmed describes getting death threats for merely appearing on the bill at a stand up show, while Russell Peters describes being randomly searched to this day(!) at airports. Comedy became their outlet for both expressing their daily frustrations and reconnecting with their audiences on a human level.
Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 spins a rather optimistic tale of triumph in a time of despair. Fans of comedy will find it deeply enjoyable to relive the rise of some of their favorite comedians during an era that was rife with solid material. Others who may not have been around during the time might also appreciate seeing a welcome alternative response to the event, beyond just pre-prescribed grief and anger. While this documentary can sometimes feel at odds with its own content – trying hard to walk the line between the expected sentimentalist rhetoric and the plain-spoken truth telling of some of its stars – for the most part Too Soon does a great job at showing how important comedy was to help us make sense of this time of chaos. Comedy arguably doesn’t have the power to shape the world, but Too Soon proves it does have the power to help it heal.
Too Soon: Comedy After 911 is available in select theaters and streaming on Vice TV.
