Laughing so as not to cry

I'm writing this while watching TV in the afternoon. I didn't have a topic for this column, and then it happened: in the middle of a political talk show focused on the Santos Cerdán scandal, a comedian entered the set and made a few jokes about the matter. The idea was, I suppose, to lighten the tone. The reality is that the comedian ends her segment clearly before planned: it didn't work. Before I know it, she disappears from the table and the show continues without her. It's a political infotainment program that aims to square the circle: seriousness and laughter, rigor and satire . The idea is good, but it rarely works. Isabelle Huppert performing a dramatic monologue in a Santiago Segura film also sounds revolutionary and attractive. But it's not done for a reason.

Humor has the ability to send the strongest and most effective messages. Good humor, that is. Or, rather, humor done right. The best reflections on the human condition come from comedians, comedy writers, and, to their credit, clowns. They're incredibly clever and well-informed. They satirize without trivializing and use irony without being frivolous.

I don't have that ability, but I can write quickly and with the TV on . So, halfway through writing a column, I'm a spectator as a second comedian appears on the television program ( infotainment , remember). The intervention is, once again, unnecessary and uncomfortable. I feel bad for her, as I feel like I have the most thankless job in the world at that moment. I suspect that by the time I finish this text, I'll have had time to see another professional comedian interrupting the flow of information. Or opinion. Or entertainment.

In the late 1990s, as part of Spain's cultural modernization, the figure of the comedian gave way to that of the stand-up comic . Much like those who had been superstars in the United States for decades, comedians shifted from telling jokes to monologues. Something that, as Rocío Jurado would say, "is the same thing, but it's not the same thing." Many of our country's best entertainers emerged then. Some are geniuses. But all of them, without exception, and as they said in one TV series, know what it's like to die standing up, facing an audience night after night that demands to be made to laugh.

Few things strike me as more aggressive than a bunch of strangers demanding to be entertained . You have to be really tough to submit to that constantly. The reward? With talent, a round of applause; with luck, a paid job; miraculously, making a name for yourself on television. And then they ask you to make jokes about a disgusting political crisis that's happening at that very moment. The country is going to shit, but you, comedian, make me laugh, a lot, and right now.

I wonder where comedians find the energy to make people laugh at things that aren't funny at all. Or at least try to. I understand more and more those who are depressed. And those who are on the fringes. And those who are crazy.