Giving Comedic Films Their Due

Considering the lather Peter Rainer worked himself into regarding our effort to establish Oscars for comic films (“Oscars for Comedies? You’re Joking,” April 4), we thought we’d do him a favor with a gentle hose down.

Let us begin by answering two points that Rainer brought up. First, to suggest that today’s comedians lack the talent and “genius” of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton is an insult to contemporary comedy. Let time judge if today’s comedians have enduring genius.

Secondly, Rainer states that “awards confer respectability” and he would prefer to see comedy cleansed of it. That is fine for someone who doesn’t sweat in the laughter mines of comedy. For the comedic artists and creators, respectability is a welcome adjunct to all the negatives they must endure.

This year’s Academy Awards had a moment which we feel the world needs more of. It wasn’t Kevin Costner’s moving acceptance speeches, Sophia Loren’s tears of gratitude or Billy Crystal turning on the car alarm for his horse. It was Whoopi Goldberg’s thrilling win for best supporting actress in “Ghost.”

Unlike Rainer, we feel Whoopi’s great performance pointed up all the more that the time has come for a special Comedy Oscar.

In 1985, the academy had its voters pit Steve Martin’s extraordinary performance in “All of Me” as a man whose body is temporarily half-inhabited by a woman (Lily Tomlin) against the majesty of F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri in “Amadeus.” Guess who won? (Martin, in fact, wasn’t even nominated.) Rainer also cited this example, yet we draw opposite conclusions.

There is virtually no comparison between Martin’s and Abraham’s performances. One is not better than the other. Both were spectacular in their own way, yet the academy more often seems only to nominate actors in the weightier roles.

Now, consider films such as “A Fish Called Wanda,” “Ruthless People,” “Raising Arizona,” “Airplane,” “Naked Gun,” “Innerspace,” “Time Bandits,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Beetlejuice” and “Big,” to name a few recent titles. If you saw any of these, you know they were every bit as enjoyable, uplifting, life affirming and “weighty” as such best-picture winners as “Terms of Endearment,” “Rain Man” or “Driving Miss Daisy,” all of which, by the way, used humor extensively.

It’s an old refrain that the academy gives short shrift to comedies. Aside from “Annie Hall” and “The Sting” in the early ‘70s, we can’t remember the last time a comic film captured the best picture statuette. For those of us who can cherish the comic tradition in film--which we suspect includes everyone who ever set foot in a movie theater--academy recognition should be an institutionalized honor.

Therefore, we are proposing an Academy Award for best comedy, best comic actor and best comic actress. That way, films from last year, such as “Home Alone,” “The Freshman” and “Postcards From the Edge,” and their stars might have had a fighting chance. It would provide further incentive to filmmakers to invest in comic material. It would bestow merit, and respectability, on the painstakingly serious work of comedic actors and filmmakers. More importantly, it would exalt the comic tradition to a place of the highest distinction.

We’re already on the bandwagon and we hope others will join us. As Rainer noted, petitions are being filled out at all of our Improvisation comedy clubs, and we should be delivering several thousand signatures at the doorstep of the academy next month.

To bring these changes about, the academy’s governors must overcome their reflex to diminish the importance of comic films. The academy must comprehend that laughter can be as valuable as tears. Remember, the famed ancient theatrical masks come in a pair: tragedy and comedy. We urge the academy to take their blinders off and put on the other mask. Let’s get a best-comedy Oscar now.