Film Courage: Why do you write?
Josh Healey, Writer/Producer/Comedian - The North Pole Show: Why do I write?
Ooohhh…you’re asking the big questions.
I write because I think otherwise I would go crazy (or crazier than I already am).
Film Courage: It’s a good crazy.
Josh: Yes, it’s a good crazy (mostly).
Writing is a beautiful and also masochistic sport that like I love writing but it’s…it’s…let’s
talk about the good stuff.
I mean I write because I’ve got something to say.
I write because there are things that I want to see that are different in the world.
There’s things, there are characters, there’s people that I know and love whose stories
deserve to be told, whose aren’t told in the mainstream media or Hollywood or even
just the local press.
It’s like whose story is told, how is it told, who are the heroes and s-heroes, who
are the villains.
I just don’t feel…I want to complicate the narrative.
I want to show a different perspective and I also want to have some fun.
So for me writing is the way to be both as serious or as ridiculous as I am on a given
day.
And I want to show the breadth of who we are as people and I want to show you know there’s
a quote by one of my heroes Bertolt Brecht, an old German, socialist, playwright and poet
and he said “Art is not a mirror to hold up to society but a hammer with which to shape
it.”
And so for me writing, filmmaking (all of these things) are a way to not just provoke
people’s ideas but to show a different idea of what is possible.
And in this country where we are so isolated or so individualistic, we’re so divided
and put up against each other where all of the struggles of American government, political
corruption, racism (go down the list) let’s use art to show something different.
And not to ignore the pain put to name the reality of this, these are the problems that
are affecting people’s daily lives, but what could it look like if it was something
a little different.
So art and writing is about that radical imagination.
Film Courage: Have you ever written something whether it’s performance [spoken word] or
a screenplay that it bothered someone and they were very angry about it?
Josh: Oh hell yeah!
Film Courage: How does this make you feel?
Josh: It feels like I’m doing my job.
One of the main criteria…one of the main signs of feedback that I’m doing my job
right is the level of angry emails that I get.
If I’m not pissing someone off, I’m not doing my job as a writer.
If I’m not making you…if I’m not challenging you…you know I want my art to afflict the
comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
So if people in power are tapping me on my back (if I just have “yes-men” as you
said) like “Oh, that’s good” then I could just be making soda pop commercials
but that’s not what I want to be doing.
Yes, there are times…I’m a Jewish writer who writes about Israel and Palestine sometimes.
I can be a little controversial.
I’m a white guy who talks about race and white privilege.
Yeah…sometimes people have some feelings about that.
I work with a multi-racial team of writers in Oakland [San Francisco Bay Area], even
in the writer’s room we challenge each other.
Sometimes we’re not sure if they’re saying what they want to say.
Am I speaking on behalf of someone else?
Are you saying what is a real representation or is that a stereotype?
So the first thing I feel like is in the writer’s room is even before the writer’s room, am
I challenging myself?
If I’m not challenged or I’m not surprised or if I’m not in a new place by the end
of the writing by the end of the writing that I was at the start then I haven’t done my
own job to myself.
And so I feel like that’s…you’ve got to end somewhere new.
Film Courage: Has anyone ever said can you tone it down?
What is your response to this?
Josh: Um…you know that great classic movie THIS IS SPINAL TAP?
I turn it to 11.
We turn it up.
We don’t have time to tone it down.
There’s too much false politeness.
There’s too much trying to make everyone…it’s not that I want to stir controversy for the
sake of controversy.
I don’t want just to offend you or upset you for the sake of reaction.
The idea is can we look at some new perspectives?
The idea is no matter where you stand we all know that there are some things that are
wiped between the rug (wiped under the rug).
There are some things that are not talked about that need to be talked about.
If art and film and writing isn’t the place, then where is the place to do that?