From Woody Allen to Larry David to the recent premiere of Bored to Death starring Jason Schwartzman, the neurotics rule the laugh tracks. Why is this? What is the inherent comedy to the neurotic lifestyle? And why do these characters (all really just exaggerations of themselves) tend to be writers and from New York? Is there any universal substance to the archetype of the neurotic New York writer? They, more than any other archetype on TV, get people proclaiming that their own lives are exactly like the ones in Curb Your Enthusiasm or in Annie Hall. Is there a little bit of the neurotic in all of us?
Why is neurosis funny? Well, what all three of the examples I listed do to produce laughs is abstract the minutia of daily living. They advance almost metaphysical meaning out of every syllable and make any small action into something incendiary. The neurotics are out of place in their lives and they draw constant attention to the fact. But why do we laugh at this? The super-neurotic people I tend to meet are also the most annoying. Their little whims are predictable and boring and often reach excessive levels in the course of one conversation. Real neurotics aren't funny, or if they are we tend to be laughing at them not with them.
And yet Curb is one of the best comedies of all time and Annie Hall is the last comedy to win best picture. Both characters, though, aren't the exact same as their corresponding actor. Both are the exaggeration of neurosis. And maybe that's why we think it is funny, because it is self-aware. Were we to expand upon all of our neurotic ticks and observations then our lives would be like Larry Davids. That we don't follow our neurosis means the neurotic comedians have a little niche where they can follow them for us. So many people assert that Curb your Enthusiasm is just like their life but it's not, it's a hypothetical life that they are too self-aware of to let occur. We will never be a Woody Allen or a Larry David in our real lives because we know in reality people won't appreciate it just as we don't appreciate the real neurotics. That we continue to watch their performances is a tribute to our personal egotism that asserts we are right in every situation. And doesn't this merit a comparison to any form of comedy in that we laugh because in another world the joke is the truth?
