“All right, Striker, you listen, and listen close. Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle. It’s just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.”
- Steve McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) to Ted Striker (Robert Hays) from the movie Airplane, circa 1980
It’s hard to imagine that this classic (yes, classic) comedy movie came out 44 years ago. It seems like almost that long ago that we could poke fun at ourselves (and each other) without backlash.
I get it. Humor isn’t funny if it’s harmful or hurtful. Surely it’s time to at least re-examine what’s harmful and hurtful versus just funny.
In the early 2000s, I was part of a relentless senior leadership team. We were relentlessly hard on each other, relentlessly successful, and relentlessly protective of each other. We were like my grandma. She could say whatever she wanted to or about anyone in her family, but if anyone from “outside” took a shot, sweet Margie Stark turned into a ferocious Mama Bear. In that leadership team twenty years ago and the Stark-Heston family even further back, we also laughed a lot. We laughed with each other, and we laughed at each other.
Ted Striker’s “drinking problem” and Steve McCroskey’s “wrong week to quit” shticks were funny. The intent wasn’t to belittle addictions, it was to make us laugh. And laugh we did.
There is a time and a season for everything. And now, it would seem, is the right week to quit taking ourselves so seriously. As I opened my Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the front page told me that the French government had collapsed, that the South Korean government was about to, and that the CEO of a division of a vast health insurer had been gunned down in cold blood in midtown Manhattan. Want serious? Them right there are some serious, alarming and, in the latter case, tragic stories.
Those aren’t things to laugh about. For many, they might be things worth shedding a tear over, especially for the family and co-workers of that CEO.
The coffee spill on the blue prints? The slip of the tongue in the presentation? The reply all e-mail that shouldn’t have been a reply all e-mail? In comparison, they’re worth laughing at and about.
Laughter is freeing. It releases endorphins and eases stress. We live in an endorphin-starved time and in a stress-filled world. Let’s look for reasons to laugh, rather than judge. Let’s look for reasons to chuckle rather than chafe.
Surely that might make a difference. It just might, and don’t call me Shirley.
Ted Wheeler says
Well put Steve! I agree wholeheartedly. Humor is meant to be universal much like music. And just like music, not everybody necessarily cares for the same styles of humor but that doesn’t necessarily make it belittling or wrong. If we can’t laugh at ourselves or with one another then we’re missing out on one of life’s greatest gifts!
Steve Heston says
Part of why you’re such a great partner, Ted. Quick to laugh, slow to judge! And the music correlation is spot-on!