#04 What Can Creative Beginners Learn from 'The Intouchables'? — A Theory of Humor Design You Can Read for Free

No movie viewing required! Learn the secret to writing about heavy themes in an entertaining way in one go.

Learning from 'The Intouchables': How to create a story that readers can 'enter'.

Have you ever stopped reading a story about a heavy theme halfway through?

Even though the message you want to convey is correct, for some reason it doesn't sink in.
Before you know it, you find yourself keeping your distance.

But 'The Intouchables' is different.
Before you know it, you're laughing, and before you know it, you're inside the story.

The day Driss came for the interview.
Even though he was actually 'a man with no intention of getting a job,' he gets hired for some reason.
In that moment, the audience laughs.
And from there, they enter into the relationship between the two.

When writing about heavy themes, what you need isn't just correctness.
It's creating a state where the reader can 'enter'.

There is a technique for that.
That is—humor.

'The Intouchables' is a work that shows you how to build that 'passageway' not through explanation, but through experience.

■ Stories don't start with 'positions'

This movie begins with the meeting of Philippe, a wealthy man with quadriplegia, and Driss, a young man raised in the slums.

At the moment they meet, the gap between their worlds is overwhelming.
A luxurious mansion and a young man who doesn't even take job hunting seriously.
Dignity and roughness.
Resignation toward life and impatience with life.

These all look like omens of 'division.'
Normally, it would be difficult for them to even get close to each other.
It's a relationship that would end by judging each other based on their 'positions'.

However, the movie doesn't throw that weight at the audience.
Instead, it starts depicting them as 'two human beings' as naturally as if it were nothing.

Philippe is not overly dramatized as a tragedy.
Driss is not forced into the role of a savior.

And what comes first is not an 'incident,' but a mismatch.

The way Driss panics because he can't keep up with the speed of the wheelchair.
The off-beat cheerfulness of Driss, who takes Philippe's sarcasm at face value and responds brightly.

That mismatch isn't there to distance the two.
It's a small tremor that brings their outlines into sharp relief.

That is when the audience realizes for the first time:
'Oh, this isn't a story about division.'

■ The moment a heavy theme transforms into a 'story of positions'

There is a trap that creative beginners often fall into when writing about heavy themes.

It is that the story inadvertently becomes a "proxy war of positions."

Victim and perpetrator.
Able-bodied and disabled.
The wealthy and the impoverished.
The protector and the protected.

The moment you set up these positions, the story begins to carry the scent of "righteousness."

Of course, righteousness is important.
But righteousness can sometimes silence people.

When positions are fixed, people feel at ease.
And the moment they feel at ease, understanding stops.
This is because people stop thinking and simply follow the "correct answer."

What is needed for a story to move is not positions.
It is the "individual" behind those positions.

Readers cannot enter a story that does not depict individuals.

■ The Territory "The Intouchables" Intentionally Avoided

In a sense, this film is thoroughly "unfriendly."

It does not provide the audience with easy-to-understand justice.
It does not present a composition that says, "This person is pitiful."
It does not bring to the forefront any easy-to-understand anger like, "Society is to blame."

What exists instead is a kind oflaughterthat lets you relax your shoulders.

However, that laughter is not mocking a disability.
It is laughter born from the gap in situations, the mismatch in values, and the fact that the two are not yet in sync—like thefrictional heat between human beings.

It is not that this laughter makes a heavy story light.
It is that it makes a heavy story "open up."

Laughter is not trivialization.
Laughter is apassagewaythat thins the membrane of rejection and allows people to enter.

■ Humor Becomes a "Passageway"

There is a symbolic scene in "The Intouchables."
It is the scene where Driss pushes Philippe's wheelchair as they run through the city.

A wheelchair is often depicted as a symbol of limitation or disability.
But it is different in this film.

Driss treats it like a "toy."
He speeds, laughs, and runs from the police.
The audience laughs at that.

And in that moment, the wheelchair changes from a "symbol of disability" into adevice that creates a relationship between the two.

This is the important part.

Humor does not erase weight.
It widens the entrance to that weight.

“This is a story about disability.”
“This is a story about social disparity.”
“This is a story about dignity.”

The moment it is presented head-on like that, people put their guard up.
But with humor, people can enter without putting their guard up.
And after they enter, they realize the weight of the theme.

This sequence is powerful.

■ 'Humor Design' as a Creative Technique

It is no coincidence that this work succeeds.
It is by design.

The relationship between the two is not built by reducing one of them to a 'victim'.
Their respective lacks are arranged to contrast with each other, and their weaknesses are arranged to evoke each other's strengths.

Avoid preaching.
Cut the explanations.
Don't tell, show.
Turn the friction into laughter, and then gently place dignity there afterward.

The moment this sequence breaks down, the story easily falls apart.

That is why humor is not just decoration.
The heavier the theme, the more necessary it becomes as ablueprint for letting the reader in.

■ Boundaries are not things to be erased, but things to be crossed

For example, the paragliding scene.
Philippe is a quadriplegic.
Normally, the act of flying through the sky is the furthest thing from him.

But Driss does not treat that boundary as something special.
“Let's do it.”
That is all.

That one phrase creates a passage between the two.

The boundary has not disappeared.
However, it is possible to pass through it.
That is the nature of the relationship in this film.

Herein lies the important philosophy of this work.

A boundary is not just a wall.
It is a person's outline, their conditions, and the shape of their dignity.

What should be erased is not the boundary itself.
The state of being unable to cross back and forth—in other words, division.

'The Intouchables' created a 'passage' that allows one to cross boundaries without erasing them.
That was the humor.

That is why the two of them were able to become equals.
A relationship of equality cannot be built on justice alone.
It cannot be built on empathy alone, either.
Only a passageway can build it.

■ Questions that creative beginners should keep in mind

If you want to write about heavy themes, there are questions you should keep in mind.

Are you creating a story based solely on anger?
Are you fixing positions and making characters speak for your own arguments?
Have you designed a passageway for the reader to enter?
And—are you afraid of humor?

Maintaining weight without rejecting people.
That balance is the technique of entertainment.

■ Conclusion

When there is division, people stop trying to understand.
When understanding stops, the story fails to reach them.

That is precisely why, the heavier the theme you write, the more the author must build a bridge.

Humor is not a betrayal.
Humor is a passageway.

And 'The Intouchables' succeeds in not just 'making people read' a heavy theme, but in
making themexperience itby designing that passageway as a story.

What is truly necessary when writing about heavy themes is not just righteousness.
It is creating an entrance within the story that allows the reader to enter.

How do you design that entrance?
That is where the technique of creation lies.