Matthew Perry, Keanu Reeves, Dark Comedy and the Jokes That We Regret

If you are a regular visitor to this curious corner of the world wide web you know that I am a sucker for running jokes. I love em! I think they’re great. I use a fuck-ton in my writing because I find them terribly amusing.

One running gag that sticks out for reasons that will soon become apparent involved satirizing Matthew Perry notoriously bemoaning the fact that Keanu Reeves was still alive when his friends River Phoenix and Chris Farley were no longer with us in his memoir by doing to Perry what he did to Reeves. 

Since the release of Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing last year I have regularly bemoaned the fact that Matthew Perry was still alive while some other soul was no longer with us. 

Needless to say, I feel terrible about that now. 

I have no idea why Perry’s editor didn’t convince him to eliminate, for his own good, and the good of his publisher, the two snarky jokes about how terrible it is that great artists died young while Reeves remains tragically and inexplicably alive. 

When you edit a book jokes are generally the first to go, along with profanity. If your book needs much in the way of profanity and jokes you’re in trouble. A manuscript should be able to stand on its own merits without resorting to those lazy, desperate crutches. 

I’m sure Perry had no ill will towards Reeves. He merely had the terrible judgment to choose to darkly mock someone who is close to being universally beloved. 

Perry felt terrible about it. Over the course of his all too brief life and career Perry screwed up a lot. He made a lot of mistakes. He paid a steep price and people loved him and identified with him as a result. 

Perry didn’t just feel bad about it. He publicly apologized and the references to Reeves were tardily removed from later printings of his book. 

I would like to apologize for continually making fun of a joke Perry himself already apologized for. 

That should have been enough. It was, in fact, enough yet I just kept on making the same dark joke over and over again because it amused me and I told myself I was making fun of a uniquely misguided action, not mocking a vulnerable and deeply troubled human being who had overcome obstacles it’s difficult to even imagine. 

I was making fun of his bone-headed literary gesture but I was also making fun of Perry himself, and that’s wrong. You should be able to make a stupid mistake without people constantly bringing it up. 

Then again, due to the strange nature of my career, I know Perry primarily as the marquee star of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and a man who publicly lamented Keanu Reeves’ continued existence rather than as the star of one of the most popular television shows of all time. 

I did not do so out of malice but I regret joking about what a bummer it is that Matthew Perry is still alive when, say, Phil Hartman or John Candy are no longer with us. 

That’s partially because that lazy, reductive gag no longer makes any sense but also because Perry deserves better. When Keanu Reeves dies it will be a very big deal. People will be distraught. The mourning will be widespread and intense. 

That’s true of Matthew Perry as well. He wasn’t just a guy on a hit TV show; he was genuinely beloved. He made a difference in people’s lives. He was a huge part of people’s childhoods. 

Going forward I’m going to write as if whoever I’m writing about will die the next day. I’m going to try to be kinder and more empathetic so that I do not find myself once again regularly joking about the death of someone fragile whose untimely demise we all probably should have seen coming and acted accordingly. 

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