Melissa McCarthy addresses the scourge of serious movies calling themselves "comedies"

McCarthy’s comment brings to mind a show like the Golden Globes, which separate nominees into Drama and Comedy/Musical categories, and recently handed the Best Picture–Comedy award to One Battle After Another. The other major award shows don’t really work this way (and heaven knows the Golden Globes has plenty of other issues) but McCarthy brings this up to talk about a larger issue about trying to get comedies made. “I think the narrative of comedies don’t work anymore is bullshit. I think it’s absolute bullshit. It’s a false narrative,” she continues, equating comedy to music and saying that even talented musicians can’t necessarily work in every genre. She shouts out Jason Statham, with whom she starred in Spy, as a person who has a knack for the genre, and openly wishes that movie had become a franchise: “We should be on the ninth Spy! Everyone on Spy was ready to re-rack immediately.”

But to hear the actor tell it, it’s hard to get comedies made because people at the executive level “start to do the math of it” and “want a big premise.” Says McCarthy, “But most really great comedies, it’s about the people and the characters and the story, and it’s not like, ‘And they were both aliens at the end!’ But people really think they want that hook, and it’s just not real,” says McCarthy. “Then they say comedies don’t work, and I’m like, ‘No, bad comedies don’t work.’ And I won’t take the fall for that.”