I don't like turning a tragedy into a money-making venture in any case. I dislike it when something horrible happens and suddenly it's a movie on TV the next week.
Having said that, I too saw the cheerleading mom story and thought that was hilarious. I understood it was a satire of the whole cheerleading culture in Texas (and let's face it, the South
). And thankfully, no one was hurt.
I also have to say I've laughed at
Hogan's Heroes-and I'm a convert to Judaism! I do think one way we deal with a great tragedy such as that war is to laugh. It was a controversial show, but distant enough in time by then that it could be made.
One author in my hometown of Cleveland wrote a series of books about disasters and crimes in the city's history (my favorites
), but had a rule that he would not write about anything more recent than 50 years, because of the possibility of survivors and family members still being around. So he wrote about some things in the early 1960's at the latest.
That's my philosophy about any movie about tragedy or crime-make it very distant. Hence I'd probably see a comedy about the Titanic, and I don't have moral problems with making a movie about that disaster (and obviously many have been made).
Good Morning Vietnam was hilarious, too, but not without its controversy. I think that was O.K. and distant enough in time. M*A*S*H is a classic, funny show about Korea. But Afghanistan or Iraq are too recent, even though I predict one day we'll see comedies based there.
Did that get to what you were looking for? And BTW, I've forgotten to ask-I've hoped that you and your kin are all right from the tornadoes earlier this year
.