"We were the only ones interested in comedy. Everybody else wanted to be Martin Scorsese"
About this Quote
Stone’s line lands like a shrug that’s also a flex: comedy, in the prestige economy, is the job everyone claims to love and almost no one is willing to bet their identity on. By invoking “Martin Scorsese,” he’s not just name-dropping a legend; he’s pointing at an entire aspirational posture in filmmaking where seriousness is treated as moral proof. The joke is that even people making jokes want the cultural authority of crime epics, tortured auteurs, and “important” stories. Comedy gets you laughs; Scorsese gets you deference.
The intent is twofold. First, it’s a behind-the-scenes correction to the myth that Hollywood is a meritocracy of bold taste. Stone suggests a herd mentality: when careers are precarious, safest is to imitate whatever the industry has already anointed as “cinema.” Second, it’s a defense of his own lane. Coming up in an era when raunch and animation were dismissed as disposable, Stone frames comedy as a minority sport that requires a different kind of nerve: you risk being seen as lightweight, unserious, even juvenile.
The subtext is competitive and a little contemptuous. “Only ones” implies not just scarcity but clarity, as if everyone else was chasing validation instead of craft. It also hints at why South Park and Stone/Parker projects hit so hard: they treat comedy as a delivery system for aggression, critique, and taboo-breaking, not as a detour on the way to “real” art. Scorsese is the shorthand for the cultural hierarchy Stone is happy to disrespect, mostly because it keeps underestimating him.
The intent is twofold. First, it’s a behind-the-scenes correction to the myth that Hollywood is a meritocracy of bold taste. Stone suggests a herd mentality: when careers are precarious, safest is to imitate whatever the industry has already anointed as “cinema.” Second, it’s a defense of his own lane. Coming up in an era when raunch and animation were dismissed as disposable, Stone frames comedy as a minority sport that requires a different kind of nerve: you risk being seen as lightweight, unserious, even juvenile.
The subtext is competitive and a little contemptuous. “Only ones” implies not just scarcity but clarity, as if everyone else was chasing validation instead of craft. It also hints at why South Park and Stone/Parker projects hit so hard: they treat comedy as a delivery system for aggression, critique, and taboo-breaking, not as a detour on the way to “real” art. Scorsese is the shorthand for the cultural hierarchy Stone is happy to disrespect, mostly because it keeps underestimating him.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny |
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