I used a real letter my brother wrote me with instructions for his funeral that included directions on how to lay him out in the coffin in drag. For me combining sadness and comedy heightens both. The collision of tones makes both more extreme. We don't want to be taken by surprise, so we keep our guard up. Comedy defuses that vigilance so in the next moment we are unprepared for the explosion.
Comedy dismantles any protective covering.
So that's why I think I do it. She received the gift of how to survive. I am going to teach you to drive like a man, he says. That not only enables her to survive but actually enables her, I think, to reject him and destroy him. A lot of people are trying to turn this into a drama about an individual family.