Gary Gulman has been a comedy staple for years. Since he first started stand-up back in 1993, he has been featured all across late-night talk shows, has had a number of successful comedy specials, and continues to perform live to this day. His material is killer and well written, making him one of the best currently in the game.
Much of his comedy delves into topics of mental health and depression, and Gulman has dedicated a lot of his public life to opening up about his own mental health journey. In 2017 he was featured on The Hilarious World of Depression , and really opened up about mental health, making it a quintessential episodes of the podcast. In 2019, Gulman teamed up with Judd Apatow and focuesed all of these thoughts into an HBO special, The Great Depresh, in which he not only discussed his path from depression to hospitalization to treatment but found great humor in it.
On August 15th, celebrating the finale of Better Call Saul, Gulman used the opportunity to further talk about depression through a Twitter post:
I was suicidal when @BetterCallSaul premiered. It was the only hour each week I found more comforting than the idea of oblivion. I vowed to defer ending things until I found out what happens to Saul. In the meantime I got well. Thank you @BetterCallSaul for buying me some time.
— (((Gary Gulman)))Harris/Walz2024 (@GaryGulman) August 16, 2022
Friends and fans responded with an outpouring of support and appreciation. For some, his open and frank discussion about something as serious as suicidal thoughts served not to minimize, but to normalize the issue.
It may seem like depression and thoughts about suicide do not make for good comedy topics. But comedy is often tied up in pushing boundaries and having discussions that might feel “taboo.” For as long as there has been comedy, there has been comedians using their time to make us think.
Comedy often relies on empathy. You might hear a comedian make some point you’ve never heard before, and then you think, “wait, I feel that way too!” Maybe you never thought much about the annoyance of waiting for a table at a restaurant, but when you see it on Seinfeld, you empathize to some extent.
When comedians like Gulman talk about mental health, if they’re doing a good job, they’re subtly prodding us to think more about the topic. You may not have exactly the same lived experiences as Gulman, but through his comedy you might understand him a little bit more.
The comedy world is unfortunately no strange world to the struggles of depression. Robin Williams struggled with mental health throughout his life and took his own life in 2014. The list of comedians who have and continue to struggle with depression is long.
For some people, comedy can be a way to cope with mental health issues, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. Gulman has talked about how returning to stand up has contributed to his own recovery process. As comedians continue to open the doors to previously off-limits topics, they will hopefully help to reduce the stigma of talking about some of these sometimes overlooked issues.