I admit, I missed The Larry Sanders Show when it was on HBO in prime time and never even heard of Showtime's It's Garry Shandling's Show.
I watch a lot of documentaries and follow comics, and after watching the HBO documentary, Zen Diaries, I found a strong connection to Garry Shandling. He was a different cat!
There are a few characteristics that separate Garry from the pack of comedians. No doubt he had many of the personality traits found in most comedians. Yet, what Garry had more than most was a spiritual bent, the desire to be authentic and seek truth in the working world of illusion called Hollywood.
Watching The Larry Sanders Show now with a backdrop of who Garry is revealed from The Zen Diaries, I don't think there is a more revealing show to who the actual man is. He tries to hide and disguise himself in his character, but it is quite revealing to the authentic self.
Garry was plagued with guilt and shame. He had two personalities he could never get over, his brother Barry and his mother Muriel. If you read my blog you will make the connections to these two relationships, as well as his father's role in his life.
Shame manifests in Garry's life predominately around the death of his brother Barry. It was fueled by his mother Muriel, and if you watch the documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, you will see his hatred and troubled relationship with his mother, while his father is rarely mentioned. Part of shame is to cause imbalance in family roles, and Garry needed the strength of his father, but he was not present. I sensed his father had strong co-dependent traits and was a weak masculine figure, playing the role of the nice man who let his wife run the show, enabling and making excuses for her behavior.
Muriel Shandling tried to protect her son Garry by almost ignoring the death of his brother Barry. By avoiding it, she hurt Garry deeply. She protected her emotions rather than having the strength to come together as a family in crisis. Families either grow closer or further apart in times of tragedy. Like any other trauma, it causes great stress and when something breaks, it tests the strength of the whole family. It is here his mother's parental need overshadowed the needs of her young son. This level of selfishness creates rage and a split, the loss of any authentic self. Garry's lifelong search for truth and authenticity had to stem from this family imbalance.
Garry's entire life was to run from his mother, but ironically, he had many similar characteristics she carried. This is one of the confusing paradoxes of shame. The people we judge the harshest can be the very people we strongly resemble in our own lives! Usually the judgement we have towards another are the same character defects found in our lives. We pick out the same warts because we identify with them, they are within us. Shame embeds itself deeply within!
If you watch the Zen Diaries, you will hear statements like, "My mother loved me too much, in fact she wanted me to get married and have kids, she just wanted them with her!" This is a mother that smothered her son to overcompensate. Overcompensation and shame go together like fish and water. Overcompensation is an indicator of shame always. Shame is buried deep inside, but look for the overcompensation. Shame will be directly lurking below and most never identify this.
Garry hated to experience departures. Rather than allow intimacy to break his heart he ended intimacy before it had a chance to wound him. This is a strong reason to grieve a loss otherwise it will become a shadow for a lifetime!
There is a scene from The Larry Sanders Show, season one, episode 13 titled, "Hey Now". Hank--Larry's co-host similar to Carson's Ed McMahon--would not give up his catch phrase, "Hey Now", and Larry was threatened that Hank was taking outside jobs. Larry wanted absolute devotion to him and his show! This is but one example of how Garry had similar traits as his mother who also wanted Garry to be the center of her eye and attention. Anything that competed for attention was a direct threat to her.
Garry stood out in a unique way from most comics, that being his impact on other up and coming comedians. Garry was a mentor to many. After his death, this became apparent. Many comics revered Garry not just for his talent, but the impact he had on their lives. We see here that Garry leaned into others in the way he wanted others to impact him. What he did not get with his own parents, he took it upon himself to parent others. If you were one to become part of his inner circle, the problem for Garry was that of devotion.
Brad Grey, his manager and producer wanted to branch out after the success of The Larry Sander's Show and Garry would have none of it. This eventually led to a $100 million lawsuit against Brad. After this extremely hurtful event, Garry took a friend inventory and cut out anyone that was too close as to never get hurt again. The pain of his brother's loss seemed to be fueling this sensitivity. One very close friend, comedian Bob Saget found himself outed after the Grey lawsuit because he would not stand with Garry against him. It was either Brad or Garry! This is how powerful these shadow emotions can be in our lives.
All of this is clear after surveying 30 years of Garry's life and journals. If these insights were presented to Garry while he was living out the experiences, like most, he would probably ignore them. Life can be a tangled web of broken emotions and confusion, but usually there are a few core incidents, that if we work through them, we would have a much stronger foundation to life. With Garry, it was his brother Barry's death. If Garry could have received help grieving this loss, it would have freed him in so many ways.
Yet, here is the great paradox. If Garry was to grieve his brother's loss, he might not have created his two TV shows in much the same way. This could be said of Steve Jobs with Apple Computers. Much of the unique qualities of the Macintosh came from Steve's childhood as an adopted boy. If you watch the biographies on Jobs, this comes out clearly. The pain we carry can gives us a unique lens to life, if freed from that pain, that lens might have a very different focus.
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