“Men
show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think
laughable.” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Maxims
and Reflections
 |
| Image courtesy of National Geographic. |
I love to laugh. Loud and long and clear, although it
usually doesn’t result in me floating to the ceiling. Laughter seems pretty
innocent, yet there appears to be some pretty strong anti-laughter sentiments
running through scripture (the Topical
Guide and Index
entries on ‘Laughter’ illustrate this, D&C
59:15 and 88:121
among the strongest anti-laughter statements).
I started thinking about what I laugh at, after watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier a few
weeks ago. There’s a large amount of violence in the film, unsurprisingly given
the genre. In the opening action sequence I found myself laughing at the
violence and the killing that was being portrayed onscreen. Almost immediately
after, I realized what I was doing and stopped, thinking to myself- why was I laughing? People were being killed
and seriously injured. That’s not something to laugh at. I took some
momentary solace in the fact that the theater was laughing alongside me.
Quickly that solace disappeared as I realized the implications of that
laughter.
I was troubled by this briefly, but sort of shrugged it off
and half-heartedly resolved to keep a better check on my reactions to violence,
until a few days ago when I was watching my brother play soccer. Some kids on
the team fell and rolled around on the ground, seeming to feign injury hoping
for a call. I laughed. Loudly. Then the coach came to the field and escorted
the player off, who remained off the field for the rest of the game. Should I have
laughed? The whole premise of America’s Funniest Home Videos and a significant section
of YouTube is based around finding the unfortunate physical mishaps of others
funny. But that’s not really an excuse.
My concerns with my laughter at these two instances caused
me to wonder about what I find funny in general. I have a bit of a dark sense
of humor (some may term it dark or gallows humor) that often causes me to laugh
at things that cause others to gasp/cry/scream/otherwise negatively react [A Modest Proposal,
Puritan sermons about hell-fire (Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God”, for example), BYU devotionals about
sex-cookies, the ‘to the
pain’ monologue from The Princess
Bride, this entry about
Sonseed (the band behind “Jesus
is A Friend of Mine”) with a band member dying after choking on a sandwich
(please tell me, I’m not the only one that laughed out loud when they read
that…) and a story I wrote years ago (titled 87) about a serial killer that only killed on holidays, but was
followed by the cheery The Beatles’ tune “Here Comes the Sun” to warn all that
were in danger].
So, what is the point of laughter? When is it acceptable?
Are there topics that are taboo and should not be made light of? Laughter is
one of my defense mechanisms, I suppose, used to deflect the seriousness of
some terrible situations (literally failing tests, incredibly unfortunate
social interactions—“see you…sometime”—manipulation bordering on blackmail and
family dysfunction, for example).
The following quotes give a nice idea of what laughter is
for me.
“The
human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” Mark
Twain
“There
is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and
hurt." Erma Bombeck
“If
we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.” Robert Frost
I think laughter is a key to my largely relaxed, easy-going,
stress-free demeanor. If I didn’t laugh off whatever happened, life would be
much grimmer. Laughter seems key to joy, unless I don’t understand joy and have
been living for one of those lesser, fleeting incarnations—pleasure and
happiness. There may be a danger in becoming desensitized to the reality of pain
and suffering, if we laugh too frequently. Yet, maybe that laughter can give us
insight to touch those that do feel that pain, helping them to transcend it and
find the humor in the situation. As Erma said, it’s a thin line.
I’ll keep sharpening my weapon of laughter, holding me back
from the cliffs of insanity (hah!), ridding it of the rust and dullness of
cheap and disturbing laughs (looking at you, Violent action scenes). Sure, I’ll
probably still find myself laughing alone, resulting in awkward and potentially
judgmental stares, but I’m used to that. After all if God weeps, I sure hope
He/She/They laugh…
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