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SMNTY Classics: Women's Laughter (It's No Joke) · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I've never told you a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio, and today we are bringing back a classic
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: around women's laughter.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Because as the stress has built.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Up for me, I have noticed that I am laughing
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: a lot more, including in our episodes. It's something I'm
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: trying to stop doing as much. But it's difficult because
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: it's something we've talked about this before. You and I
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: both kind of do it when we're feeling anxious or
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: like there's nothing we can do. Sometimes it's just a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: social cueue I'm listening to you, let me laugh. But
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: it is something that is highly judged in women, which
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: is what we talked about in this episode. It was
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: one of the first as I discussed. It was one
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: of the first critiques I got from a male listener.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Of course, you giggle way too much. So I just
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: thought I would bring this back because I have noticed it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: If you've noticed it as well. I'm stressed. I'm just stressed.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I'm trying.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's better than us crying. What do you want
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: us to do? Cry or laugh?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Laugh or cry both at the same time?
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: Perhaps, well, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, This is
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff I've never told you,
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: protector of iHeart Radio. So before we get into this,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: one very quick content warning where you're gonna have some
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: brief discussion of rape culture and mental health.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Nothing to you in depth, but just to put that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: out there.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: And today we are talking about laughter and the history
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: of women laughing, the judgment around women laughing, the feminist
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: reclaiming of women laughing, and we're also going to briefly
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: touch on why we laugh and what it could signal
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: with all of that. Samantha, how do you feel about
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: your laugh?
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Oh? I hate it?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my laugh gets really loud, so it's not super
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: loud that you can pick it out. But if it's
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: a dead silent moment, I don't just giggle. I do
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: a yelp first, yeah, and then it goes into whatever
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: the rest of the thing is. If I'm having one
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: of those moments where I'm having an uncontrollable laughter, I
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: definitely snort, and because I can't, I can't breathe. That's
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the level I am so I hate hearing myself laugh.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: And I tried one time to really cultivate into being
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: like a girly cute laugh. Ray, I couldn't do it,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: just didn't happen. I was like, well, I am who
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I am? So that there it is?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: What about you? Yeah?
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I also, I will say I have mixed feelings about
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: my laugh because I feel like I don't have a.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Very feminine laugh either.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: But then that now that I'm older and I think
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: about that, I'm like, well, okay, what.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Does that say. We are going to talk about that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in a minute.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: However, I will say a lot of people at our
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: office are very complimentary of my laugh, and it's very
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: sweet of them, and it's I'm still very self conscious
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: of it, because I guess either way, when you draw
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: attention to something, it makes it put to you in
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: your head about it. And this is one of those
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: episodes that as we talk about it, I'm very conscious
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: of as yes, I know, I know. And that's one
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: of the things we're going to talk about, is like
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: all these different reasons that we do laugh. And I'm
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: somebody that I laugh a lot. I laugh a lot,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: and I think for anyone listening that is no surprise.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Some of my nicknames are Giggles, Gigs, and bright.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Side because I laughed so much.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: We who calls you these names? Because I've never heard this,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I an say this to you, so just curious.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I have other friends, Samantha, but yes, no you have it, No,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you have it. And Samantha, you know.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: My Dungeons and Dragons character's name, one of them, her
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: name is. Her name is gigs on Tank And you're
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: very suspicious of this name.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: That is that person tried to call me on sky
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Paul's like, Nope, I will not take your dick pics.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It was just me. It was just me. But yeah,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I laugh easily for all sorts of reasons.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: My mom used to joke my giggle box would get
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: turned over because I would just laugh and laugh and laughing.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I couldn't stop laughing.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And this is also one of the things I get
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: critiqued on the most as a host, and especially when
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I was a new host, I'd get messages like, no
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: one could take you seriously. You sound like a little
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: girl at a slumber party who's snuck in to her
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: dad's liquor cabinet.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I remember that one very well.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of specific like why did you need
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: to go all of those words? That was unnecessary?
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Right? Yes, I think it was.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of really condescending sexist language like that,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: especially like being a little girl or something.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And nowadays I get those messages far less because
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like those people have left, those mostly dudes,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: to be honest, have left. But I still you'll get
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: really insecure about it anytime you do again, anytime you
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: do an episode like this, filler language is another one
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: where you could become.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: More and more aware of it. It gets more and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: more like.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: You get more and more judgmental about it about how
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: much you do something. And I do want to emphasize
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: every time we do episodes like this, it's not some weird,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: passive aggressive message to you, the lovely listeners, because you
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: are genuinely lovely and I honestly do get if people
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: laugh too much and that annoys you. Though as always,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: you can just disengage. You don't have to listen to
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: something you don't want to try. Do I have to
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: comment on it, But it does turn out there is
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a long history of censoring and judging women's laughter, right,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: actually really fascinating.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited to talk about it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I will say the same is true with tears when
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: it comes to women. I was thinking about this and
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: just any kind of emotion we might show. There's a
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: lot of judgment around it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: If you're having too much fun, then you're annoying. You're
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: too sad about it than you are. You just can't
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: handle it. You too sensitives, exactly exactly.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Both of them are dismissed as you were being essentially
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: a little girl, right.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but speaking of I just told you this story,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: you did. I once was scolded at Universal Theme Parks
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: in Orlando for laughing too much by a fellow dressed.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: As an elf. I was at amusement park. I've never
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: forgotten it. It's really funny now.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: He definitely dressed me down in front of a whole
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: crowd of people.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a whole crew of you, right, just having
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: a good old time. He just like went off to
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: after all of y'all.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did for laughing too much.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And it's not like we were being drunk fools or anything.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: We just were laughing and having fun, too much fun.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: How dare you ad amusement park?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Too much? Amusement too much?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So I did want to briefly touch on why we laugh, which,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: as we discussed in the why we dream episode.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It's still kind of We're not totally.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Sure, but as early as three months old, babies do
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: start laughing. There are a couple of reasons that women
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: and all of us laugh, although there are some that
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: are unique to women, which we're going to touch on.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: To communicate camaraderie, connection, cooperation, joy, humor, sadness.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: In response to an.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Awkward or painful moment, people are thirty times more likely
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to laugh in a group, which demonstrates the social nature
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: of it, which scientists think it's a big social thing
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: of like communicating, right, something.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: About how you feel or how you vibe within the group.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's very contagious too.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean we talked about that a little
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: bit when we were talking about slumber parties and I
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was saying that that game I would play tummy haha.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: The whole point was once somebody actually started laughing, you
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: would all start laughing.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's a big part of like TikTok. Again,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about TikTok, but a lot of the videos
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: that I've seen has been something like contagious laughter or
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: something along those lines. And I will say little baby
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: giggles that are truly enjoying life get to go and sometimes.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: For sure, but yeah, I mean it's hard not to
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: at least smile. Yes, if somebody's really truly expressing joy.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: This joy just say so. Laughter is believed to have
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: potential health benefits, and I think we've all kind of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: heard this, including as a stress reliever, which is one
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: reason for things like laugh yoga. And I was thinking
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: about this too because I was like, my neighbor does
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: crying yoga, but I've never heard or do the laughing yoga.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Should ask about.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Research suggests that people who laugh more have a lower
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: risk of cardiovascular illness.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, yeah, and I think that goes in line
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: with a lot of things we've talked about where stress
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: does cause health issues. So if laughter is believe to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: reduce stress, then it makes sense they would have at
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: least somewhat of an impact, maybe not a huge impact
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: on these other things. Recent studies have found that across
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: cultures and continents, people can pick up on fake laughter.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: These studies also found that fake laughter can be useful
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: in terms of continuing or facilitating conversation, so it's not
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: necessarily always a bad thing. Surveys have also found that
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: women prefer telling jokes to smaller groups of people and
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: even more so small groups of women as compared to men,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: who prefer bigger crowds to tell their jokes, and many
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: speculate this might be at least part of the reason
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the women have no sense of humor thing got started
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: is because men don't see women joke as often because
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: they prefer to tell jokes in smaller groups and more
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: likely to women, which I thought was interesting.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, and.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Then we did want to talk about the use of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: laughter in flirting and right also it's roll in rape culture.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: So plenty of recent studies caught the public's attention claiming
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that yes, humor is what women really want in men,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I love the funny man, and yes this is heteronormative certainly.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: In researching this, most of the top results were things
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: like what does it mean when a woman laughs? How
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: to tell if a woman is fake laughing? And one
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: of the reasons this is believed to be the case
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: is that in the case you will have fun with
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: this person, I will say, and I think we're about
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: to get into it. I had a very long sexist conversation,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: meaning like he was being sexist and almost punched him
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: in the face. A conversation with a dude about how
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: he knows that a girl likes him because she will
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: laugh at his jokes and appreciate what he says, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: to the point that I'm like, he made it seem
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: that women only laugh because of these reasons and all
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: women fake it and I had to look at them
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: and we're like, no, that's not well, that's I think
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I made the conversation. Well, that's that's more about you
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: and how you're not funny and you know this, right,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: and so that is your radar and maybe you should
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: work on your jokes and your personality. Yeah, and we
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: got into it. Yeah, I can see that.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: But it reminds me of when we were talking about
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the whole women can't have an orgasm thing, where it's like, right,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I think this might say more about you exactly, but
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: that is that is a very we hear that a lot, right,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: is you know women are going to laugh harder at
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: jokes that aren't funny from men to show interest.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: This makes sense.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: But if what you're saying is I don't have to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: be funny, it doesn't matter.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: That might be a slightly different thing.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Also, it may come to the point and I have
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: done this, and I'm sure when we talk about it
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: more women would say I have faked laughed it hopes
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: to avoid a confrontation from you. Yes, And so I'm
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: just gonna pretend like I'm amused by you and move
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: on and really try to get away. But I'm gonna
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: be like, that's so funny, i gotta do a thing
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: over there.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I think I've told this story before, but one time
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I was in college and somebody I was at a
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: bar and somebody grabbed my ass and I turned and laughed,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: and I like, back the wave. I was laughing, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I like, I look back on it now and I'm
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: so ashamed. But I'm also like, what else was I
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: gonna do? Right, I'm surprised.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: For one dis mechanism and be like okay, yeahs oh.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: God, okay. Yeah.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: But the I think it was within the past two
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: years that study came out that said, you know women.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I think it might have been.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Specific to the UK, but it was very It caught
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of headlines everywhere where. It was like women,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: funniness is the most important trade, or the most attractive
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: trade or whatever. And they do think that's because it's
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: a signal that you can have fun with someone, you
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: can out laugh with someone. As always with those studies,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: though it's you know, social things that are hard to quantify.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: For sure, I like laughing with a person, for sure.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: That's also true after this, Yes, many afflirting articles advise
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: women how and when to laugh to you attract men,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: and yes, this how to laugh.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about this.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: If you look at words you used to describe men's laughter,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: you'll see a lot of words like boisterous or loud
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: or like you know, from the gut or from the stomach,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: while for women it's a lot of times words like tittering,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: bell like giggling, a lot smaller and like quote dainty sounds.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And that kind of goes back to what we were
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: talking about earlier, where I've got a bunch of different laughs.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: But I'm generally a pretty loud laugher as well, and
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: for a while I did feel like I needed to
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: contain it and quiet it down and control it more
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: and be more quote lady like with my laughter, which
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: is interesting.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: But okay.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Conversely, the male fear of being rejected and even laughed
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: at by women is something that comes up a lot
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: in conversations around rape culture, and this is not a
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: new thing.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Emma B.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Phelps testified in an eighteen ninety three New Haven divorce case, quote,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: she laughed at her husband and he knocked her senseless.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety seven, a man allegedly blew himself up
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: with dynamite after a woman refused his proposal of marriage,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: laughing at him. The Baltimore Sun wrote the man quote
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: had a dynamite bomb with him and threatened that if
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the woman refused him, he would blow himself to pieces.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: She laughed at him, and he went to the stoneyard
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: a block distant and killed himself. In nineteen oh three,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Alice Hineger was murdered quote with a monkey wrinch, because
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: she laughed at a man when he pressed her to
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: marry him.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I think that's more to say about men and fragile
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: ego more so than the laughter. But yeah, I've definitely
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: seen where for women, You're correct, it's either seen as
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: being really condescendingly like giggling like a little girl, or
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: being seen as a witch hickling and or you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: trying to bully someone or demoralize someone it's one or
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the other. It seems, it seems so. In nineteen oh five,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Virginia Wolfe wrote about women's laughter quote light lightning, it
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: triples them up and leaves the bones bear. And of
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: course Margaret at What's famous quote, men are afraid that
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: women will laugh at them, and women are afraid men
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: will kill them, which, again yes, Nancy Dowd's survey The
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Man in Question found that women report their greatest fear
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: is rape and murder, while men's greatest fear is being
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: laughed at. And I've heard this a lot actually, And
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: then in nineteen twenty two, Helen Roland wrote, a man
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: will forgive his wife for committing robbery or murder or
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: breaking the Ten Commandments, yet threaten to leave her for
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: laughing at the wrong moment. Yeah, is you can see,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: like I think I've seen many a scene just recently
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: even where if a woman laughs in this defense then
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: they are like, first of all, what are you laughing at?
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: And then somehow abused.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, And we're going to get into this more
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: in a minute.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: But it's very different how we judge women and men
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: historically based on laughing at the wrong moment. And I
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: you know, we just had Halloween and I just watched
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Practical Magic, and that's why Jimmy hit Jilly in Practical
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Magic because she laughed at him about a donut.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, the research and true life coming.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Together, I will say, now i'm thinking about it. I
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: knew the one way that I could win an argument
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: with my brother was to laugh at him really and
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: it would anger him to no end and I would
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: just walk away. We're ready form to bounce on me
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: mm hm, no real fights. Like it wasn't. It was
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: right at each other, but like that's I remember that
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: as thinking like, this is what's gonna bother him.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has been, and it's very effective as a
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: tool defiance, and we're going to get into that more too.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: But I've definitely had that thought as well. If I
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: get in a bigger argument and I'm like, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: really burn this person up if I start laughing what
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: they're saying, right, Yeah, And that's part of the as
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: we've discussed before, using comedy as this sort of political
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: satire and weapon in that manner, and that's one of
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the things which is a good segue into what we're
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: talking about next. Which is trauma and laughing in the
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: face of like something that's painful or dark for me
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: is easier to handle, especially news if it's presented in
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the kind of a satirical or funny way, just because
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: it's so often is.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Pretty grim, pretty grim.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: But yeah, as we discussed in our Trauma mini series,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: laughter is sometimes utilized as a coping mechan in the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: face of trauma and grief.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I know, it's definitely a coping mechanism for me.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: There wasn't as much information as I thought there would
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: be out there on this, but I did find some
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: articles that said laughter promotes resilience in the face of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: stress and illness. It is something that you know, historically
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: people have used to almost defiantly, to reclaim joy in
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: the face of all these horrible circumstances. And I mean,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: when I think about it as someone who does laugh
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: a lot, like one, that's sort of my that's how
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I am. And two it is a way of being like, Okay,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I can I can still find something to laugh at,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: or it can still be in what for me is.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Normal and for me, laughing is pretty normal.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: But it's also like I just like I've said a lot,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I feel a lot of pressure. And I've been socialized
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: a lot to make people happy and to kind of
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: be that person that cheers people up. And that's hard
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: to let go, even in the face of right or
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: maybe even as especially in the face of when you're
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: trying to hold on to something right of like hard
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: things of grief and trauma and you're just trying to
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: find like something from your quote, like I like to
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: call it the before and after of mine, before of
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: what who I felt like I was then and then
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and all this stuff with trauma and you feel like, oh,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: all your foundation is shaken, and I would just try
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: to grab onto these like pieces and deal with it
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: that way.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: And we've talked about this previously, and not that this
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: is an actual scientific statement, but I know this is
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: very to me as a person on the outside seemingly
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: middle child syndrome to keep the piece, to keep the happiness,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: and you are a middle child, so that none of
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: that is to a surprising a but I think like
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: another part of that, when you're talking about your own
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: trauma and the fact that you laugh that's your response
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: and I do too. I do too. I actually make
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: sarcastic jokes, which we're going to get into just a second,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: but the fact that many people respond when they specifically
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: are about their own trauma, which is what we were
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: talking about in this episode. We were like, let's do
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: this episode because I was very angry because we did
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: get a critique on one of our reviews, because I
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: keep making the stupid mistake of looking at the reviews.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Most of them are so kind and so beautiful and
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: thank you so much, but the few that come in
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: says negative. I'm like, why do you even take the time, Like,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: just go ahead and put the one star and move on.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I don't care. None of the things that you're critiquing
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: us for we can change. I can't change this about myself, sorry,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: And Adie can't change this about herself. Sorry. But one
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: of those was about, like you are laughing during serious stuff.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Y'all need to get over this. This is so childish
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: type of thing. And we hey, we've already told you
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: at the very beginning this is how we respond. We
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: probably said it in that episode, whatever episode you're responding to,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: because we talk about a lot of traumatic things, let's
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: be will b, you're also not laughing at other people's trauma.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: You're literally talking about your own experiences and your response
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: is to giggle, to try to handle it and just
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: try to maintain. And again, I think, I think one
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: of the things that infuriate me in any of those
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: comments or any of these levels, is this is what
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: helped us survive. Why would you come in here and
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: try to take that away when obviously that is a
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: strength for us. You may not see it for that way,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: You may not see it for yourself, and you may
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: be able to handle it on a whole different level.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know. But if it's not hurting you, it's
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: not hurting us, and it's something that can keep us
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: on a steady way without completely going overboard in whatever route.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: And that could be unhealthy. Why is it bothering you?
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Why is it bothering you? And I think that just
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: angers me to so much that we have to criticize
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: other people's handling of trauma when it's not unhealthy.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And I mean we did talk about that
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: a lot, especially when we talked about grief as well,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: and how people feel like grief should look a certain
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: way and if it doesn't look that way, then you're
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: not grieving enough for you're grieving too much, you're giving
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the wrong way, and I think you know, as was
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: pretty much everything we talk about. It's hard to unpack
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and untangle all of the social factors that go into
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: why you do a certain thing.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I think that for.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I imagine a lot of women who use laughter as
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: a coping mechanism, but for anybody, but for women, there's also,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: like I'm sure I know you've experienced this as well.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: When you do open up and you share something that's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: really dark and really painful with somebody, it's clear they
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: are really uncomfortable, and then you say something funny or
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: something to lighten the mood because it's just silent, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: it's that's obvious the other person doesn't know what to say,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: and I don't fault them for that, Like sometimes there's
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: nothing to say, right, but you do. I'm somebody who
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: also struggles with silence a.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Lot of times.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: So if it's like goes silent, somebody's miserable and like,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: oh wow, they didn't Okay, well let's flash bit, let's
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: make this better. It's like what you're I mean, in
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: a much lighter way. It's like when you're on an
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: awkward day and you're like Wow, this is awkward. Let's
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: laugh about it, because right, it's really.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Awkward, right, I mean that is exactly so when we
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: talk about social work, I would talk about the fact, hey,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: you don't want to hang out with a lot of
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: social workers if you do, if you're really sensitive and
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: don't have a dark sense of humor, because we are twisted,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: like immediately, this is the way we cope, and we
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: have to joke about things that are really inappropriate and
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: really like yes, we outside of that reil, we're like,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: this is really bad. We shouldn't do this. But if
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: we didn't, I think we would constantly be on like
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: a wave of crashing and almost wanted to like, you know,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: just go to sleep forever because it is so dark
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: and it gets so dark, and because it weighs on
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: you so heavily, like there's nothing to do but to
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: make an obvious statement, maybe inappropriate to those who hopefully
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: would understand, and just trying to move on because it
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: is so dark and so twisted that you can't if
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: you can't laugh about it for just a minute, then
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: there's a whole Even though in your mind you're we
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: have to do all of these things, but I need
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: a minute. I need a break from the depth and
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: the darkness of this really really dark, really really heavy
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: situation to being able to be like, well, at least
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: SO and SO didn't do this part too, Like that's
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: the caveat to it. And even though on the outside
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: they're like, holy crap, what why would you do that,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: it's kind of like, well, because this is how we survive.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: And again, when we're on in our own trauma, whether
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: it's to fill the silence, whether it's to make other
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: people comfortable because you don't know what else to do,
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: it's kind of the same thing. It's like people will
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: get really uncomfortable with race stuff, and instead of accepting
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the fact, oh you're racist in as, it was like,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: you don't know how to act around brown people. So
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: this is what you're doing. I would make jokes about
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: myself in a manner I'm like, I really shouldn't have
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: had to do that, but it's awkward and I don't
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: know what else to do but to make you laugh
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: and make myself laugh. I hope this makes it better,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: although it just fits into your racism and prejudice and
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: stereotypical ideas of me.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, And I mean, that's a good point
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: to make, kind of going back to what you were
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: saying a little bit earlier, is you know, we're laughing
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: at our own trauma or too perhaps make other people
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: more comfortable with our own trauma.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: But that's different than like making jokes. You have no
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: right to be making right, very very very different or
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: laughing like.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I did read and this is complicated, and I don't
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: want to go into it now, but I will mention it.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I did read a.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Couple of articles about basically people grieving, but on opposite
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: ends of something like perhaps somebody their son had killed
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: somebody else's child in a drunk driving accident and the
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: mother of the child that's i'd laughing at the funeral
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: or something like. That's a bit different than what we're discussing, right,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I suppose, like I understand it, but that that's that's
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: not the same as what we're just.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Sorting right now.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Again and again, that's what we were talking about to
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: when it comes to us processing our own trauma and
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: if it's not to the point that it is hurting
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: someone else. So when I say processing on trauma, those
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: who delve into alcohol or go into some type of
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: addictive personality, trait and habit. That's a whole different conversation.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying I encourage that. But when we're talking
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: about laughing to process our own trauma, that's the whole again.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: How is this hurting you? Why are you needing to
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: speak on it? And also why are you judging our
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: own trauma? Like that's a double memy on that in itself.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do think it's interesting in something we've
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: talked about before. But when you're in a public sphere,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: some of those things get amplified because you're supposed to
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: be even if you're doing serious topics, you are supposed
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to be entertaining in some way while also getting across
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: at you cations, acasual content, and when you're talking about
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: something serious, that can be really tricky, and especially if
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: you do have your own trauma in your way, you
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: act your own trauma on top of that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And that's not to say there's.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Been plenty of episodes where I feel like there was
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: hardly any laughter involved, but right, you know, when there's
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: also that level of it if you're like, oh, this
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: is too sad, and what's going to listen to it?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Because all it is is sad, I've got to do something.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: It's usually my episodes. I'm like, so I want to
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: talk about this really bad thing. Let's go, And I'm
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: sorry everybody starts like sitting in the corner in the dark.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's a balance that is it's
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: really difficult to pull off. But I do like going
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: back to what I said where it's easier for me
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: to handle darker topics if there is some humor in there, right,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that's wrong or bad. I think
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: there's a way to do it, in a way not
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: to do it, but I think it makes sense that
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: you need almost like a palatee. There's something to get
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: stop your heart from like just getting so so sad
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: and heavy that you don't want to take in any
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: more information, right, Yeah, which was all a pandemic gas
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: either it is. We have so many examples of it.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Just hear this episode. I will say one of my
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: triggers actually is loud male laughing. That's something I've had
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: to work with, but like really loud that can get me.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: M hmm.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Interesting. There's a lot of figures like that. So again,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: dark humor has been shown to improve mental health among
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: those who participate in stressful job like nursing and social work.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And I tell you, we lived off of dark jokes
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: to the point that I couldn't be around normal people
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: because I realized I cannot be socializing with people who
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: do not understand what this is. When I make a
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: comment about a case that I'm going through and they
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: gave me the blank stare of horrified looks, and I'm like, oh,
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: y'all don't know anything about the okay, cool, I'm just
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna sit in the corner. Because yes, it takes.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: It's especially when you have a job that you really
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: delve into and it impacts other people. So social service
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: is nursing and teaching. It's really hard not to see
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: some type of or at least having to cause inside jokes.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I guess I'm having to have inside jokes or such,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: which again not always appropriate and I'm not And if
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: it's racial any of that, that's not what we're talking
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: about at all. We're talking about human drama, human trauma,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: human darkness, that's what we're talking about. It definitely, yeah,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: it definitely helps you just to be able to wake
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: up the next day. That's where it gets down to
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: and there's a commaderate to that, yeah, that you have
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to have.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, and I think I know with my nursing friends,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I've heard a lot about that of being during this
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: pandemic and being a stress reliever. But they've noticed like
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: their humor has gotten significantly darker.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, during all of this. Yeah, I think we had.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I had a moment when I was working in CPS
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: investigating child abuse. I had several nursing friends and we
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: would just share war stories. Let's talk about what was
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: worse to make ourselves feel better that their job was
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: worse than our job. It was not pretty.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Speaking of We did briefly want to touch on the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: film Joker with Joaquin Phoenix, just because we were talking
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: about the different perceptions people have of men and women
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: laughing when it comes to things like trauma and that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: You know that movie, And we're gonna get circle back
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to this.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: But I know there's like an ableism narrative there, because
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: if you haven't seen it, it's sort of a disorder
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: he has, right, that's he laughs.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's called pseudo bulber effect or PBA, and
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: that's what he was dealing with.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean laughter is frequently a tool writers
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: do use in things.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Things like that to indicate like like villainous behavior. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: then this one's got like also the ableism there, right,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: this is actually something he's dealing with. But just the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: way people reacted to that and that movie versus us.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: You know, talking about our own trauma just interesting.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: From what I remember from the movie, stress caused him
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: to laugh, and so people didn't understand what was happening
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: because I know, like stress, Like for me, we talked
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: about stress causes me to be really sleepy, so I
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: guess it's similar to that effect.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Obviously I don't want to be compared to the joker necessarily.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: But.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Just yeah, I mean, I guess we know that laughter
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: is a response to stress and trauma. It does make
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: people uncomfortable sometimes, I think, but it seems that the
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: reaction you get when it's women is much more like dismissive,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I guess, either dismissive if it's trauma, or like angry
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: if it's related to dating. Yeah, just to you know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I feel like we understand that this is a thing,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: but we're judging people for it and we're judging differently
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: based on gender, which is interesting. So we did want
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: to go into a history of women laughing because, as
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: we mentioned in the intro, there's been a long history
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: of judging women's laughter and sometimes even criminalizing it. In
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Ancient Greece, Aristotle war it gets the pitfalls of laughter,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: writing quote, most people enjoy amusement and jesting more than
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: they should, as is a kind of mockery, and loggivers
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: forbid some kinds of mockery. Perhaps they ought to have
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: forbidden some kinds of jesting. God seems to be on
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: the same page. In the Old Testament, laughing at God
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: was not at all tolerated, and even when God laughs,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: it's an act of hostility and fury, not a good
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: thing at all. There's one instance where a group of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: boys laugh at a prophet, So God six two she
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: bears on them and kills like almost all of them.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I believe right.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: They're making fun of the prophet, though that's a little different,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: and then throwing things and taunting him and trying to
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: hurt him. So that's a little bit of f than
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: just laughing at just saying so. During the Middle Ages,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: women's laughter was viewed as unruly, course and something associated
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: with the body and not at all ladylike, as in fact,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: the whole tee covering of the mouth is what you
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: would often see represented. Women were advised not to laugh,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: that it was uncouth, despite that female characters and literature
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: ranging from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century often engaged
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: in laughter. In Lisa Profetti's work Women in Laughter in
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Medieval Comic Literature, she argues that laughter was a way
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: to talk back to the views around women at the time.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: That jokes and humor around women which made women laugh
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: also illustrated to the limited movement agency women had at
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: the time. Often female characters were written by men as
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: targets to be made fun of, mocked, and kept in
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: their place. In this way, women who made jos and
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: laughed could be viewed as somewhat subversive. And I will say,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: think about lay miss. The whole thing is a pretty
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: big tragedy. But the two funny characters was the woman
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: who was essentially seen as a hag and then her
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: husband who they were both crooks essentially were the funny
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: bit to the entire movie. Everybody else was like, yeah, drama, drama, yes,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: but those are the characters are seen being funny or
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: made fun of.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Right English philosopher Thomas Hobbs, you'd laughing as a political
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: tool and weapon. He wrote, quote men laugh at the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: infirmities of others, for when aes is broken upon ourselves,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: of friends, and whose dishonor we participate, we.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Never laugh thereat.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: In puritanical New England, a woman laughing could be downright
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: and dangerous, sometimes believe to be a sign of her
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: covenant with the devil, and particularly during times of prayer
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: are fasting. One such woman was Susan Martin. Records indicate
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: that she was executed not only for breastfeeding Satan with
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: her quote witch is tits, but also for laughing at
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: quote such falling during her trial. So I believe they
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: told her this was her charge, and she laughs, and
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: so they're like ah, which reminds me of The Bitch,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: which we did a feminist movie Friday On. But the
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: way that movie ends is she sort of accepted being
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: a witch and being in Satan's govenant, I guess, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: she's laughing, yeah.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: I know, like in several of the movies I've seen,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I can't remember like laughing equates to orgasm as well, yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: which is also a no no oh yeah, as well
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: having a fit in hysteria and all that is somewhat
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: related to laughter as one of those terms in itself,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: so that's interesting. Two women in Chicago were arrested in
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: eighteen ninety nine for laughing, and in the words of
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: a local newspaper, it says the trouble was caused by
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: a new joke on the kissing bug. I love it,
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: what's the kissing bug? I know? With the arresting officer claiming,
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: and then they both last so loud they awoke the
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: entire neighborhood. However, the presiding justice was not impressed or concerned. Well,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: I guess it certainly is a joke to arrested person
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: for laughing, and both women were discharged after that. But wow, wow,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: I just.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Don't want to know this joke about the kissing bug.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: I need to know about this kissing bug.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Etiquette vaniels around the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries instructed
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: women to limit their laughter, that people would look down
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: on them for it, and that it was even potentially
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: dangerous a sign of female hysterics. A nineteen oh two
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: obituary ran with the headline death from laughter, and it
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: described a woman who visited the theater to quote enjoy
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: a comedy and instead furnished a tragedy after she became
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: convulsed with merriment.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: Marriment even better.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: After a romantic suitor told a woman a joke in
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven about dentistry, she couldn't stop laughing until
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: she was given some anesthetics. When she came to, she
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: said she couldn't remember the joke, and out of caution,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: no one told it to her. However, several articles claimed
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: it win as follows. A man went to the dentist
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: to have a toothpold and it hurt oh doctor. The
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: patient said, if only humans were born without teeth, The
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: doctor replied, they.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Are, you know, classic classic.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Here's another example from nineteen oh eight. A widow named
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Anna Farrer attended a dinner party where someone shared a
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: funny joke with her. She started laughing so hard she
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: was quote unable to stop the laughing paroxysm, and quote
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: died before a physician could be summoned. The joke wasn't
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: printed for safety. Can you imagine being this person who
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: told that joke really killed well, they didn't want anybody
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: else to read it and have the same reaction, which
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: reminds me of the Mony Fipop.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Skit the joke that kills, the killer joke.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was like a World War Two skits where
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the British Army just like, after months and months of
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: practicing and assembling a joke in many pieces so people
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: wouldn't read it because it's dangerous In German, they constructed
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: the perfect killer joke and they would go around. The
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: soldiers would go around shouting it at German officers because
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: they didn't understand it so it wouldn't kill them, and
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the German officers would.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Laugh and then drop dead. But then at the end.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Of course they're like, all I want to hear this,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: so what's so good about it? And they say it
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: in English and then they all die as well.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Die nice.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that kind of reminds me of the Mary
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Popin scene where they're all laughing and they start floating
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: because they can't stop laughing and they're talking about someone
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: floats away and they all tell jokes to each other.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I haven't seen that movie in so long, but
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I don't remind that.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so. A lot of these advice columns and
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: cautionary tales were coming out more and more women were
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: entering the public sphere and attending more public forms of
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: entertainment more regularly. So just so you know, ladies, laughing
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: can kill you, exactly.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: You better not do it. Better not now. Of note,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: there are.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Cases of men laughing at women, typically white women, in
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: areas where their patronage was valuable, and men laughing at
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: them made them feel unsafe and being arrested or ejected
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: from public venue, so that did happen as well. Interestingly,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: women may have participated in highly derided sobbing clubs at
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the time, and men's laughter was often seen as something
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: that was just or good in the face of their sniveling,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: as it was called, and particularly laughing at entertainment geared
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: towards women, which was incidentally where men were most likely
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: to be punished for it. Again, because people didn't want
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: to lose the people who the patrons who were paying
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: to see these things, and in Puritanical America, laughing at
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: a tragedy was viewed as something akin to asin that
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: was real bad, a mind frame that carried over into
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: more modern times kind of relates to some of the
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: stuff we've been talking about. During the late nineteenth century,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: there was a spate of articles claiming that across the
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: country men were laughing blasphemously during church services, and some
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: of them did get arrested.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm thinking more and more about laughter being
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: used like it's a sin, Like when you see demonic possessions,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: they're also laughing. And then I know that there are
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: several diagnoses where they talk about inappropriate laughing because it
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: doesn't fit the emotions. So therefore maybe they are ABC
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: and CS of kind of sociopathic diagnoses, which start to
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: thinking about that.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So where we are now in our more
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: modern times, women's laughter is the subject of penalization and
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: also a feminist thought.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Mm hm. So just in twenty seventeen, a code protester
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: named Desiree Ferouse, sorry if I've mispronounced that, was arrested
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: after laughing during the confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions to
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: become Attorney General after a Republican senator said that Sessions
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: had quote an extensive record of treating all Americans fairly
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: under the law, not gonna lie. I would laugh too,
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: She potentially faced a two thousand dollars fine and up
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: to a year in jail, but the judge ultimately ruled
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: that laughing was not adequate grounds for guilt. In that quote,
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: it was disconcerting that the government made the case in
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: closing arguments that the laughter in and of itself was sufficient. Yes,
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: it is disconcerting. The government motion filed against her claimed
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: that she was arrested because she sought to impede and
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: disrupt then Senator sessions confirmation hearing by drawing attention away
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: from the hearing itself and directing it instead toward the
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: defendant's perception of the nominees racist views, policies, and voting record.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not laughing because of the way he said, But
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: I'm like, but it did, and all she did was laugh.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: So for you to take that as that thinks again,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: says more about you, whoever file these charges, than it
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: is us about her.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Professor of law the University of Michigan, Catherine A. McKinnon
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: wrote of this incident, criminally charging and potentially sentencing missus
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Eru's for a brief spontaneous injection of political laughter as
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: disruptive when it at least so clearly was not looks
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: like an overly thin skin reflex reaction to a woman
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: appropriating what is usually a masculine form of power, ridicule,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: public humiliation by humor, and in this case, political speech
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: against racism. Of note, the Trump administration was a repeated
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: offender and punisher.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Of women mocking Trump.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Take their reaction to Melissa McCarthy impersonating Sean Spicer.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: They just flipped out so angry, they were so so
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: angry of all of snl made me laugh.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: But that's also true.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, this is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from the
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two film A Question of Silence, when three
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: women laugh loudly and brashly at their own murder trial,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: mostly at the premise presented that they lived in a
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: post sexist society that were on trial after exhiberantly murdering
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: a shopkeeper who harassed a female shoplifter. The Question of
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Silence is a reference to the idea that the marginalized
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: don't have a voice in the face of a continued injustices,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: so defiant laughter is one way of sticking it to
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: the man and disrupting the status quo. Like I said,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: I knew what would make my brother angry, and that
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: was just laughing.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this movie sounds interesting. I had never heard
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: of it, but I want to check it out now.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: And there have been cases of women being arrested and
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: jailed for disrespecting the dead throughout history as well.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: And of course there.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Is and has been intersections with racism, homophobia, and ableism.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety eight, the black newspaper The Washington b
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: wrote it is against the law for a black person
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: to laugh at a policeman in the street. The following year,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: a black woman named Louisa Roberts was fined two dollars
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: and quote patrolman Hutchinson arrested her for assassing some white women.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Ralph Ellison wrote of a Southern mythology around the quote
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: laughing barrel of public barrel that black people were meant
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: to put their head in when they fell at a
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: laugh coming on. In his essay and Extravagance of Laughter,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: he wrote of the power of laughter quote grotesque comedy,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: out of the extremes to which whites would go to
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: keep us in what they considered to be our police.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: These attitudes and discrimination continue to this day. In twenty fifteen,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: a group of eleven black women were ejected from a
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: Napa Valley wine train for laughing too loudly, which led
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: to the hashtag laughing wild Black. I remember this because
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: they made this huge scene just because they were enjoying
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: their time, to the point that even other women were like,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: what are they doing. They're at a bachelorette party, nothing's wrong.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Why are you in them off?
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a wine tree tour.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Everybody's drinking and giggling like that's not a bad thing.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: That means they had a good time. I mean, why, yes, right.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: At the same time, there's also a long history of
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: using black laughter and minstrel shows to reassure white audiences
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: that there was no resentment or danger from black folks.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Right, you know, that's kind of that conversation of trying
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: to make white people feel comfortable. So therefore, I'm like,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: you know, deprivating comments about being Asian to make the
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: white people in the room okay, And to the point
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: that someone was like, oh, you're one of those Asians. Cool,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what you said to me, And I was
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: like what. And I think that was the moment I
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: realized what I did. I was like, oh, I have
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: given them permission to be outwardly racist to me crap.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, And then there's also been a lot
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: of conversation and judgment around the gay voice and related
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: the gay laugh. That could be and probably will be
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: its own episode, but that is also a piece of this.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: And then yes, going back to the joke or there's
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: ableism going on as well in this conversation, as well
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: as a very clear anxiety of people laughing at the
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: wrong moment, which, as we've discussed throughout this whole episode, there's.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: So many reasons for why that might be. Right.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So all of this points to a history of
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: censoring women's laughter and the laughter of marginalized groups. It
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: also points to a history of people finding joy in
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: the face of trauma and discrimination and depression. Even thinking
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: about feminism specifically, there's numerous examples of you know, yes,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: women aren't funny, feminist buzzkill, can't you take a joke?
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Things like that, As was so many things we talk about.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: It's such a double edged thing because if you laugh,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: then you might get punished for laughing at the wrong
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: time or offending a man or hurting his ego. If
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: you don't laugh at their jokes or what they find funny,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: then you're a buzzkill.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: You can't take a joke, or you're cold and frigid
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: It is. One thing we didn't get into that we'd
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: love to hear from listeners about is cultural differences in laughing.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of articles around all of this
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: out of Indian specifically Bollywood, which was really interesting, including
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: this quote laughter strips the object of power and gives
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: power to the one who laughs. When stand up comics
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: make fun of someone or something, their jokes are in
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: effect criticism and mockery, highlighting a social issue or a
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: family reality. There's so much too unpack with all of this,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: because again there is a line like there are jokes
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you can make and jokes you can't.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Are definitely should it.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: But yes, it is like a way to express defiance
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: in the face of oppression, for sure, and I think
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that's why it does. It does have this history of
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: being punished when marginalized people do it at what people
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: in power see is the quote wrong time? Yeah, all
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: of that into so much as always I was, this
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: is a fastening one to research. Yeah, and listeners We
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: would love to hear from you any cultural differences you've noticed,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: or gender differences you've noticed, anything at all like that,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: You can email us. Our email is Stuffidia mom Stuff
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram. A Stuff I've
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Never Told You Thanks as always here at super producer Christina,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 50:36
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• 50:38
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