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Women's Laughter: It's No Joke · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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