"Laughter is a deeply curious thing," writes anthropologist Kirsten Bell. "It’s simultaneously the most social of human expressions and the one most disruptive of social edifices and rules."
Indeed, laughter can be seditious. Making fun of the high and mighty has been a comedy staple since the Greeks and probably before. And when the elites don't realize they're being made fun of, the laughter is even more satisfying.
Laughter is contagious. Try maintaining a straight face when watching "I Love to Laugh" from the film "Mary Poppins."
Why is the sound of someone laughing so irresistible? It's an effect that consistently shows up through psychological research. The opposite is true when we're laughing alone at an unfunny joke we made.
Delivering a bad joke, like Natalie Portman during her speech at the Golden Globe Awards in 2011, is sometimes described as "terrifying."
Physically, laughter is little more than expelling a forceful puff of air, as anthropologist Munro Edmonson points out. So why is laughter universally recognized as such? What makes laughter familiar to all humans, whether living in the polar regions or the most tropical climate?
But laughter is also characterized by repetition. In fact, given the extraordinary variability in the sounds people make when they laugh, repetition is what makes laughter universally recognizable. This is why writers conventionalize laughter as “he-he-he,” “ha-ha-ha,” and “ho-ho-ho” (well, at least if you’re Santa Claus). Notably, this feature isn’t exclusive to English representations. Edmonson observed that laughter is represented in Russian as xe, xe, xe; in Tzotzil—a Mayan language spoken in Mexico—it’s ‘eh ‘eh ‘eh.
Indeed, Charles Darwin recognized the repetitive nature of laughter when he thought about the enduring mystery of where laughter comes from. He wrote, “Why the sounds which man utters when he is pleased have the peculiar reiterated character of laughter we do not know.”
Laughter isn't cultural or even learned behavior. Four-month-old infants emit recognizable laughter. Gorillas, chimps, orangutans, and bonobos also laugh when they're tickled, although it sounds more like a dog panting when they do it. (However, great apes don't have a sense of humor.)
A well-trained actor can "laugh " on cue and do it for a thousand nights during the run of a show. But it isn't really "laughter" as we know and understand it. The actor simply mimics the physical expressions of laughter, including the repetitive sounds, the contorted face, the open mouth, etc. This kind of laughter can also elicit automatic laughter from an audience.
While some laughter is deliberate, much of it is outside conscious control—an attribute that goes a long way toward explaining the widespread Euro-American ambivalence toward the act. According to the literary scholar Sebastian Coxon, a growing anxiety about mirth is evident in the European historical record from the late Middle Ages. For example, the 16th-century Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, better known for advising children to “replace farts with coughs,” also warned against “loud laughter and immoderate mirth.”
Laughter was frowned upon because of how people laughed and what was laughed at. Too much laughter was a sign of poor "breeding" and was associated with the lower classes. Any strong emotion was frowned on by the elites and seen as evidence of inferiority by the rich and powerful.
Today, Hollywood comedy is a worldwide phenomenon. The most popular comedies are of the "slapstick" variety. Rubber-faced comedian Jim Carrey has two films in the top-grossing comedies of all time worldwide; "Liar, Liar" and "Bruce Almighty." "Home Alone," "Naked Gun," and "Airplane" are all in the top 20. You don't really need subtitles for physical comedy, which makes it perfect for worldwide distribution.
Indeed, screenwriters have long predicted that physical humor will become increasingly prominent in Hollywood comedies because it “transcends dialogue and even most cultural differences,” and movies must increasingly appeal to a global market to produce reliable returns. (As far as I can tell, the future of Hollywood films is basically Marvel movies and slapstick comedies.)
I wish Marvel would have kept "Captain America," you know, American.
