Why we laugh?

Do you like having a good laugh? I guess everyone does. People enjoyed attending a play like comedy since ancient times. Even today, TV sit-coms never lose their popularity all over the world.

I am sure a sense of humor is what makes human beings special and sets us apart from other creatures on this earth. Laughter is so natural and so innate to us, humans. However, when it comes to the explanation why something makes us laugh, problems arise.

It is not because we have watched Charlie Chaplin do it on screen, but when someone steps on a banana peel, and skids on the floor, we can’t help laughing at his or her unintentional and uncontrollable somersault. However, if that ill-lucked person cannot get back on his or her feet unharmed,h/she becomes seriously injured, do you still think this scenario funny?

When you laugh with someone, you put yourself in his or her shoes. You understand very well what’s it like to be in the same embarrassing situation. Through laughter, you absorb and share that person’s pain. You may even help lessen his or her suffering. No wonder, laughter makes life a little less painful, less bitter, and more tolerable.

Most importantly, laughter brings people together. It’s really a true “laughing connection.” We are closer than before because laughter reminds us that we are not alone in our human plight.

In the tradition of comedy since Greek and Roman time to the present, the comic protagonist is someone whose inflexibility prevents him from adjusting to the social norm. His rigidity and abnormal behavior are the source of laughter in comedy. What is abnormal, rigid and inflexible is also considered ugly in comedy.

The alienating behavior of this comic character causes a social rift which is not tolerated by his community. As we all know, most comedies end with happiness, celebration and reconciliation. The community must bring this oddball character back to normal; otherwise, harmony and social order will never be restored. Comedy then is not just a laughing matter, but it plays a pivotal role in functioning as a restorer of social order.

Comedy is also such a democratic art form since in comedy, the majority always gains victory over an individual. Particularly, an odd marginalized individual who has a hard time adjusting to the social norm. Plautus’ “Old Cantankerous” in Roman comedy up to Moliere’s “The Misanthrope” in French Restoration period will illustrate best my point.

I guess many readers are familiar with Umberto Eco’s postmodern detective novel, “The Name of the Rose.”(1980) In this medieval detective, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville travels with Melk, a Benedictine novice to the Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy in 1327 to investigate the murder of a monastery’s monk.(I try not to be a spoiler in case some of you want to read this novel.)

It turns out that all the murders in that medieval monastery can be traced back to Aristotle’s lost second Poetics, “Comedy.” It is speculated that Aristotle wrote another book on comedy, the second book of his famous “Poetics” which is known as one of the earliest critical theory of tragedy.

Please don’t yawn. This is not an article in an academic journal. (I hate that too.) Now comes the fun part. In Eco’s novel, rumor has it that Aristotle’s lost “comedy” is hidden in the labyrinth of the monastery’s library. Rumor also has it that all murders in the monastery are caused by the curiosity of those monks who would like to get a glimpse of the book.

During the Dark Ages, things are rigid, inflexible, not to mention dogmatic. Those who think differently from the Religious Institution are called heretics. These heretics are punished, imprisoned or burned at stake. No wonder, it is also the age of fear.

Centuries ago in Southeast Asia where oral literature and folk tales were ways of life. Oddball characters who are ostracized in the western tradition of comedy for not adjusting to the social norm becomes a pleasant source of laughter among illiterate folks. Their being comic characters give privileges, impossible for most common folks in real life, to make fun of anybody regardless of his or her status.

To put it simply, these comic characters by proxy release village folks’ collective frustration from being under the rigid rules of the elites in their society.

Strange, this reminds me of Shakespeare’s court clown who is free to make fun of the Power (on stage) without being beheaded. Shakespeare also loves to choose this clown character as a mouthpiece of his message.

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