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LAUGHTER 137convenient for them? Wouldn’t the worst be, isn’t the worst, intruth, that women aren’t castrated, that they only have to stoplistening to the Sirens (for the Sirens were men) for history tochange its meaning? You only have to look at the Medusa straighton to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful, and she’slaughing.(Cixous, 1976:855)As Frances Gray has written, ‘for Cixous, the laughter of the Medusadestroys all hierarchies by rendering nonsensical the aggression betweenfather and son that is their basis; in destroying hierarchy it will removeall difference between margin and centre. Women will not be outsiders,because the concept of the “outside” or “inside” will becomemeaningless’ (Gray, 1994:37). This is laughter as a radical commentarythat refuses to work inside the significatory system established by theoppressor, busy about the work of dismantling patriarchal structures ofknowledge.The Marxist critics Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, writing in1944, held a radically different view of the uses of laughter. For them,‘Fun is a medicinal bath’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2001:140). Whilepoststructuralism treats laughter as a trope with some allegoricalsignificance, Adorno and Horkheimer see it only as an empty reminderof a previously satisfying experience. The ‘culture industry’, theyargue, referring to mainstream art and media under capitalism,manipulates laughter and uses it as a placebo which it feeds to thepopulation of the ‘false society’ through television and film in order todivert them from reflecting on their inauthentic existence. The cultureindustry’s massmarket debasement of art, they argue, reduces content toprudish titillation, and, having dispensed with aesthetic challenges,mass-market culture resorts to humour as a means of obscuring thevacuity it peddles at the expense of critical thought. The laughter of theculture industry is therefore a kind of infantilized false consciousness,attached to images in films that allude to the gratification of desires,such as kissing or the possibility of sexual intercourse. By framing thesescenes as risible, vicarious thrills, the culture industry substitutesgenuine pleasure and experience for a humorous alternative so that‘jovial denial takes the place of the pain found in ecstasy and inasceticism’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2001:141).Laughter is offered instead of satisfaction; it is a means of rendering alldesires and ambition beyond those provided by capitalism as a ludicrousand stupid propositions, as ‘The supreme law is that they shall not
138 LAUGHTERsatisfy their desires at any price; they must laugh and be content withlaughter’ (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2001:141). In conclusion we maysay that poststructuralist and theoretical treatments of laughter havebeen attracted to its intangibility and association with a level of somaticexistence beyond that mediated by language, an existence that thereforelends laughter the air of an extra-linguistic recognition of inauthenticity.
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COMEDYWhat is comedy? Andrew Stott
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iiiIrony by Claire ColebrookLiterat
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First published 2005by Routledge270
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The Grotesque 83Slapstick 87The Fem
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIn keeping with the
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2 INTRODUCTIONcomic’ is an identi
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4 INTRODUCTIONassumption being that
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6 INTRODUCTION‘Whenever they wax
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8 INTRODUCTIONmeans of opening up t
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10 INTRODUCTIONJokes therefore emer
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12 INTRODUCTIONexperience itself as
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14 INTRODUCTIONrelegation in the hi
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16 INTRODUCTION
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18 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYWhile there
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20 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYin the cont
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22 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYWith the ri
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24 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYother’ (B
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26 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYvictory pro
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28 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYSPRINGTIME
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30 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYreduction t
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32 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYlocation fo
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34 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYbut this ap
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36 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMYand also a
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38 COMEDY IN THE ACADEMY
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40 COMIC IDENTITYnows, changing voi
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42 COMIC IDENTITYwalks of life to a
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44 COMIC IDENTITYdisease. From this
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46 COMIC IDENTITYineffable folly of
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48 COMIC IDENTITYdancing, juggling,
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50 COMIC IDENTITYThe trickster has
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52 COMIC IDENTITYShakespeare, fairi
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54 COMIC IDENTITYCastiglione’s Th
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56 COMIC IDENTITYway of seeing the
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58 COMIC IDENTITY1990:248). Not onl
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60 GENDER AND SEXUALITYignoring tab
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62 GENDER AND SEXUALITYand alluring
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64 GENDER AND SEXUALITYunderstand q
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66 GENDER AND SEXUALITYplaying Rosa
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68 GENDER AND SEXUALITYfinancial su
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70 GENDER AND SEXUALITYIf the anato
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72 GENDER AND SEXUALITYThe represen
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74 GENDER AND SEXUALITYbeen redefin
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76 GENDER AND SEXUALITYconverse wit
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78 GENDER AND SEXUALITYsignificance
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80 THE BODYBEAUTY AND ABJECTIONIn W
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82 THE BODYOne idea that may help u
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84 THE BODYexistence in the face of
Page 97 and 98: 86 THE BODYThey are healthily scept
Page 99 and 100: 88 THE BODYFirst, movie performers
Page 101 and 102: 90 THE BODYyou…at last you’ve c
Page 103 and 104: 92 THE BODYin a department store, t
Page 105 and 106: 94 THE BODYWomen have been systemat
Page 107 and 108: 96 THE BODYand the pair’s drunken
Page 109 and 110: 98 POLITICSseems to assume—came t
Page 111 and 112: 100 POLITICScitizens all insulted i
Page 113 and 114: 102 POLITICSSecretary Tessa Jowell
Page 115 and 116: 104 POLITICSIt is the stated positi
Page 117 and 118: 106 POLITICSWhat should I do in Rom
Page 119 and 120: 108 POLITICSdifficult crowds for wh
Page 121 and 122: 110 POLITICSalmost laughed, it seem
Page 123 and 124: 112 POLITICSsatisfied by Price’s
Page 125 and 126: 114 POLITICSself-centredness of the
Page 127 and 128: 116 POLITICSwho, in their 1944 essa
Page 129 and 130: 118 POLITICS(Ezrahi, 2001:307). Rut
Page 131 and 132: 120 POLITICS
Page 133 and 134: 122 LAUGHTERevidence for his sense
Page 135 and 136: 124 LAUGHTERdevils to expel, there
Page 137 and 138: 126 LAUGHTERand the meane that make
Page 139 and 140: 128 LAUGHTERHere we find the Christ
Page 141 and 142: 130 LAUGHTERof mutual relation from
Page 143 and 144: 132 LAUGHTER‘laughter naturally r
Page 145 and 146: 134 LAUGHTERceiling, it started lit
Page 147: 136 LAUGHTERdeferred. For Nancy, th
Page 151 and 152: 140 CONCLUSIONhuman imperfection. W
Page 153 and 154: 142 CONCLUSION
Page 155 and 156: 144 GLOSSARYcenturies. Commedia del
Page 157 and 158: 146 GLOSSARYto problematize the ide
Page 159 and 160: 148 GLOSSARY
Page 161 and 162: 150 FURTHER READINGAn extremely acc
Page 163 and 164: 152 BIBLIOGRAPHYErickson and Coppel
Page 165 and 166: 154 BIBLIOGRAPHYDouglas, Mary (1975
Page 167 and 168: 156 BIBLIOGRAPHYContexts and Critic
Page 169 and 170: 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY——(1987), ‘Wi
Page 171 and 172: 160 BIBLIOGRAPHYSynott, Anthony (19
Page 173 and 174: 162 INDEXCavell, Stanley 87-3Chapli
Page 175 and 176: 164 INDEXmarriage 70-77;in British
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