Audience laughter at gratification signals repression, not mere immaturity
Evidence
The more rationality (the reality principle) is carried to extremes, the more its ultimate aim (actual gratification) tends, paradoxically, to appear as ‘immature’ and ridiculous. Not only eating, but also uncontrolled manifestations of sexual impulses tend to provoke laughter in audiences - kisses in motion pictures have generally to be led up to, the stage has to be set for them, in order to avoid laughter. Yet mass culture never completely succeeds in wiping out potential laughter. Induced, of course, by the supposed infantilism of sensual pleasures, laughter can largely be accounted for by the mechanism of repression. Laughter is a defence against the forbidden fruit. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 341
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Bergson’s theory of laughter as a social correction mechanism, a different account of why we laugh. — connects to: Industrialized laughter represses fear by capitulating to power instead of escaping it — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 110; Laughter arises only from reversibility, not from transgression — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 473; Laughter at genitals masks shame over their involuntary passivity.
- DEEPTHINKING: Tangles rationality, gratification, repression and audience laughter into one paradox — laughter as defense, not amusement. Dense enough to sit with.
Related
- Laughter at genitals masks shame over their involuntary passivity. (similarity 0.88)
- Industrialized laughter represses fear by capitulating to power instead of escaping it (similarity 0.85)
- Laughter arises only from reversibility, not from transgression (similarity 0.82)
- Laughter disarms ideology because it dissolves fear and enables thought (similarity 0.80)