Laughing through lockdown: why comedy is vital in a crisis

Comedy scene in a Roman mosaic on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. Azoor Photo/Alamy

Comedy scene in a Roman mosaic on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. Azoor Photo/Alamy

Published Jun 26, 2021

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MOST of us have needed a good laugh over the last 12 months. Searches on Netflix for horror dipped at the peak of the first lockdown, while stand-up comedy saw a huge jump in viewers.

In the world of social media, accounts poking fun at responses to the virus have also gained enormous followings.

We’ve spent a significant amount of time joking about Zoom meetings, hand-washing songs, and home haircuts. But what makes us switch so quickly between panicking at death tolls and chuckling at a video sent by a friend?

As a scholar who’s spent much of my career studying laughter and comedy, I often come across surprising functions of humour. I’ve studied Italian comedy and its reception in 16th-century France, the political consequences of laughter in the Wars of Religion, and the historical antecedents to today’s main theories of humour.

Much of my research has revealed fascinating things about how humour appeals to us in times of hardship. But the pandemic has really amplified the roles comedy can play and brought home our reliance on humour.

Our need to laugh in the face of disaster is by no means new. In ancient Rome, gladiators would leave humorous graffiti on barrack walls before going to their deaths. The ancient Greeks also sought new ways to laugh at deadly disease. And during the Black Death pandemic in 1348, the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio wrote the Decameron, a collection of often funny tales told by storytellers isolating from the plague.

Lucy Rayfield

The need to avoid offence with humour is just as ancient. In 335 BCE, Aristotle advised against laughing at anything painful or destructive. The Roman educator Quintilian also outlined, in 95 CE, the very fine line between ridere (laughter) and deridere (derision). It’s a generally accepted common position that humour shouldn’t hurt, and this is particularly true when the object of laughter is vulnerable.

When the boundary between laughter and derision is respected, comedy can play a key role in helping us recover from disaster.

Laughter serves as a great workout (laughing 100 times burns as many calories as 15 minutes on an exercise bike), helping to relax our muscles and promote circulation. Combinations of exercise and laughter ‒ such as the increasingly popular “laughter yoga” ‒ can also provide significant benefits to people with depression.

Laughter also decreases stress hormones and increases endorphins. In tough times, when we have thousands of thoughts a day, a bout of giggling provides our brains with respite we desperately need.

In the same way, we seek humour in a crisis because it is difficult to feel scared and amused at the same time, and most often, the combination of these emotions result in feeling thrill and not terror.

Sigmund Freud explored this in 1905 when revising the so-called “relief theory”, suggesting that laughter feels good because it purges our system of pent-up energy.

Some scientists believe our human ancestors laughed in groups before they could speak ‒ it’s even more contagious than yawning.

Given that we’re far more likely to laugh at topics we find personally relatable, humour has helped people identify with one another during lockdowns. This in turn creates a sense of unity and solidarity, alleviating our sense of disconnectedness..

Laughter can also be a means of easing our worries. Joking around a fear, especially during a pandemic, can make it more manageable, a phenomenon known by comedians as “finding the funny”. This is linked to “superiority theory”: we laugh because we are superior, unthreatened, and in control. In this way, joking about a virus heightens our sense of power over it and relieves anxiety. Joking can also be useful because it enables us to talk about our problems and to express fears we might otherwise find hard to put into words.

Though many of us have felt guilty for seeking humour in the pandemic, let’s not add this to our list of worries. Certainly, our situation may not always be a laughing matter. But laughing itself matters and, when used appropriately, it can be one of our most effective coping mechanisms during a crisis, allowing us to find a healthier balance with others, with ourselves, and even with events beyond our control. - The Conversation

The Independent on Saturday

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