A while ago, I had actually seen the "Joker" that was released at that time. At that time, I always felt that I should write something about it. But apart from the delay of some important things, which led me to start writing now, the main reason is that I understand that if I don't re-understand the "laugh" written by Osamu Dazai in "Disqualification in the World" and "Flower of the Clown", I will Probably can't face the bitterness behind the clown's violence and cruelty in the movie.

"Humanity has always made me tremble with fear. As a human being, I have no confidence in my words and deeds, and can only hide my annoyance and uneasiness in the secret locket in my chest. In this way, my spiritual melancholy and uneasiness can be stored away. Hide, pretend to be an innocent optimist, and finally make yourself a total freak..." - Osamu Dazai, "Disqualification in the World"

"Am I thinking too much, or is the world just getting crazier?" - "Joker"

"I'm willing to do anything as long as I can make others laugh..." - Osamu Dazai, "Disqualification in the World"

"I only hope that my death is worth more than my life." - "Joker"

We will find that the protagonists in the two works have similar ideas and spirits. They all find it difficult to integrate into the world and society, and feel that "normal" is something completely different from themselves. In order to make up for the distance between themselves and the group, they all choose to become "clowns", because by making people laugh, they can temporarily forget the estrangement between themselves and others, and the sorrow and dullness that the world has imposed on their lives.

The relationship between villain and comedy

It should be noted, however, that Oba Yezang in "Disqualification in the World" - at least in his performances in life - is a relatively "successful" clown, because people do find his words and acting really funny, I think he's a funny guy. But from then on, Yezang Oba lost himself and became a "disqualified" person, a human puppet like a ghost, without the feeling of being alive. Arthur in "Joker", on the contrary, he does not want to disguise himself as a humorous person, but wants to be a clown who can make people laugh on stage, but none of his jokes makes people feel funny, In turn, he himself became the biggest joke. In the end, Ye Zang in "Disqualification in the World" chose to self-destruct and never return. Said: "I only hope that my death is more valuable than my life." The clown did not choose to kill himself with a gun according to the original plan, but became the so-called "villain".

The joker's laughter is never his laughter, but more like his cry; the "comedy" that Ye Zang has been playing all his life and deliberately has never been a comedy, but his tragedy.

Interestingly, the Joker said the opposite: "I thought my life was a tragedy, but now I realize he's a comedy!"

What is the Joker's "discovery"? How did he find out? Because isn't his life a tragedy like Ye Zang in "Disqualification in the World"?

We can say that it is this "discovery" that makes "Joker" more interesting than "Disqualification"! It also made his smile even sharper! And the discussion of "laughing" in "Disqualification in the World" has greatly moved forward, reaching the boundary and limit of people's war and panic.

This discovery is the birth of the "villain".

Or let's say it the other way around, it's only through the villain that we understand this "discovery", because it's the villain who discovers himself.

What is the villain like? The Joker gives us the clearest definition: the so-called villains, or, the most real villains, are those who can fully treat their tragedy as a comedy. Because only through the power, imagination and acceptance of comedy can people make themselves immune to the torture of morality and conscience, and make themselves indifferent to violence and killing. This kind of power was officially unveiled through "Joker", especially through the form of talk shows, the audience discovered the power of comedy and "laugh" that has always been hidden, but is often ignored or even suppressed by the audience.

The villain's discovery is: In fact - laughter has never been a simple thing. Laughter is not just an expression of emotion, but on the contrary, laughter has a system and implies and represents a value. And it is this discovery that makes many "villains" choose to become villains.

But why do people laugh? What does laughter mean to people and society?

The relationship between laughter and comedy

This question, a French philosopher who wrote a philosophical monograph and even won the Nobel Prize for Literature - Henry. Bergson, who has discussed it in detail in one of his little books, "On Laughter", has a very profound insight.

This small book is divided into three chapters, the first chapter is a general discussion of laughter, and the second chapter is a discussion of laughter-related situational and linguistic comic. Finally, Bergson discusses the comical character in Chapter Three.

I wonder if everyone has noticed that if we go back to ancient Greece or the history of medieval and modern drama, we will find that tragedy always seems to be more famous than comedy, or it seems that the research value of tragedy is higher than that of most comedies. We know that there are three great tragic poets in ancient Greece: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, but there is no so-called three great comedy poets, the only more famous one is Aristophanes.

This does not mean that the value of comedy is not high, but that there is a major difference between comedy and tragedy when they express themselves. The big difference is that the content of comedy—especially the funnier it is—is harder to express in words. Because comedy often resorts to repetitive or exaggerated actions and expressions to make people laugh, if you are not there, but just use the script to read and study, the effect of comedy is greatly reduced.

Bergson told us very directly in the first chapter that laughter and people see a kind of stiffness in their bodies is related to mechanicalness, especially when we want to show ourselves but are dragged into the water by sudden changes in our bodies, the more people feel. funny. A person ran past us, suddenly fell on the road, sat down, and the surrounding pedestrians laughed when they saw it. Why? Bergson put it this way: "It is not the sudden change in his posture that makes people laugh, but the involuntary change of this change, which comes from a clumsiness." This clumsiness reflects the "stiffness or inertia" of our bodies. It's like listening to a gushing speaker that doesn't make us laugh unless he sneezes or farts a lot when he suddenly gets excited.

That's why comedies often use repetitive motions or phrases to provoke laughter, because repetition also implies rigidity of the body, as if the actors on stage are like a sort of rigid robot. "None of the orator's poses are funny in themselves, but when they are repeated over and over, they are immediately laughable." Let's consider Hitler's speech. You'll find that if we turn the sound off, or to an audience that doesn't understand German at all, Hitler's frantic waving and clamoring poses in different places can be really comical, like watching an idiot's Acting the same. Another example: Why does Chaplin always wear the same outfit in Chaplin's comedies? And then to encounter all kinds of bad luck?

Comedy is associated with a stereotyped representation, so the technique of repetition and "exaggeration" is often used to represent characters, because "exaggeration" is to allow the character to de-individualize and to deliberately and completely display a thorough stereotype. In other words, to specifically represent a social "type" that we can expect. That's why, compared to many tragedies, they are named after the protagonists, such as "Hamlet", "Macbeth", etc. The naming of comedies is often named after the type of characters, such as Molière's "The Ridiculous Female Talent", "The Hypocrite", "The Miser" and so on. At the same time, we can also notice that the same boilerplate is also displayed through scenes and events. If you want to play a comedy that takes place in a college classroom today, you will probably play a scene where the teacher keeps asking questions, but no classmates pay attention to his plot, because this is what happens most often in college classrooms, and you can quickly gain audiences resonance.

"Imitating the mechanical movements of life, that's comical... Whenever a person gives us the impression that he is a thing, we laugh. It's like when Sancho Panza is thrown in a blanket like a ball We just want to laugh when we're thrown into the air... Funny is not so much ugly as it is stiff."

This is why acting stupid and idiots are often the subject of comedy, and even now, Youtube channels such as Katino Crazy News and Old Swan Entertainment often broadcast videos of road sambo, clumsy, headless thieves being caught to promote him. subscription rate.

Another feature of laughter is, "He asked for a momentary numbness of our feelings... for a kind of absent-mindedness." The video of Ma Lu Sanbao, the thief, the clumsy, slipped and slipped is indeed very funny, but it is undeniable that the situation in the film is actually very terrifying, Even dangerous, none of us would wish to be a "character" in it. But laughter makes us ignore these cognitions, emotions, and even allows us to transform the person inside into a role, as if it is just the person the person plays on the stage, not the person himself.

This may also explain why people smile first when they are afraid, because it can soften the shock of fear. Or, people will laugh when they are excited, because this also allows them to temporarily ignore the usual norms and focus on the exciting things they want to do at the moment. Or he allows us to let go of the pressure and self-discipline that we usually accumulate and express happy emotions for a few moments.

Laughter is a rigid punishment, a social gesture

"Let's make it clear now that laughter has to adapt to certain requirements of living together. Laughter has a social meaning." Bergson changed his words and suddenly told us that laughter is actually the beginning of social learning, and even, "Laughter is a kind of society. The sanction.” This sanction is not like the law will directly give a punishment. On the contrary, laughter is more subtle and unconscious than the punishment of the law, because he wants to laugh and let the people who were laughed at slowly start. Learn how to be a person with the same smile. Just like showing a rude smile in the face of embarrassment, in the process of laughing, laughter secretly asks us to improve our relationship with others, "The so-called laughter can 'punish bad fashion', which is exactly what it means. Laughter makes us Immediately put on what we should be, and we end up being what we are one day." In other words, "Laughter is a social gesture . — that is, to correct the secret intentions of people and their followers.” Everyone should learn.

We can see this phenomenon best in the conversation between Arthur and Murray on the talk show. On the talk show, Murray would keep taunting Arthur that his jokes were not funny, and his way of making the audience laugh by his own speeches would suggest that Arthur has a funny value in what kind of things, and what kind of things are not at all. It's not funny, unless the person who talks about it is laughed at by the world.

"Society reciprocates these rudeness with laughter, and laughter is an even greater rudeness." Because for society, people's clumsy, meaningless repetitions are, in addition to what Bergson considered a physical "rigidity." ”, which is also an individual’s incompatibility with the current environment and society. And Murray and other audience members are very happy that they can see so much exaggerated discomfort in Arthur.

"Comedy is subjective, Murray. Isn't that what everyone says? .

"Laughter is the punishment for rigidity." Bergson's definition of laughter is like the brand that society has slapped on clowns. He has always thought that laughter brings joy, that laughter is a subjective feeling of people and helps people communicate with each other. But it was only later that I discovered that laughter, even if it is very subjective, has a system. More often, just like Murray, the host of the talk show, laughter is people's dressing, used to cover up the purpose behind one's own, unwillingness to empathize, and caring thoughts behind them, and even increase the confrontation and increase in a high-sounding manner through laughter. exploited. And he is constantly being used, because he himself is the funniest joke, helping the original system to become more numb and cruel.

If "laughing is the punishment for rigidity", then the villain is the irony of laughter in turn by advocating rigidity. Let "laugh" pale in surprise. This is also the reason why the villain must be cold-blooded, because for the villain, cold-blooded is the essence hidden under the laughter they usually face. This essence is actually a kind of rigidity, because it numbs the mind and feeling of a certain part of the person , so that the laughing person learns to be absent-minded towards the person being laughed at, but he has a more noble mask. Thus, the later "clowns" learned how to perform a new comedy in a different way (which was actually the most miserable life of their own), that is, by exercising a completely rigid indifference to the hope of violence, killing, life, combined with their own life The anger reaches a climax and achieves his revenge for "laugh". This revenge against "laugh" is a mockery of "laugh" as a hypocrisy and as a system. For the villain, to liberate laughter from a system and a false mask, only by making himself crazy. Because only the smiles born in madness seem to be completely their own.

Conclusion: Back to the birth of "clowns" and the system of laughter

"Joker" makes people feel sharp, perhaps precisely because it makes all audiences realize that we are all clowns unconsciously using laughter to dress ourselves up, and it is very cruel for us to admit this. On the one hand, although madness is alien, we secretly, perhaps often, yearn to be captivated by such madness once or twice. On the other hand, we recognize that we need this skill to help us adapt to, and depend on, a complex life. We are so dependent that we have even forgotten that laughter is often our own disguise, a temporary paralysis of our true emotions. Many times the reason for laughing is to show that they have normal social skills. So when it's revealed, we'll look like people in the movie and say, "Shut up! This isn't funny at all!" But we can only accept Arthur's slap in the face: "You won't understand this joke." Because we want to understand this joke, we can only remove the roles and costumes that we usually adapt to.

In Disqualification in the World, the smiles between people represent a state of inability to communicate. As Osamu Dazai wrote: "Deceiving each other and miraculously not getting any harm done, as if unaware that they were deceiving each other. This clear, conscientious and open-minded example of mutual distrust is one of the most important aspects of human life. It can be found everywhere in China.” But through smiling, people gradually made this discomfort a norm in society, and even a form of etiquette. Therefore, you will notice that in all of Dazai Osamu's works, the moment of real communication between people only occurs in silent staring or one-sided silent listening. As for any scenes that trigger laughter, we only see the loneliness and helplessness behind the protagonists.

Why didn't Oba Yezang become the villain like the clown in the end? Not only because of his cowardly and cowardly personality, and afraid to reveal the truth, but also because of the fact that the clown later found out that he had known it for a long time, and used it to make up his cowardly and afraid to express his opinion. In other words, the tragedies of the two are just opposite types. The tragedy of Ye Zang lies in his awareness of the hypocrisy hidden in society and people's hearts since he was very young. And this situation, even if he is very funny, can't be changed. But the tragedy of Arthur the Clown is that since he was a child, he naively thought that laughter was a kind of character that simply represented sincerity and frankness, and then reduced his expression and social interaction to a kind of joke.

Ye Zang chose to be a funny and good acting clown; Arthur chose to be the villain's clown. A system that chooses to completely surrender and flatter laughter; a system that chooses to completely rebel against laughter. But in the end, neither of them were able to fit in, nor could they change the system of laughter. Rather, they are all on a journey of self-destruction.

But whether it's Ye Zang or Arthur, they only want one thing, and that is to have a smile of their own one day. This smile is not a mockery or sarcasm to others, nor is it purely for gregarious or pretending, but in turn becomes a relief for oneself. Although Bergson repeatedly tells us that the social meaning of laughter is a punishment for rigidity, Bergson does not think that laughter is negative, although it is undeniable that laughter has such a dimension. But he thinks that when we see a rigid, inappropriate comic in people, we can also find people's freedom and abundant life impulses. Because when we understand that human beings are a limited life, we will also cherish the spiritual creation and strong vitality of human beings. Laughter, at this time, will be transformed into an affirmation of life, and a reflection on the meaning of life by accepting the imperfections of oneself and others.

Yes, if you want to flip the laughter system, the only thing you can do is to first accept yourself or others who may be incompatible with society from the beginning, so that you may not fall into the trap of laughter and become another kind of madness. In the process of interaction, learn to understand and express each other's inner sadness, and then affirm each other's efforts with a smile, instead of pretending to be happy. In this way, laughter may increase empathy between people and return to the original intention of showing emotion.

In the same way, and return to the original intention of showing emotion.