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LOL

Reflecting on the past difficult year, I know how blessed I am to have supportive friends and family. When life gets tough, as it does for all of us now and then, we’re lucky if we have a soft place to land. Someone to listen and reassure us that the dark clouds will part.

It can also help, when we’re in a dark place, to change the channel, so to speak. And that’s where one particular friend comes in.

When I feel crappy, Karen makes me laugh. Loudly, raucously, and very indelicately.

And I’ll note, I’ve often lifted her spirits in the same way—saying something that makes my longtime friend throw her head back and erupt in enthusiastic guffaws.

That kind of laughter is a powerful mood-changer. It’s energizing. It’s also just plain fun.

And, hard as it is to believe, some people still have trouble with women laughing like that. I guess it’s acceptable for an adult female to giggle or titter or even chuckle, softly. But a big, loud laugh? That crosses a line.

Just ask Donald Trump.

“I call her ‘Laffin’ Kamala,’” the former president said at his rally in Michigan. “Have you ever watched her laugh? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh … She is nuts.”

Other critics of Kamala Harris have been quick to agree that a deep, loud, contagious belly laugh is unpresidential, unserious, and generally suspect, especially coming from a female running for our highest office. How dare she?

The campaign to squelch Harris’s laughter doesn’t seem to be working, though. For every Fox-TV montage of the vice president letting loose a laugh as the anchor mocks her for the enjoyment of their conservative audience … there’s a TikTok video featuring her laughter, music, and maybe a coconut tree. And a very different audience is eating it up.

The Kamala-critics are missing the mark.

They suggest that Harris’s laughter reveals her as a lightweight, not serious enough to be the president.

The New York Times comedy critic thinks they’re wrong. Harris’s belly laugh, he says, is far from a liability. It’s actually an asset as she creates connections with voters who may not have known much about her. Or cared.

Jason Zinoman says, “Research over the past few decades has backed up what philosophers have said for over a century, which is that laughter is inherently social, more about relationships and communication than jokes.” 

Laughter, he points out, bonds us to one another. And that’s valuable for any candidate, including Kamala Harris.

An article in Inc. sums it up in a sub-heading: “Laughter = energy”. Their writer makes the case that laughing “increases motivation, speeds learning, and makes you a better leader.” She points out that in expressing her joy, Harris is connecting with voters in a way that had been missing from the Biden campaign.

On the other hand …

We do have quite a history of let’s call it “concern” about women who laugh out loud. Back around the turn of the last century, there were dire warnings that unruly women who went to humorous movies and vaudeville shows were literally dying as a result of their hysterical laughter. Seriously.

I’d like to think we’re past the point where female laughter is linked to pathology. Or, for that matter, to unruliness. Those references reminded me of my early ‘80s coffee mug that said, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” I’m not campaigning for anything, but I’m coming out firmly in favor of “unruly.”

I’m also in favor of laughing, and not only because it irritates some stick-in-the-mud who objects to joyful women.

Laughing is good for us. All of us.

No less an authority than the Mayo Clinic says laughter can stimulate your heart and lungs, relieve stress, and ease tension by stimulating circulation and relaxing muscles. Not to mention improving your immune system, relieving pain, and boosting your mood. A good hearty laugh is practically a wonder drug!

Those folks at Mayo also offer a few recommendations that might be useful for a certain presidential candidate. “Find a way to laugh about your own situations and watch your stress begin to fade away.”  And, “Know what isn’t funny. Don’t laugh at the expense of others. Some forms of humor aren’t appropriate.”

Here’s to our appropriate humor. I say let’s have more laughter, not less.