Her detractors mock it. Her admirers delight in it. One thing is certain: Kamala Harris’ laughter leaves no one indifferent. Why does it provoke such a reaction? Decryption.
Laughing Kamala
Donald Trump is known for his love of mocking nicknames for his opponents. During the election campaign, everyone uses them. The latest: Kamala Harris. “I call her ‘Laughing Kamala.’ Did you hear her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot about someone by their laugh. She’s crazy, she’s nuts!” the Republican candidate recently exclaimed to a crowd of supporters in Michigan. Online, his supporters immediately adopted the expression, which adds to a long list of nicknames, including “Sleepy Joe,” “Crooked Hillary,” and “Crazy Nancy.”
Double standard
For her detractors, the candidate for the Democratic nomination laughs too often, too loudly. By making her laugh ridiculous, they are trying to discredit her, says essayist Martine Delvaux. “It’s bringing women back to their bodies, to the noise that their bodies make, instead of emphasizing the words they say or what they think,” she explains. Like her, professor emeritus at Toulouse-Jean Jaurès University, Marlène Coulomb, raises a “double standard.” When Barack Obama let loose a little and laughed, it was “the height of coolness.” When a woman—a black woman, to boot—does it, it’s something else. “Laughter becomes a lack of control,” emphasizes the author of the book Sexism in the public voice: Women, eloquence and politics. Worse, it “refers to the accusation of hysteria that women are regularly subjected to” when it is uncontrolled.
Common examples
The attention paid to Kamala Harris’ laughter is reminiscent of the criticisms leveled at Valérie Plante during the 2021 municipal election campaign. “Stop laughing. It’s too important,” former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre told her in the middle of a debate. “Women’s voices are disturbing,” emphasizes Martine Delvaux. And not just their laughter. “Women’s public displays of affect are often used against them—whether sobbing, anger, screaming or laughter,” says the professor in the literary studies department at the Université du Québec à Montréal. And this is not new. Marlène Coulomb cites the example of Édith Cresson, the first woman to become prime minister of France, in 1991. “Her voice was described as a fishmonger’s voice, as if she were shouting at a market stall,” she relates. And it’s the same thing, decades later. “Very regularly, we have MPs who, when they speak, are accused of having hysterical voices or are imitated by people who start making farmyard noises.”
Strong women
The main person concerned is aware of the fact that her laugh is divisive. “I have my mother’s laugh,” Kamala Harris confided in an interview with actress Drew Barrymore last April. “I grew up with a group of women who laughed from their bellies. They laughed. They sat in the kitchen, drank their coffee, told stories and laughed a lot.” The excerpt from the interview was also shared on her Facebook page. For Marlène Coulomb, Kamala Harris managed to reframe the discourse around her laughter by telling “a family story of strong women.” Laughing out loud became “a symbol of strength,” as opposed to “those women who put their hand over their mouth when they laugh.” The vice president had also encouraged young people not to “lock themselves into the perception of others.”
A unifying laugh
Ironically, her distinctive laugh also works in her favor. Many find it contagious, even endearing. Online, compilations of Kamala Harris’ best laughs have racked up thousands of views. Supporters are even selling caps and sweaters emblazoned with the slogan “Make America Laugh Again.” “Laughter is a signal of life, of optimism. It’s something very positive,” notes Marlène Coulomb. For Martine Delvaux, the criticism of the vice president’s laughter is proof that “laughter is political.” “As women, we should be nice and laugh at this humor that is being targeted at us, but at the same time, we shouldn’t laugh too loudly, show too much joy, or make noise. Especially if we’re not a white woman.”