Their pupils widen to the proportions of a magnifying glass when they listen to her. The loud laugh of the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, shocks them. They find it unbearable. To the point of thinking it a good idea to make her the subject of a smear campaign.
Similarly, why do some people roll their eyes at the endless laughter of the mayor of Montreal? Valérie Plante’s loud outbursts are not, in their eyes, admissible. Former mayor Denis Coderre, you remember, tried to belittle Valérie Plante by condemning her laughter. Which did not save the politician from experiencing a path of suffering, to the point of seeing him treading the path of Compostela.
In Turkey under the national-conservative regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vice President Bülent Arınç also stood out for his condemnation of women’s laughter. For him, female laughter could only be chilling and indecent. It led, he said without even smiling, to the decline of modern society. Nothing less.
Everywhere, such old gentlemen intend to impose silence as if to make themselves believe that they are still being listened to.
Smiling and laughing are a class affair. In the history of art, a shining reflection of certain conceptions of life in society, smiling has long been considered an impropriety. Opening one’s mouth, showing one’s teeth, smiling, laughing, these are the domains of the people, of the ordinary world, of the poor, of prostitutes, of drunks, of the lower classes, of those who are not in their right mind, as Professor Colin Jones reminded us in his history of the smile.
Smiling and laughing are also a matter of sex. The great historian Arlette Farge observed that the gaping of a woman’s mouth and her laughter are perceived, in 18th century societies, ase century, as an incivility. These are “excesses that make women ‘too womanly’, too excessive in their desire,” she explains. Women’s laughter was called “clucking.” In other words, women were seen as chickens. Birds that had to be kept quiet. In such thought patterns, women who laugh out loud are judged for their animality, reduced to the state of chimpanzees.
According to many annoying people, laughing women still symbolize a greater social threat than the expression of their own angry looks. This is how political life is once again reduced to appearances, where ancient principles of discrimination continue to operate subtly.
Not to laugh, not to smile? For a long time, women were not supposed to speak either… And even less to shout, whatever was done to them or almost! They had to endure in silence, be about their business, carry out their tasks, at least those they had to do for free, by the day, to ensure the maintenance of the system at a low price.
Their only hope of deliverance was faith in a religion that, in truth, nailed them to the ground, chaining them to their roles as wives and mothers. Is it any wonder that many of them sought a glimmer of hope, just as vain, in random lotteries, between two loads of washing and curlers?
In The sisters-in-lawMichel Tremblay’s masterpiece, the women gathered for a “grand party of collage » of a million Gold Star premium stamps, the ancestor of loyalty cards. Germaine Lauzon had won the jackpot! But why her? Why not the others? There are still some who believe that it is by winning the lottery of every man for himself that society can be changed. Working conditions, social programs, affordable housing, access to health care: none of this has ever been obtained through the enchantment of contests designed to make the ordinary easier to swallow.
There is nothing more universal than the very particular that Michel Tremblay describes. Have you seen Our sisters-in-lawthe brilliant film adaptation that René-Richard Cyr produced? On screen, the social reality of an entire world comes to life in an orgy of colors, amidst impeccable direction of actresses. Our sisters-in-law also remind us that the continuation of inequalities, in the midst of the bulk of our society, constitutes a sad by-product of our way of life.
Our sisters-in-law highlights the extent to which our society has placed women in a subordinate position, considering them as mere auxiliaries, subject to forced labor at will. “A damned dull life, a damned dull life, a damned dull life,” Tremblay wrote in a sort of psalmody, to the point of showing that this misery touched on the most intimate experiences. “Damn ass!” says the character of Rose, on the verge of tears, because she admits to being literally raped repeatedly by her husband, under the pretext that one day she said yes to him…
The old mask of power, worn by the years, clings desperately to its arrogance, refusing to give in to threats of change that could make it laugh. Any social project that dares to challenge the established order is seen as dangerous by those who profit from the world as it is. By silencing even the laughter of those who intend to change it, power ruminates with satisfaction on the flaccid eternity of all the mediocrity from which it profits. But he who laughs last, laughs best.