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On April 8, Charles R. Douglass, the inventor of "canned [[laughter]]" - the artificial laughter which accompanies comical moments in TV-series - died at 93 in Templeton, California. In the early 1950s, he developed the [[idea ]] to enhance or [[substitute ]] for live audience reaction on [[television]]; he then realized this idea in the guise of a keyboard [[machine ]] - by pressing on different keys, it was possible to produce different kinds of laughter. First used for episodes of <i>The Jack Benny Show</i> and <i>I [[Love ]] Lucy,</i> today, its modernized version is resent everywhere.<br><br>This overwhelming [[presence ]] makes us blind for the unheard-of [[paradox ]] of the "canned laughter": if we reflect a little bit upon this phenomenon, we can see that it undermines the [[natural ]] presuppositions [[about ]] the status of our innermost emotions. "Canned laughter" marks a [[true ]] "[[return ]] of the [[repressed]]," of an attitude we usually attribute to "primitives." [[Recall]], in the traditional societies, the weird phenomenon of "weepers" ([[women ]] hired to cry at funerals): a rich man can hire [[them ]] to cry and mourn on his behalf while he can attend to a more lucrative business, like negotiating for the fortune of the deceased. This [[role ]] can be played not only by [[another ]] [[human ]] [[being]], but even by a machine, as in the [[case ]] of the famous Tibetan "prayer wheels": I put a written prayer into a wheel and mechanically turn it (or, even better, link the wheel to window-mill which turns it), so that it prays for me - or, more precisely, I "objectively"pray through it, while my [[mind ]] can be occupied with the dirtiest [[sexual ]] [[thoughts]]...<br><br>

To our surprise, Douglass' invention proved that the same "[[primitive]]" [[mechanism ]] works also in our highly developed societies: when, in the evening, I come home, too exhausted to engage in a meaningful [[activity]], I just press the TV button and watch <i>Cheers</i>, <i>Friends</i>, or another series; even if I do not laugh, but simply stare at the [[screen]], tired after a hard days [[work]], I nonetheless feel relieved after the show - it is as if the TV-screen was literally laughing at my [[place]], instead of meÉ Before one gets used to "canned laughter," there is nonetheless usually a brief period of uneasiness: the first reaction to it is one of a shock, since it is difficult to accept that the machine out there can "laugh for me," there is something inherently [[obscene ]] in this phenomenon. However, with [[time]], one grows accustomed to it and the phenomenon is experienced as "natural.") This is what is so unsettling about the "canned laughter": my most intimate [[feelings ]] can be radically externalized, I can literally "laugh and cry through another."<br><br>

This [[logic ]] holds not only for emotions, but also for beliefs. According to a well-known anthropological anecdote, the "primitives" to whom one attributed certain "superstitious beliefs," (that they descend from a fish or from a bird, for example), when directly asked about these beliefs, answered "Of course not - we're not that stupid! But I was told that some of our ancestors effectively did believe that..." - in short, they transferred their [[belief ]] onto another. Are we not doing the same with our [[children]]: we go through the [[ritual ]] of Santa Claus, since our children (are supposed to) believe in it and we do not [[want ]] to disappoint them; they pretend to believe not to disappoint us, our belief in their naivety (and to get the presents, of course), etc. And, furthermore, is this [[need ]] to find another [[subject ]] who "really believes," also not that which propels us in our need to stigmatize the [[Other ]] as a ([[religious ]] or ethnic) fundamentalist"? In an [[uncanny ]] way, some beliefs always seem to function "at a distance": it is always ANOTHER who believes, and this other who directly believes need not [[exist ]] for the belief to be operative - it is enough precisely to presuppose its [[existence]], i.e., to believe in that there is someone who really believes.<br><br>

In [[order ]] to account for these paradoxes, [[Robert Pfaller ]] recently coined the term "interpassivity." Today, it is a commonplace to emphasize how, with new electronic [[media]], the [[passive ]] consumption of a [[text ]] or a work of art is over: I no longer merely stare at the screen, I increasingly interact with it, entering into a dialogic [[relationship ]] with it (from choosing the programs, through participating in debates in a [[Virtual ]] [[Community]], to directly determining the outcome of the plot in so-called "interactive narratives"). Is, however, the other side of my interacting with the [[object ]] instead of just passively following the show, not the [[situation ]] in which the object itself takes from me, deprives me of, my own passive reaction of [[satisfaction ]] (or [[mourning ]] or laughter), so that is is the object itself which "[[enjoys ]] the show" instead of me, relieving me of the [[superego ]] [[duty ]] to [[enjoy ]] myself? Almost every VCR <i>aficionado</i> who compulsively records hundreds of movies (myself among them), is well aware that the immediate effect of owning a VCR, is that one effectively watches less [[films ]] than in the [[good ]] old days of a simple TV set without a VCR; one never has time for TV, so, instead of losing a precious evening, one simply tapes the [[film ]] and stores it for a [[future ]] viewing (for which, of course, there is almost never time).<br><br>

One should therefore turn around one of the commonplaces of the [[conservative ]] [[cultural ]] criticism: in contrast to the [[notion ]] that the new media turn us into passive consumers who just stare blindly at the screen, one should [[claim ]] that the so-called [[threat ]] of the new media resides in the fact that they deprive us of our [[passivity]], of our authentic passive [[experience]], and thus prepare us for the mindless frenetic activity.<br><br>

So, back to the deceased Charles R. Douglass: would it not be a proper funeral for him if a set of sound-machines were to accompany his coffin, generating whispering laments, while his [[beloved ]] surviving relatives would enjoy a hearty meal? Perhaps, far from finding it offensive, he would appreciate the [[recognition ]] of such a funeral. <br><br>

* [[Will You Laugh for Me, Please]] ''[[Lacan]].com''. 2004. <http://www.lacan.com/zizeklaugh.htm>