Isn't Violence Funny Sometimes?????

[Scar]

Isn't Violence Funny Sometimes?????

The most surreal thing happened to me last night. I was riding my bike and had to stop to wait for the light to change on the main corner near my house. This woman was standing there mouthing off to her boyfriend or husband or whoever he was. "You're just treating me like that cause I'm a woman. You're just stereotyping" and so on and so forth. She was clearly intoxicated, in the long term sense where she seemed to be an addict of some kind. So the guy, whose standing at her side, just punches her in the face. Without even tuning his head, he punched her in the face. The light changed, he started walking, she didn't. So he turned around, still stone faced, and glanced at her, and she followed along all obediently.

I didn't know how to react, it was so very surreal! As soon as I was up the block a bit I started laughing. This right before I have to veer past 3 cop cars that are blocking the road with their lights all flashing, in the midst of some kind of arrest. You know, Echo Park is known for being a little shady, but most of the time I don't even notice. I love my neighborhood, I feel totally safe there, despite the boarded up properties and gangs on thr corner drinking 40's and playing music out of enormous pick up trucks. Once in a while, however, I am reminded that I live in the ghetto.

[One Eyed Cat]

Comedy = Tragedy + Time (If someone can reference that, please do.)

[Donald Rilea]

Isn't Violence Funny Sometimes?????

The most surreal thing happened to me last night. I was riding my bike and had to stop to wait for the light to change on the main corner near my house. This woman was standing there mouthing off to her boyfriend or husband or whoever he was. "You're just treating me like that cause I'm a woman. You're just stereotyping" and so on and so forth. She was clearly intoxicated, in the long term sense where she seemed to be an addict of some kind. So the guy, whose standing at her side, just punches her in the face. Without even tuning his head, he punched her in the face. The light changed, he started walking, she didn't. So he turned around, still stone faced, and glanced at her, and she followed along all obediently.

I didn't know how to react, it was so very surreal! As soon as I was up the block a bit I started laughing. This right before I have to veer past 3 cop cars that are blocking the road with their lights all flashing, in the midst of some kind of arrest. You know, Echo Park is known for being a little shady, but most of the time I don't even notice. I love my neighborhood, I feel totally safe there, despite the boarded up properties and gangs on thr corner drinking 40's and playing music out of enormous pick up trucks. Once in a while, however, I am reminded that I live in the ghetto.

Pardon the dime-store psychology here, Scar, but laughter is often a defensive response to events that shock or dis-comfort people.

Soldiers, cops, EMTs, security guards, and others engaged in high-risk professions often use a form of black humour to deal with people and events that might otherwise incapacitate them psychologically.

In a way, it's kinda the same for people, especially working-class and poor people, living in acutely stressful environments.

So long as it doesn't become a substitute for acknowledging one's own fears and other emotions connected to a disturbing person or event, it can be a fairly healthy way of dealing with them.

[Bikerpunk]

That's what laughter is. Humor is exactly that, no more and no less.

[Scar]

Pardon the dime-store psychology here, Scar, but laughter is often a defensive response to events that shock or dis-comfort people.

Soldiers, cops, EMTs, security guards, and others engaged in high-risk professions often use a form of black humour to deal with people and events that might otherwise incapacitate them psychologically.

In a way, it's kinda the same for people, especially working-class and poor people, living in acutely stressful environments.

So long as it doesn't become a substitute for acknowledging one's own fears and other emotions connected to a disturbing person or event, it can be a fairly healthy way of dealing with them.

Indeed it was definitely my discomfort that made me laugh. Discomfort mixed with the surreal-ness of the events, mixed with the place I am at in life right now, mixed with the cops on the corner, and the bars on my front windows, and the boarded up property across the street from me, and the mood I was in, and the fact that I was riding a glittery furry quite entertaining bicycle at the time, all mixed up together in a flurry of spontaneous reaction equaled laughter :-)

[ObscureZan]

Isn't violence the main reason America's Funniest home Videos has been around for so long?! I mean...I've seen EVERY SEASON and I don't think there's been one show without at least ONE dude getting hit in the nuts or somebody falling hard etc. etc....Pinatas are a dangerous thing!

[a_small_death]

Isn't there then a reason the nut shot is just so goddamn funny. Human reaction is weird, when it happens to you violence sux. When you see it happen to your fellow man your gut reaction is thus to laugh depending on what it is that happens.

[Xochitl]

I am not surprised that you saw that in Echo Park, I live in the neighborhood nextdoor & see that kind of thing all the time. Still, I would have laughed too, you get to a point where you can only feel so sorry for someone who chooses to be in that. We do have the choice to be where we want. We don't live in Iran where we have to put up with whatever guy is given to us & whatever he decides to do to us. She picked him, her problem. Still, violence is hilarious. Just look at Tom & Jerry.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

To quote Bender - "Comedy is dead! Now Tragedy, that's Funny!"

[Donald Rilea]

I am not surprised that you saw that in Echo Park, I live in the neighborhood nextdoor & see that kind of thing all the time. Still, I would have laughed too, you get to a point where you can only feel so sorry for someone who chooses to be in that. We do have the choice to be where we want. We don't live in Iran where we have to put up with whatever guy is given to us & whatever he decides to do to us. She picked him, her problem. Still, violence is hilarious. Just look at Tom & Jerry.

Me, I prefer Looney Tunes. Better writing, I think.

Film violence, whether in live-action or in animated films, is often combined with humour, and, in many cases, it helps takes the edge right off of what would otherwise be pretty grim fare indeed.

Some of my favourite films belong to Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, with Clint Eastwood, and there are quite a few gags, both verbal and physical, in 'em.

Last week, got a DVD of Dr. Strangelove, which is another of my favourite films, and, while the on-screen violence is relatively limited, the situation in the flick's pretty horrifically violent, really.

Combine that with the blackest of humour about the human race treating itself to a nice bit of nuclear extermination, and, well, you get the idea.

Thank God, it really was just a movie. The real deal would have been.... indescribable.

[Xochitl]

How to love the bomb! Glad to her of another Dr. Strangelove lover. Even from Winnemucca. I went there a few times in childhood.

[Donald Rilea]

How to love the bomb! Glad to her of another Dr. Strangelove lover. Even from Winnemucca. I went there a few times in childhood.

Left there, along with my family, when I was five.

My Dad visited there a year or two back, and, from what he told me, even the whorehouses weren't doin' too well.

Winnemucca, Nevada: A Great Place To Be-From!!!!