"The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure."
The term was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it -- 'gallows humour.' This is middle European humour, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humour in this country. Actually it's humour from the peasants' revolt, the thirty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes. And the black humourists are gallows humourists, as they try to be funny in the face of situations which they see as just horrible.
There is an important distinction in that tradition however. These are people who have lived through tragedy themselves, or are facing death themselves, using humor to lessen to horror. Twenty of your buddies sharing an image of a thug employed by the State to silence peaceful protests with casual brutality aren't doing that. I don't think they've earned the comedy rights.
I could be completely wrong here. Maybe what's happening throughout the country now with police violence against citizens is something that we're all sharing together, and that means it's fair game for all of us to make light of. But there's a tacit admission, I think, that comes when the gallows humor arrives -- it usually means the gallows themselves are in sight. In reducing this pepper spraying incident to a joke, I think we're admitting that the end is near, and it helps us to shrug it off as another inevitable, cruel reality against which we are powerless to do anything. Assaulting citizens, haha, that's just how we do around here. What are you going to do?
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24 comments:
An excellent post, and one that captures my own mixed feelings about enabling and/or spreading the meme. I'm not sure if we've earned the right either, but sometimes the laughing is all you can do to stop the crying.
Maybe I'm going to hell (or I am deserving of the hell that is being created right now) but I laughed.
No, I think it's kind of funny too, but I don't know if I should...
Wow. I don't see it as a joke at all. I view it as commentary examining how absurd the action of spraying those kids was. I made a Christina's World one before I saw the one you've got there because it's the most extreme form of this guy attacking the totally helpless with absolutely no impending threat to his safety (which was the reason they initially claimed the kids were sprayed). I also don't view the spraying of the forefathers as a joke either. I don't know. Satire is very powerful to me. Sometimes more powerful than just straightforward commentary.
I don't disagree with you, just entertaining the idea... devil's advocate I suppose.
This meme isn't funny because most of the scenes this guy is being "romochopped" into are totally arbitrary. It's like some kid went on google image search and downloaded the first picture that was at least 800x600.
The ones that *are* a little funny work because he's pepper spraying people that are already in incredible pain. The funniest one is "career day with Capt John Pike," because lol, that's how this Officer Friendly spends his day on the job.
I think part of the problem is that pepper spray, like tasering, doesn't look so bad in pictures. Oh boo hoo you're being attacked with a fine mist. It doesn't have the visceral impact that a fire hose or an M16 had in photos from the 60s.
I don't think laughing at these pictures changes the way we look at the situation or even reflects how we feel about it. When I see that guy spraying Jesus in the face at the Last Supper and chuckle, I think it's pretty detached from when the cops jammed billy clubs into the ribs of a small Asian girl.
Hey, I'm not trying to be a contrarian here and may even be speaking from a place of ignorance, but what's so bad about that cop spraying those kids? They were in a place that the cops repeatedly told them they didn't belong (whether that's right or not is a different story), and spraying them to try to get them to move is better than using actual brutality, isn't it?
I'm going to guess that Justin has no idea what it feels like to be pepper-sprayed.
"When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood."
http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/
oof. 1. it is brutality. 2. pepper spray is something that incapacitates people. to be honest, if you want to disperse a crowd, you use tear gas, which makes you seriously uncomfortable but not incapacitated and hence more likely to leave. the bigger point though is that we live in some sort of police worship society where cops can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it. if you fight back, they will go through every length to fuck you. cops can arrest you for no reason, even if you don't get charged, they can still go through the motions. it's totally one-sided. the cops told them to leave. okay, fine. but do the cops actually possess the right to make them leave in this case? the point is, if a cop tells you to do something whether or not what he is telling you to do is within his authority, you can be arrested for disobeying. that is bullshit. we're hopefully getting to a turning point here where people are not afraid to stand up to power structures, be it the police or big banks or congress or whoever and let them know that there is a breaking point in this relationship and when that point comes the people will no longer sit by idly.
It's true. I've never been sprayed by pepper spray. That's why I said I may be speaking from ignorance. I actually didn't know there was a difference between pepper spray and tear gas.
And I definitely agree with you that it's bullshit that you can be arrested for disobeying a cop's illegal commands, which is why I said whether cops were right in ordering them to leave was a different story. I was really just curious about the pepper spray.
everyone is full of shit and should be arrested, society should be only cops. I wish someone would pepper spray *me* in the face so I didn't have to look at the same stupid bullshit every day.
http://www.wlibre.com/images_movies/les-biches.jpeg
fuck all y'all
I think some people laugh cause they can't grasp the seriousness of this whole situation. And our cultures idea of humor definitly is someone getting pepper sprayed in the face . or pretty much getting hurt in any manner at all. Most people don't really even think about what this occupy buisness is....I mean it does seem like a ludicris situation....so i guess its easy to make light of it when your not actully there being pepper sprayed
the meme is more representative of the power of the internet, and the way things trend on it. When I see the meme part of me see's it removed from the video I witnessed of the atrocious actions he committed (my emotions are quite different). If it wasn't that cop who we all recognize as the UCD cop, it wouldn't work as well as a meme because there must be something about the meme that connects to a HUGE audience.
Another part of me also thinks that a meme is an interesting way of tormenting that cop. If you look into other famous memes, scumbag steve, sad keanu, xzibit, etc. they are not too happy about the internet status they've become. (even if it isn't that bad!). Not saying it's a perfect punishment, but (hopefully) no one will EVER forget John Pike, and he will bear the brunt of being remembered throughout his life as a major asshole.
*My comment was not too thought out. provoking article, I enjoyed*
Being of Central European stock, I can happily tell you that black humour such as this serves as a coping mechanism since it highlights the absurdity of the situation as well as its "banality", to borrow from Hannah Arendt.
To those saying "too soon", I only encourage them to juxtapose the UC Davis scene with that from Cairo's Tahrir Square last night to gain a bit of perspective. I'm not saying this to belittle what's going on in the USA, but America today is the land of hypersensitivity and hurt feelings and a comparison serves to puncture that bubble.
please feel free to belittle what's going on in the USA
I think this is satire, and I like the idea of the cop looking at them and knowing he's a joke.
Agree with most of you above. I still sort think it's taking away the power from this particular police, and the idea of police brutality in general, but that's probably just me.
I'm glad to see it spreading & memeing - because it's the only way people are even going to know about it. 20 years ago it'd be the students word against the police - now we are able to take photos/videos easily and there is suddenly public accountability for their actions - by memeing it - we're making sure as many people see it as possible - I mean, we can't count on mainstream media to accurately report it - and people don't want to just look at horrendous, terrible footage all day every day - so it's mixed up with a bit of comedy. hopefully comedy that is making some people that wouldn't have noticed it/cared/thought about it at all have a serious thought for half a second before they load up lolcats one more time.
I agree that it is a somewhat pointless exercise to try to explain why something is or isn't funny, but when you ask the question should we laugh, I think it pays to try to understand why we do. In this case I laugh because of the sheer absurdity of the fact that a police officer can simply walk up and pepper spray peaceful protestors and be put on "administrative leave" whatever the fuck that is. I think by taking this situation out of the occupy context and memefying it, that it isolates and amplifies this absurdity. We then laugh because it has potentially brought our experience of the previous situation into sharp relief. I seriously doubt that many people are laughing at the pepper spraying of the founding fathers because they simply find the concept funny. Though it would be interesting to see whether people unaware of the UCD situation would laugh at any of these images, my guess is probably not.
Appreciate both those viewpoints. Thanks for sharing.
will you please change your sidebar pic, the chick with the huge cleavage. Don't get me wrong, i love it. but how can i read this while at work? C'MOOOOONNN
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