Background Laughter

If you watch a sitcom, there's a near certainty that you're going to hear the audience laugh whenever a joke or what supposed to be funny is performed by the actor/actors/actress/actresses.

I always wonder, if they were real laughter or not. If they were, was the audience laugh because the show was funny, or to remind us to laugh, as if they said: "Hey, start laughing! The scene is supposed to be funny!"

Well, that's a possibility, because such thing does have a strong suggestive power. People could simply laugh just because someone else is laughing. They don't know what's being laugh at, and sometimes even if they do, they actually don't think these things aren't funny. As if, laughter is contagious.

Maybe I've mentioned it before, but I surely find it hard to find a good sitcom recently. Maybe the whole genre had ran out of ideas. Maybe mocking someone else is no longer funny. Mocking yourself is no longer funny, too. While mocking God... well, it'll be tricky. Some fanatics may get themselves too upset that they're sending death threats to kill you. In the end, the whole thing is stuck in a rut.

I guess, it's not only in comedy, but in all showbiz. Variance of stories seemed to have reached its limit. What's left are the acting and the directing.

Now back to the original topic, I think the best thing is to strip off the audience's laughter. I feel uneasy because I feel being dictated, to be told or reminded to laugh.

There's no background laughter in Simpsons, fortunately.