Why bother, let me smile.

comedy secret

After the official announcement of Dan Du PLUS’s “Secrets of Comedy: Starting from a Talk Show”, we received such a question: Why did Dan Du publish a book about comedy? After reading this book, maybe you will naturally find the answer. However, when many readers have not received the book, we would like to give the earliest solution to this problem with the preface of the special editor-in-chief Jia Xingjia.
When do we start to think about “laughing”, how to analyze “laughing”, how to seriously discuss “laughing” with a group of people who make a living from “laughing”, and walk into themselves… This is the secret of comedy, and it is also in this book “Comedy”. The Secret.

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Written by: Jia Xingjia

“What are you looking at?”

It’s been years and I still can’t answer. The teenage bully was not only provocative, but also disturbed by the “gazing” thing. I didn’t avoid my eyes in time, reminding him of the gap in his heart. The only toys in the poor age were anger, and he returned to a social instinct worse than animal instinct because of his sensitivity. Over the years, these poor and miserable stories of young people have become so poetic on the screen.

Watching precedes language and attitude. Have I looked at him for a long time unintentionally, is there really dodging hostility in my eyes? He has big fists, and he has the final say. Today, he and I are still living on a little instinct and a few learned words, and it’s not worth watching. Looking back on that day, he didn’t know what to do after beating me up, he just broke up silently like a couple who just fell in love. If he were a more evil person, or an adult, could interrogate me a tougher question–

“What are you laughing at?”

Aristotle is said to have written a book on comedy, which is handed down as a fake. I guess he probably didn’t write it because he couldn’t. I don’t know if tragedy is greater, but it may just be easier to analyze. Tragedy has the meaning of convergence and can organize pain into something that can be thought about. And laughter is too loose, too rugged, and we laugh at the shallow scenes, but also at the heavy sorrow. We laugh when we see people who are worse than us, and we laugh when we see the good end in embarrassment. When human beings think and create tragedy, God laughs, because the tragedy is not worth seeing.

If you want to assign a grade to the ridiculous, it is also ridiculous. The sublime is different from the self-imposed sublime. I have almost never seen the sublime that can withstand questioning, but I have always seen funny things. If we are living in a world without upper and lower, in an age where upside-down is progress, how can we distinguish between high and low laughter?

“What are you laughing at?”

Because I can still laugh.

Except for destruction in boredom or madness, except for a sigh under rage, and for thoughtful and slightly deeper boredom, what I do know, the only choice is to be laughing.

Lao She’s “My Life” ends with “I’m still laughing”, which can be used as the end of all stories.

Whether a talk show is a comedy or not, seems to be a question, right?

The problem lies in this “drama”, and if we talk in this direction, we will be troubled by how to define the writing and acting of this series of actions. Any serious commentary on a talk show also provides satire for the talk show actors, whose sincerity and pride has only one criterion: funny.

Of course, you can also think about what kind of excitation and connection this “good” is, and what kind of generating mechanism this “laugh” is. However, it is very likely that the important thing is only after the two words are connected, or something in between . Just like you can’t ask a bird how to fly, if the bird thinks about it, it will fall out of the air.

For a few months, in Shanghai and Beijing, we were doing a visit to Fei Niao: what is laughter, what is a talk show, what is not, what can be… They look confused, the more serious they are, The more hesitant.

This hesitation moved me more than any answer.

Maybe Dongdong Gun, Rodani and I contributed to a self-inflicted trouble for them: thinking about a talk show like a bird thinking about flying, why should he stand on the stage, what is his relationship with the audience at this time? Are they really getting closer, or are they working together to “seek second to none”. Of course, both are fine. I really hope they forget about the answer when they’re done.

If you are present, you can feel the sincerity of these answers. However, sincerity has nothing to do with truth, sincerity has no bottom. The further you look down, the more disturbing things will appear. Smart people know where to stay and how much to take out each time. Because of the interviewees’ desire for sincerity, the conversation was more difficult than expected; if you were there, you knew that there were many discrepancies between what was said and what was seen on paper, which is the advantage of words on paper. For example, Hulan “calls back” his conversation again, because he has different ideas and statements a few months later. I asked him if the old statement should be deleted, and he replied: Keep it as well. Most of the content they want to revise is about “meaning”, meaning that transcendence, of course, there is no clear meaning from the talk show. Yet they were seriously thinking about it.

It’s very touching. I watched Jianguo eagerly put out a messy and entwined thing in a messy way. He knew there was a more beautiful way to say it, but he tried his best to reach for the bottomless and a little dangerous thing. I thought this is really touching. .

My consolation is that the book is not funny, and we didn’t try to make it funny. If you’ve had a funny conversation with a talk show actor, it’s likely because there’s no communication whatsoever. I have seen them trying to be the same as on stage in their daily life, trying to be constrained by reality, trying to gain a little sobriety in the increasing “business”, I don’t know if it’s futile, I just want to see These are honored.

So far, talk shows have been a credible thing to do.

TV series “Spark”

Even in everyday situations, you have the opportunity to penetrate the surface and encounter some kind of truth – the kind of intense shock and obvious plausibility that makes us feel it is the truth, which is considered a terrifying experience.

Thanks to ourselves, that can also be a laughing experience, and the gift of society is to turn the fearful, murky “night of the world” into entertainment. It is said that laughter requires the least amount of facial expressions to be mobilized. When people laugh, they look similar to each other, and the conclusion is “pleasure”, and today’s words are “a consensus with joy”.

Thanks to each of us. With a little effort, you will see that the crowd is an illusion, that we are still individuals within the group. Laughter is still something we do spontaneously or seek it out. Even if I’m sitting in the auditorium, I can snicker on my own or not participate in it, as long as the joke is bought with money and not distributed by my boss at the wine table. . It’s a safe bet in the years of upside-down progress.

One of the French fairy tales I have read of Benjamin said that the beaver’s huge phallus can be used as medicine. Hunters who catch beavers often cut off the words and let them go. After a long time, the beaver observed what the man wanted, and the castrated one thought he was safe. When he saw the hunter, he didn’t know how to hide, and he was often shot down again, although later people admitted that it was a misunderstanding. As a result, the beaver gained a little more experience. Seeing people from a distance, they consciously lay down on their backs, spread out their limbs, and put them in large characters, showing the traces of castration. When the hunter finished checking and left, he slowly turned over and sat up, feeling a little embarrassed.

Then let’s talk about the eunuch’s story.

In the Ming Dynasty, the party struggles were sluggish, and the literati were unable to do things to the point. They had to perform tragic performances again and again. Tragedy played so wildly is comedy. Later, the scholar-officials simply lined up honestly to listen to the eunuchs’ lectures. It is said that the higher the rank the eunuch speaks more crudely and obscenely. An old imperial envoy always likes to ask: “Little monkey boy, where did you get this black gauze hat?”

A civil servant replied: Qian’er spent five cents to make it in a tailor shop at the front door. The old man laughed, waved his hand and said, get out of your mother’s egg. This person explained afterwards: The eunuch has no qi, and when he smiles, the qi dissipates. Colleagues think this is really clever, it is simply passive resistance.

I don’t know if the eunuch is also begging in his heart: Do you think I feel better? Why bother, let me smile.

I’m such a coward too. It’s too shameful to scold people anonymously on the Internet, so I thought: If I was forced to ask “what are you laughing at?”, I would have to tell a joke in a low voice, or be like the Czechs in novels and movies. Play a joke.

Ladies and gentlemen, those with eggs and those without eggs, please leave. Hundreds of years have passed, who still remembers that eunuch’s name, that civil servant’s name, who will remember you and me?