laughter, laughter, too much laughter...
In a rare series of wonderful cinematic experiences, I've seen three consecutive great movies: Match Point, The Constant Gardner and Jarhead (Tom, props to you, I was thinking of going to see it, but the post on your blog finally sent me to the cinema). Beyond their excellent artistic achievements, it's been great to sit down in some of the best cinema halls I've ever been into, and truly enjoy the visual and audio experience...well, almost the entire audio experience..
For some reasons, which I'm still investigating on, people here laugh for no apparent reason during movie watching: they laugh if somebody is scratching its nose - even if it's a bleeding nose of a critically injured person, they laugh if a dying person is making a bitterly ironic remark which I think everywhere else puts people to tears, so on and so forth....I admit, I'm not used to hearing people laughing around me in the most dramatic/tragic moments of a movie, and it pisses me off like hell....it just spoils the best moments...
So far, I have two possible explanations for this local phenomenon:
A. Conservative education and society approach to sexual issues makes people uncomfortable when watching scenes with sexually explicit language / content, and laughing is the way of camouflaging this unease...E.g. During Jarhead, every mentioning of the word 'masturbation' led to choirs of overjoyed laughter...the movie content, however, was far from a happy one..
B. Move watching is perceived exclusively as an entertainment event and laughter is considered a KPI of entertainment success here...therefore, Singaporeans having a low tolerance towards failure, they will not allow themselves to fail at being entertained just because it happened that the movie they went to is not a comedy...
I found this cafe where they have a special room with a beamer and DVDs, and can have your private movie watching sessions, for a very reasonable fee...If I can convince them to let me bring my own DVDs, I'm getting a subscription there...
For some reasons, which I'm still investigating on, people here laugh for no apparent reason during movie watching: they laugh if somebody is scratching its nose - even if it's a bleeding nose of a critically injured person, they laugh if a dying person is making a bitterly ironic remark which I think everywhere else puts people to tears, so on and so forth....I admit, I'm not used to hearing people laughing around me in the most dramatic/tragic moments of a movie, and it pisses me off like hell....it just spoils the best moments...
So far, I have two possible explanations for this local phenomenon:
A. Conservative education and society approach to sexual issues makes people uncomfortable when watching scenes with sexually explicit language / content, and laughing is the way of camouflaging this unease...E.g. During Jarhead, every mentioning of the word 'masturbation' led to choirs of overjoyed laughter...the movie content, however, was far from a happy one..
B. Move watching is perceived exclusively as an entertainment event and laughter is considered a KPI of entertainment success here...therefore, Singaporeans having a low tolerance towards failure, they will not allow themselves to fail at being entertained just because it happened that the movie they went to is not a comedy...
I found this cafe where they have a special room with a beamer and DVDs, and can have your private movie watching sessions, for a very reasonable fee...If I can convince them to let me bring my own DVDs, I'm getting a subscription there...
4 Comments:
Hej,
Could not stop myself of adding 2 different experiences of mine on the same topic:
1. In Brazil while watching movies in the cinema, people were laughing a lot, when I was not, and sometimes people were totally silent during scenes, I have found pretty entertaining. Different approach to humour :-)? Might be, but at least something...
2. In Sweden, people are just silent during the movie. Then something really funny is happening...and people remain silent. Then you and your bunch of people start laughing...and then the swedish start to be extremely pissed off...but silent :-).
Otherwise hope you are well :-)
judit
Dude, i'm sure your collection of DVDs of questionable repute will come in handy (pardon the pun!) in a private viewing room in Singapore!
Seriously though...hope all's good..we need to catch up soon, especially with this being a huge soccer year!
hi albert!
yeah, I also noticed the absurd amounts of laughter in singapore...I must say it annoyed me slightly at times! ...I think Singaporean sense of humour is definitely different...have a go at trying some dry sarcasm on them...the responses can be quite funny!
hoping to see you down in nz sometime soon :)
Dude:
Agreed with the laughing..you should have been there while some of us were wathcing brokeback mountain-- really awkward.
But you're used to people laughign durng movies right? ;-)
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