I caught Christine Blasey Ford on TV the other night testifying in the United States Senate at the confirmation hearing of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a nominee of President Trump for the Supreme Court. She had accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape when she was 15 and he 17. I was appalled at some of the reactions from people I knew in Facebook.
Some mothers themselves seemed belittling the offense because it happened long ago, when Kavanaugh was only 17, and the rape had been aborted anyway.
I have observed how easier some mothers were on the young boy than on the younger girl. “What was she doing there in the first place? Why hadn’t she come out with this sooner?” they wondered, implying some wrongdoing on her own part. They seem to expect too much of a girl at any age, yet so quick to make allowances for a boy, putting down the crime as youthful folly.
Forcing himself on her
Imagine a 15-year-old girl finding herself alone in a room with boys just two years older, one of them forcing himself on her, covering her mouth to the point of suffocation. How can anyone forget such an experience and say nothing when this same boy’s career skyrockets all the way to the Supreme Court?
What stayed with her “most indelibly” from the traumatic episode is the same thing that stays with me equally from her testimony—the laughter between the two friends, Mark Judge and Kavanaugh, before, during and after the assault, “at my expense.”
That sent a creepy feeling came over me, the same creepy feeling the first time I was exposed to President Duterte’s gutter language and demeanor. I sat there in my own living room feeling assaulted listening to him. And it has been the same every time since, whether he was owning up to having planted evidence as a prosecutor, having killed by his own hands when he was mayor, treating women as mere playthings, bribing the police and the military, as though all that were the natural thing to do.
And what terrified and disgusted me most was the laughter from the audience, whether they were business tycoons, police and soldiers, or plain folks.
He’s gone on to assault every sense of propriety I’ve been taught, going so far even as to insult God and the Pope. Utterly sickening! Indeed, every time he speaks, we put ourselves on the occasion of being violated, but we listen still. Now, whenever his audience smiles or chuckles their approval, it recalls for me the partnership of Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh, only this time it’s at my expense.
Best medicine
Laughter has proven its healing power—the best medicine, it is called. It is our ability to laugh, it is further said, that differentiates man from animals. Although some scientists have detected a similar physical response in some animals—a giggle or some kind of convulsive reaction to stimuli—it doesn’t come close, not a hyena’s cackle or a parrot’s or a Myna bird’s imitation. Maybe someday robots would join us in the chorus of laughter, but I doubt we’d be coming from the same place.
Laughter is triggered by something inside and outside our brain. It involves a process of thought so fast that, without any conscious effort on our part, when something flashes before our eyes—a picture, a situation, a passage from a piece of writing—or is said, it engages our human intelligence in a uniquely tickling experience. That’s precisely why sick laughter worries me.
Behavioral neurologists and pioneering researcher Robert Provine suggests that humans have a “detector” that switches on neural circuits in the brain that trigger laughter. That laughter, according to him, is itself contagious by simply being heard or observed.
Whenever one laughs with people, according to experts in human behavior, one signals one’s approval or agreement. That’s why, when I’m on the verge of laughter at the wrong time and place, I avoid looking at my husband or my cousin, Ninit, or I’ll totally lose it.
That Wednesday night at Teatrino, a full house gave in to generous and healthy laughter at the Jon Santos show. He was a total delight, as usual, with his intelligent, sensitive and hilarious mimicry of political characters. It was an adult show done in good taste. He showed utmost respect for his audience by having obviously prepared his material; he transformed himself into his subjects in his own endearing inimitable way.
I urge everyone to watch him again at Peta in October. Laughing with Jon Santos and at ourselves may be the right step toward healing and coming together as a nation!