Laughter
with Kamala Harris
Laughter offers a high risk, high reward, weapon for executing a question evasion. In political interviews it forms a two-dimensional mechanism for evasion through acting both retrospectively and prospectively, however, the risk of appearing one-dimensional and fake as a politician is a threat when laughter is used incorrectly.
To begin to understand the complexity of laughter in a political interview, watch this short clip of Kamala Harris responding to Stephen Colbert questioning how she has been able to reconcile her differences with Joe Biden to form a presidential ticket.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 2020
Harris implements laughter to retrospectively provide commentary on the question that Colbert has posed. Despite it being a significant question about the compatibility of the future Presidential team, Harris’ laughter retrospectively positions the question as a far lighter issue than it may otherwise appear.
The laughter and repetition of her keyword ‘debate’ operates to dismiss Harris and Biden’s strongly-voiced differences, instead riding the connotations of light-hearted school debating contest. It ultimately reveals the effectiveness of laughter as something that can work to undermine the question so that a thorough answer no longer appears necessary.
When Harris does produce a response – 34 seconds after the initial question, it is not an answer, it is an evasion of the question of how their political reconciliation has been made possible: ‘I am 1000% supportive of Joe Biden, and I will again do everything I can to make sure he is elected’
This sequence also demonstrates the prospective dimension of laughter in an interview context. Harris uses laughter to coax Stephen into laughing along with her, this targets the conditional relevance of producing laughter in response to someone else’s laughter. Such an understanding is particularly relevant for politicians in interviews as laughter can work to disarm the interviewer. If the interviewer laughs with the politician the integrity of the interview, and by extension the questions, become partially undone. Harris is initially successfully with this dimension of laughter as proven by Colbert’s third turn response: laughter.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 2020
However, this example importantly illuminates the risk of laughing too much, and laughing when it does not initiate a reciprocal sequence of laughter. Watch as Colbert attempts to steer the interview back towards his question and Harris continues to implement laughter.
Harris has indulged a laughter sequence for too long and Colbert’s refusal to laugh represents a failure to perform the preferred response in the interaction, creating a disjointedness that appears awkward to the audience.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 2020
Key Learning 02
Smarter with laughter
Laughter can be used in two ways:
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Retrospectively, laughter can be implemented to commentate on the questions that emerge, undermining them as things that are unworthy of answers
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Prospectively, using laughter creates a dynamic where it is conditionally relevant for the interviewer to laugh in response to an interviewee. This is important for undermining the interviewer and the project of the interviewer's talk.
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Laughter must be moved into interviews strategically, too much laughter, or laughter that continues for too long, risks appearing fake and awkward.