Dinah, ClinkShrink, & Roy produce Shrink Rap: a blog by Psychiatrists for Psychiatrists, interested bystanders are also welcome. A place to talk; no one has to listen.
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Monday, August 22, 2011
Emotional Control : Anderson Cooper Gets the Giggles
If you haven't seen Anderson Cooper catch a case of the giggles on live TV, you can still watch it on YouTube. I missed the first showing, but saw Mr. Cooper replay it on his own Ridiculist List. But what's this doing on Shrink Rap?
I watched the re-run, and I found myself laughing out loud. Only, it wasn't a good, happy, hearty laugh, it was an embarrassed and uncomfortable laugh, and I realized I'd taken on the feelings of the newsman. If I were a psychiatrist (oops, I am, even in August), I might say that Anderson Cooper successfully projected his feelings on to me, or that I empathized with him, assuming he also felt embarrassed. A friend mentioned he loved it, and but he didn't not feel such discomfort. Mr. Cooper seemed to enjoy replaying it, laughing at himself laughing, and said he was pleased if he made anyone smile. Me?...I suppose I'll recover.
Enjoy the video and do let us know: How did that make you feel?
16 comments:
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The New York Times had an article yesterday about how chimanzees laugh in response to another chimp's laugh, parallel to when a person at the dinner table tells a bad joke others laugh out of politeness.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Anderson's Cooper's mother (Gloria Vanderbilt) would have thought of this.
Or what she thought about him being gay and liking younger dudes. I've always admired people who laugh at what they think is funny and not laughing at what they don't think is funny. Don't you? Why complicate it with the silly notion of projection?
ReplyDeletei liked watching him laugh. It made me laugh just watching him - and I didn't really think the situation was funny (the actor peeing on the plane.)
ReplyDeleteI'm with anonymous up there. Why even bring psychological concepts like projection into this? It happened. It makes people laugh. It is what it is. This is why psychiatry bugs me.
ReplyDeleteDinah, I think the word you're looking for is Fremdschämen: it's a German word meaning roughly embarrassment for somebody else. It's an amazing term!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fremdsch%C3%A4men
I lol'd!
ReplyDeleteThat was quick:
ReplyDeleteShrink 2 B took down his blog this morning. Busted, perhaps?
wv = weenf (anamatopoeia) the sound a blog makes when disappearing from the internet.
Gloria is still alive, people.
ReplyDeleteSo true - thank you for mentioning that and thus prodding me to look up info on the life of this amazing woman. Married to Sidney Lumet and Leopold Stowkowski. an artist in her own right. There is a biography out on her now.
ReplyDeleteI went to YouTube to see the uncut piece and as he was reading the news piece he made reference to how difficult it was making it for him that someone watching him from near the camera position was laughing at the piece. Though the news was not funny, it was certainly written amazingly well with puns in every sentence, so the piece deserved laughter. The only thing uncomfortable about his laughter was his high, girlish laugh and how discordant that is with the seriousness we usually see in Anderson Cooper. I don't see this as projection. The piece was funny, someone else laughed first, and he could not resist laughing also. End of story. It was enjoyable to see the whole story, but the laugh scene alone out of context was uncomfortable to watch.
ReplyDeleteMaybe S2B wasn't getting much in the way of supportive comments. I was really concerned about his attitudes and the attitudes his supervisors seemed to be instilling in him. I sure hope he can change but I doubt it. No wonder I gave up on shrinks if that's the way they really think.
ReplyDeleteDinah sees Cooper as having lost control. Cooper may see it as having given up trying to control the reactions of himself and the crew to an overly long potty joke. I doubt Cooper thinks he's lost anything by doing that. He'll be "Anderson Cooper" by the beginning of the next segment.
ReplyDeleteWe get the extra-- and likely unnecessary -- analysis because this is a psychiatry blog! Otherwise I will end up posting so many random things......
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rob, for the photo of the Clink sign!
Dinah....in the midst of many technical challenges
You're most welcome, Dinah.
ReplyDeletewv = remen, concerning adult males
Lately, I read this blog primarily to see what Rob does with the word verification. "remen, concerning adult males." Now, that's funny!
ReplyDeleteI too felt a bit squirmy, but here's why.
ReplyDeleteYou know how there are some people whose laughter is truly infectious, that kind of warm whole-hearted belly laugh that brings tears to your eyes because you just cannot help but get utterly carried away along with the person laughing? (Think Harvey Korman trying not to laugh during his Tim Conway skits on the iconic Carol Burnett comedy show. Or laughing in church as a child when you're trying desperately to STOP laughing at your sister, which of course only makes you both laugh all the more until you are weak and limp!)
Cooper's laugh was not like this. Instead, it was more like that fake girlish 'tee hee hee hee" that is more annoying than engaging.
Nothing to do with psychiatry, I'm afraid....