Journal entries - May 2010
Thoughts on epicaricacy
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to watch the film Four Lions at the cinema. It is a British film about a small group of Muslims who decide to become suicide bombers. Watching the film, I could not stop laughing at the outrageously hilarious scenes, albeit with the nagging feeling that I should not do so: the story is one of tragedy.
Epicaricacy (also “epicharikaky”) is a little-used word, often replaced with the German “Schadenfreude”, that describes the pleasure one feels at the misfortune of others, and the term perfectly encompasses what was going through my mind as I saw the film. As I watched a scene where one of the main characters accidentally blows up both himself and a sheep, I could not help but think of the many times where I laughed at other people suffering/dying (such as the many deaths of Kenny in South Park, or the famous accident scene in Meet Joe Black). There seem to be many, many instances in which the gravest misfortune befalls a character in a story with comic effect. Yet why does this make us laugh?