Laugh Until You Cry: Humor and Activism in Contemporary Feminist Art

Humor and laughter have long been shrewd tactics for questioning and for taking power back from those in control. For centuries, visual artists have been employing humor, play, and parody via wit, irony, and satire to mock governments and repressive regimes, to make fun of societal excesses, to decry the absurdity of the art market and to “talk back” to the history of art—among many other reasons. In its base form, laughter is a vocal and physical expression of merriment or amusement. It can bring people together, acting as a common language that can defy barriers between countries, societies, class, and race, or, it can delineate boundaries; who laughs, and who does not, signifies who is in and who is out, who “gets” the joke and who is the brunt of the joke. Jokes require thought, consideration, personal reflection, and a shared understanding. Contemporary feminist artists Margarita Cabrera, Glenda León, and Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido have used humor in ways that reframe difficult topics, creating new points of entry for addressing themes like femicide, immigration, human rights abuses, and capitalism. In the case of each artist, they do this by setting up visual incongruities and giving viewers the space to “resolve” the joke for themselves. By allowing viewers to experience complex and potentially difficult content within the frame of humor, these artists open viewers up to the possibility of deeper empathy, understanding of multiple experiences, and in some cases, healing.

Spanning the footprint of a life-sized VW Beetle, Margarita Cabrera’s light blue Vocho, 2004, slumps like a deflated balloon, the weight of gravity bearing down on it. Made from soft vinyl material—the kind often used in the interiors of cars—Vocho seems impossibly held in an upright position despite its soft exterior. Cabrera’s choice to recreate a VW Beetle is pointed: once ubiquitous in Mexico, the U.S., and Europe, the car remains iconic to many as an emblem of counterculture, freedom of movement, affordability, and playfulness.[1] Yet Vocho, a sagging and soft replica of those made of metal on assembly lines, suggests other conversations about immigration, labor, and globalization. Vocho is part of a series of work that Cabrera began to make in 2001 in response to the maquiladoras (factories) that blossomed in Juarez, just on the other side of the El Paso border, after the passage of NAFTA in 1994. Vocho, like all of the works in this series, is sewn inside out, the black threads against the vinyl highlight the labor and craftsmanship necessary to create both the works of art and all of the commodities on the factory floors. (CULLEN, 2002) While clearly recognizable objects, Cabrera’s sculptures take viewers off guard and invite the curious to come closer, to examine, to reflect: the humor lies in the implausibility of what they see verses what they know to be true about that object. From this place of curiosity and maybe even initial delight, the works invite larger conversations about consumerism, labor (particularly women’s labor), the effects of immigration both within and outside of Mexico, and the violence against women in border cities.[2]

As part of the 2012 Bienal de La Habana in Cuba, Glenda León co-opted a private pool to create her “instalación performática” (performative installation) Sueño de Verano (el horizonte es una ilusión) [Summer Dream (The Horizon is an Illusion). León installed photographic enlargements of maps of the Miami and Havana coasts on opposite ends of the pool, allowing participants to swim from either side. León’s use of a pool—a place for leisure, family fun, and sunny days—belies the very deadly reality of those who have and continue to take great risks for the chance to enter the U.S. Léon notes that physical engagement (people enjoying the pool) is critical to the work; humor and delight are essential to changing perspective from one of mourning and sadness to focusing on the absurdity of the migration restrictions. During the one-day event, visitors embraced the absurdity, choosing specific locations on the map where they wanted to spend their day. León explains that in addition to taking delight in the irony of the performative installation, the work honors those who lost their lives[3] and offers an opportunity to heal.  (LEÓN, 2019)

I always intend to surprise the viewer because I want to create new connections in the neurons, I think that in this way, people become more flexible, more tolerant, and can reflect and see the world from a different perspective…For the most part, I don’t think about humor directly but in this case, I did want to create an ironic commentary about politics…It could also be a way of healing wounds, problems that we cannot solve but a smile can alleviate the pain. (LEÓN, 2019)

Psychologists at the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory agree. A research team has been studying the positive effects of humor, finding that humor can be used to make others feel good, to gain intimacy, or to help buffer stress. Moreover, the study found that by recasting difficult imagery with humor, we are psychologically forced to change perspective, a transformation that facilitates real reappraisal, increases verbal fluency and leads to higher levels of creativity and cognitive flexibility. (MCCLURE, 2011) León’s Sueño de Verano allowed for a reset, personal re-evaluation of what is for many, a particularly painful subject.  By giving people the opportunity to laugh, engage, and see the irony, León gives her participants a new opportunity for growth, healing, and perspective.

A joke rests on one person being able to hold two (or more) ideas or concepts in their mind at the same time—a mental flexibility. This mental flexibility is critical to deciphering Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido’s Cuban-American Piñatas. Suspended from the ceiling, the cardboard and papier-mâché suitcases covered in colorful, fluttering, tissue paper, immediately recall piñatas and the momentous childhood birthday events that would end in children gleefully scooping up the candy and prizes held within it. Yet, in this installation, on the ground below is a pile of everyday consumer products: toothpaste, razors, socks, baby wipes, and diapers, among other necessities. Mesa-Gaido’s suitcases/piñatas draw in viewers with the happy, innocent associations we ascribe to piñatas—a child’s toy—and skillfully shifts the conversation, provoking questions: Why a suitcase? What child would exclaim with joy for toothpaste and tampons from a piñata? These questions place both the opportunity for (and the responsibility of) discovery squarely on the shoulders of the viewer. The artist was inspired by her first trip to Cuba when she met her family that remained on the island when her own parents left as political exiles. Considered traitors and capitalists and often mockingly derided as gusanos (worms) by Cubans still in Cuba, the artist noted that it was the Cuban-Americans who were bringing back suitcases full of necessities for their family still on the island, a common occurrence in addition to family members sending money. (MESA-GAIDO, 2019) Mesa-Gaido’s Cuban-American Piñatas highlights the parallels between the excitement (and revelation) of the gifts of supplies in suitcases and the joy for candies in the piñata—wryly pointing out economic failings of the Cuban Revolution and the government that continues to make the everyday necessities nearly impossible to find. 

Humorous art has traditionally been seen as not “serious,” and is often criticized as an ineffective way to share or promote an important message. Even within philosophy, humor has a bad reputation—few philosophers have even written about humor and if they did, it was often relegated to small mention within a discussion about another topic.[4] But Margarita Cabrera, Glenda León, and Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido use their works to set up visual puns and allow viewers to resolve, reflect, participate, laugh, cry and heal. In each of these works, the “resolution” includes the humor and the gravity, giving them a connection, albeit briefly, to a topic they might have never thought about.

-Amethyst Rey Beaver

[1] The VW Beetle was first created in Germany before WWII that was meant to rival the Model-T Ford in its affordability and power to expand its market. Throughout its over 80-year production run, the iconic car has been important in Europe, the U.S. and Mexico, serving as a symbol of affordability and freedom of movement.  For more information about the global history of the VW Beetle, please see, Bernhard Rieger’s The People’s Car: A Global History of the Volkswagen Beetle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

[2]In a longer paper and eventual exhibition, it feels fitting to discuss Cabrera’s Blender, a work that directly references the femicides taking place along the border.

[3] “Respecto a las personas que se fueron y no llegaron, quedando atrapados en este espacio de agua, esta obra puede ser también un homenaje, pues intenta revelar tan absurdas son las restricciones migratorias, cuando estamos tan cerca, que en 45 minutos en avión se hace el viaje Havana-Miami.” Glenda León, email correspondence with the author, Oct. 26, 2019.

[4] Plato identified laughter as malicious, morally objectionable. Christian philosophers viewed laughter as “lascivious vanities” and Hobbes and Descartes deemed laughter as rooted in the human desire for superiority over others and as a tool for scorn and ridicule. John Locke, Sigmund Freud  and Herbert Spencer  saw laughter as a release of nervous, pent-up or repressed energy and emotions with “no object”. Kant posited that laughter gives momentary satisfaction coming from the resolution of an expectation and that it is physical, not intellectual, while Thomas Aquinas assessed humor as virtuous. It wasn’t until the late 20th century when Ted Cohen suggested that humor can foster tolerance for ambiguity, diversity, and promote creative problem-solving. From John Morreall’s “Philosophy of Humor”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.