Friday, February 8, 2019
A Little Bird Told Me
The gossip of the members of his community about his demotion, rather than the demotion itself, is the direct cause of the doorman's downfall in The Last Laugh. Some of the most expressive images in the film demonstrate the spread of gossip and the resultant mockery of the neighbors: the camera moves to an outstretched ear, the camera follows the doorman along a walk of shame, grotesque and blurry heads superimposed on the neighborhood mock him with unabashed laughter. What is the movie saying about gossip as a form of communication? What is it saying about the community that listens to it? How does what other people think of us influence how we think of ourselves?
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The Last Laugh portrays gossip as an unrelenting form of communication, whether it is good or bad. After the doorman is demoted to bathroom attendant, his whole neighborhood finds out about it before he even gets home. By the time he gets there, his daughter and her husband have already staged an intervention to talk to him about what happened. However, the son-in-law’s first priority is to make sure that the doorman enters the apartment without being seen. He does not care about how his father-in-law is doing because he just wants to make sure that his own reputation can be saved. After letting the doorman in, he looks around outside for an extended period of time to make sure that the doorman is not bringing the shame into his apartment. Even though the doorman already has a deflated sense of self after losing his job, his community only makes him feel worse because they make fun of him behind his back. However, there is a sharp contrast to how he felt then to the end of the movie. In the end of the movie when he inherits the millions of dollars from the American, all of a sudden he is the talk of the town. When he is in the restaurant eating his spread of food, everyone wants to talk to him as if he is royalty. In addition, when he leaves the hotel, people are lined up along the sidewalk to try to talk to him or to see if he would give them some of his change. In this case, the gossip of the town is used to make the former doorman feel larger than life. This sharp contrast is used to show that gossip can be either someone’s claim to fame or the cause of his or her downfall.
ReplyDeleteF.W Murnau’s The Last Laugh demonstrates how mockery and gossip can be used as a way for people to bring themselves up in society. It is clearly shown that during this time period society put a lot of value on people’s occupations and stature, which in result made this a defining factor of an individual’s identity and reputation. Throughout the film Murnau shows how well respected the older bellman was by his town’s people, as well as the lavish treatment he received. However, when he was demoted at the Atlantic Hotel, where he worked as a bellman, he was in complete shock. He was embarrassed and made the decision to not tell a single person, but it was already too late. When a kind lady went to the hotel to give him a lunch that she had prepared for him and didn’t see him at the front of the hotel fulfilling his duties as a bellman, she panicked. Later, she would find out that he was now demoted to being present in the bathroom for guests and employees. Within seconds of the lady returning home the whole town would find out he was demoted from being a bellman, as Murnau flashed many faces laughing uncontrollably on screen. It was made apparent by Murnau that the bellman was an admired celebrity in the town, as people lined up waiting for him in the mornings and evenings. Therefore, I think Murnau displayed this idea of using gossip and mockery as a way to bring individuals up in society as now that the town’s people are aware that the person they looked up to is now under them this gave them a chance to take advantage of the bellman’s identity to make themselves feel better about their lives and the qualities that make them, them. Finally, Murnau shows that social class is a significant part of individuals’ lives at the time, and at any moment their lives can be destroyed if something changes because people recognize you for your class; not for who you are.
ReplyDeleteWhen the people living in the same apartment as the doorman discover his shameful secret about his demotion, they immediately turn on him and publicly humiliate him. This scene is reflective of the phrase “gossip spreads like wildfire.” It really does only take one person to start the chain of events that can be detrimental to someone’s life. But why even bother to engage in gossip? Even today everyone is guilty of some form of gossip (though technology has revolutionized the way we spread rumors). But in some ways, gossip can be used as a form of entertainment and a way to focus our energies away from ourselves and onto someone else. In his community, the doorman is almost like a celebrity because of his fancy job at the Atlantic hotel, so because he is so prominent and albeit special, when the other people in the neighborhood hear something secretive about him they are naturally intrigued. We do the same thing today with celebrity gossip magazines. We use gossip almost as a way to live vicariously through someone else because we find their current situation more engaging than our own. However, as we see in the Last Laugh, talking about someone can be extremely cruel. We’ve been told since kindergarten that it’s not nice to talk about people behind their back because it can hurt their feelings. The doorman is clearly devastated when his friends and family mock him for losing his high ranking position, but that’s because it’s more of a personal betrayal to him. When celebrities are gossiped about its usually from someone impersonal like a reporter who they probably have never met. The trouble with the doorman that makes it so emotionally devastating from him is that it is people he is close to and cares for that turn on him. They have a much stronger influence on how he sees himself than some random person would.
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ReplyDeleteThe Last Laugh by F.W. Murnau shows the ways people use forms of gossip and communication, which reflects their stance in society. The doorman had a good position where he worked at a famous hotel, until he was demoted by his boss who thought he was too old, and gave the hotel a bad image. So, he was positioned as a washroom attendant. He immediately feels the need to hide this from his family and friends, but they have already heard through gossip. Before the doorman has a chance to directly communicate, his friends make fun of him and his family rejects him. This shows that through gossip, information and events including being demoted from a job, gets around quickly. People immediately believe it and make assumptions, and proceed by making fun of or DE minimizing the person. Even the doorman’s own family rejects him, because they wouldn’t want to be associated with someone who went down in societal stance. Gossip as a form of communication and their concern of what it could do to their image, is so powerful that it interferes with family relationships, while it is common to say “nothing should get in the way of family.” The film also portrays the doorman’s demotion as a bad thing that was in his fault. When in reality he was getting old, and it was the manager that was concerned for the hotels public view. Through it all, the doorman’s character did not change, yet his family and friends reject him as if he is a different person. While many could say, “I don’t care what other people think of me,” it will usually effect people in a way that may result in an uprising or downfall.
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