Happiness Quote by Keenen Ivory Wayans

Wayans is tipping his hand: the joke is the only moral compass that matters. “I always prefer the big laugh” isn’t just a personal taste; it’s a mission statement for a kind of comedy that treats subtlety as a luxury and restraint as the enemy of momentum. The word “always” is doing heavy lifting here, insisting on a hierarchy where comedic payoff outranks elegance, plausibility, even good taste. That’s not carelessness. It’s a craft choice.

The subtext is defensive and proud at the same time. Spoof movies get dinged as cheap, noisy, or juvenile, and Wayans is essentially saying: yes, and? If you’re making Scary Movie 2, the goal isn’t to impress the critic who wants satire with a thesis. The goal is to make a crowded theater lose composure at the same moment. “Big” is about volume, but also about accessibility: comedy as a communal hit, not a private smirk.

Context matters: Scary Movie 2 arrives in the early-2000s peak of franchise horror and mass-market parody, when audiences were fluent in references and studios rewarded opening-weekend impact. Wayans understands the economy of that moment. A “big laugh” is a currency that travels across demographics and doesn’t require homework. It’s also a way to claim authority over the genre’s rules: if a gag lands, it justifies the absurdity that delivered it. In Wayans’ world, the laugh isn’t the byproduct. It’s the proof.