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Response to: Lucy's Comedy Blog

Michael Scott

 I've only actually seen a few episodes of The Office, and honestly, I am not exactly sure why. It is such a well-known sitcom and has received such widespread praise. Although I've only seen a few episodes, I definitely agree with Lucy's statement about the audience feeling superior to Michael Scott which makes us find the show even funnier, even though it is often thought that the feeling of superiority sometimes causes us to find things less funny. Michael Scott's crazy personality causes us to find it okay to laugh at him and as Lucy said, the feeling of superiority "makes us love the characters even more." To analyze another character in regards to the superiority theory, we often laugh at the weird antics of Dwight, who is one of the employees at Dunder Mifflin. Even though the superiority theory is one of the more common theories present in this show simply because of the weird personalities of the characters, the relief theory is also present because of the type of comedy in this show. The Office is a comedic show and often gives people the ability to laugh when they are sad or simply escape reality for a while, which is the essence of the relief theory.

Comments

  1. Shane HerronOctober 25, 2018 at 8:03 PM

    I didn't watch much of the Office until this year actually. So I understand why it might happen that people don't hit all the famous shows. It's interesting to thing that superiority might actually make us love a character. Is it real superiority then, or is it more like relief?

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  2. UnknownOctober 26, 2018 at 8:57 AM

    I like your comment about Dwight... He is so insanely smart, but his antics can seem just downright stupid sometimes (especially the fire drill one in Lucy's lead blog post). I think the superiority here definitely contributes to why we find him funny. Maybe it has something to do with our desire to "preserve" him in some way? What I mean is that his quirks are just as endearing as they are odd, and so maybe, in light of our perceived superiority over him, we want to preserve the childlike and innocent aspects of his character because they're what make him so entertaining.

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