Hey everyone welcome to my blog! This one is sure to make you laugh, and in this blog, we are going to work on finding out exactly why that is. For our first adventure, we are going to look at a scene from the famous TV show The Office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO8N3L_aERg
Overall, everyone must admit you laughed at least once during that scene and definitely not for just one reason. All the different characters contribute to the comedic elements in multiple different ways. Let's look at the three theories and see how they each play into this fast-paced scene!
First, when looking at the incongruity theory, Dwight definitely served as the highlight of the comedic outlet. Dwight is a normally tame, rule follower which is obvious even in this scene as a whole, but there are definitely parts where he strays from his norm which backfires tremendously and in all the best ways. To start off, Dwight starts an actual fire! Furthermore, he does so by smoking a cigarette which is very bad and against his usual character. He then furthers this incongruity by saying that smoking is going to save lives, while the traditional saying says that smoking kills. In summarizing and looking at the scene as a whole, the funniest aspect is how bad it all ended. As a result of him trying to teach everyone through experience, he only made things worse and caused immense damage to the office. The incongruity between what he wanted to happen and what actually happened is hilarious to watch as his coworkers react in crazy ways to his fake fire.
Leading off of this, for the relief theory, the coworkers exemplify this theory the most. I will start by saying that all of the following examples could also fit under the incongruity theory given the context of the scene, but they also fit under relief, so I wanted to provide some examples of this theory as well. For starters, the relief in this scene is used in a way to cut the seriousness of there being a fire in the office. Angela is scrambling to get out of the office and the first thing she goes to save is not herself or her coworkers but her cat?? Kevin goes into the break room which would normally seem like a place someone would go to try and find an exit, but instead, he chooses to frantically break into the snack machine in order to get free food. These examples employ relief theory because in these moments when the coworkers feel as if they are in a life or death situation, all restraint is removed, and they do things that would not normally be societally accepted like breaking open a vending machine or throwing a cat into the ceiling.
Lastly, the superiority theory is used in the scene as a whole. The mere fact that the whole time I am sure you were saying in your head: "Wow this is so stupid. This would never happen to me. They are such idiots," shows how the superiority theory comes into play which makes the scene all the more hilarious. Also, when Andy says, "the fire's shooting at us," when Dwight lights some firecrackers which is just hilariously false also demonstrates some superiority theory when the audience begins to think oh I would never mistake firecrackers as someone shooting at me; wow that is so stupid.
Overall, this scene of The Office is a great example to use when examining comedy because it employs all the different types of comedy which is also probably why it reaches so many people and is so funny! Thanks for tuning into my blog; I cannot wait to see what you all have to say!
Thatś a great observation regarding Dwight. It makes me think that part of the incongruity of his character is that he is both a rule follower and a rule breaker at the same time, and he sort of embodies how the two fit together. It is also interesting that you point out that relief and incongruity fit together so well. Why is that?
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