First Blog

As pretty much any college student will tell you, The Office is one of the best comedic TV shows to ever exist. The style with which it is portrayed was a relatively new one to be brought to television. The thought of having a show in which all of the characters are portrayed in a fake documentary, or "mockumentary" style, was previously unknown to television series. Having characters who were regularly interviewed as real people was a brilliant idea.  
I recently watched an episode titled "Garden Party" and some of the antics that the character Jim convinces Dwight to do are absolutely hysterical. Jim writes a fake book on how to host a good garden party and Dwight buys it online. The humiliating and unfortunate situations that Dwight must go through, such as shouting guests' names as they pass by him, recreating the Last Supper, and creating a dance as the "closing ceremonies," appeal to the Superiority Theory in comedy as the viewer knows what is going on and is laughing at the actions Dwight is carrying out.  
The Superiority Theory of comedy features very heavily in comedy as a natural human reaction to witnessing another person make a silly error is to find it funny, although it is absolutely one of the more rude forms of comedy. As said by Hobbes, the laughter is "a kind of sudden glory." This means that the laughter comes from a sudden feeling of superiority over someone for viewing his/her mistake and knowing that we would not make that mistake ourselves.   
Monro's Theories of Humor helped me to understand the reasoning behind the laughter that arose in "Garden Party." It was a feeling of superiority that caused the bulk of the laughter in the episode which makes sense as the entire episode is heavily featured around Dwight making a fool of himself.  

Comments

  1. Shane HerronAugust 31, 2018 at 10:00 AM

    Here is where I can be Professor Pedantic and say that the mockumentary format has a long history. This is Spinal Tap is a famous example, and there are other precursors as well. No doubt, however, The Office introduce it, and it probably introduced us to superiority theory as well.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownAugust 31, 2018 at 10:22 AM

      I meant that it introduced mockumentaries to the television mainstream more, although there was probably a show that did it prior to The Office that I don't know about haha! Also This is Spinal Tap is a fantastic movie!

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  2. Shane HerronSeptember 5, 2018 at 10:17 AM

    There's also the hip hop counterpart, Fear of a Black Hat which is equally amazing. Though it may not age as well as Spinal Tap.

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  3. UnknownSeptember 13, 2018 at 8:56 AM

    I would have to agree with you in saying that Tv show "The Office" is one of the funniest shows brought to television. I agree with you when you say that the Superiority theory is one of the main theories that are really shown throughout the show. All of the silly errors and rude comments are really what make the show funny.

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