Week 1: Best Piece of Comedy I've Seen Lately

The best piece of comedy I've seen lately would have to be The Office. The NBC sitcom managed to produce nine seasons of hilarious episodes, introducing new content as well as keeping up with older plot points and continuous character development. The reading we were assigned prompted me to analyze the office in a way that I hadn’t yet, and think more about what exactly makes the show funny. After reading the “Theories of Humor” text, I think The Office seems to exemplify aspects of the Relief Theory, but it really embodies the Superiority Theory.
In my opinion, the funniest characters in The Office are Michael Scott, Kevin Malone, Meredith Palmer, and Dwight Schrute, but just about all of the characters are laughed at for their faults and failures. This is just like Thomas Hobbes’ Superiority Theory, where our laughter is from feeling superior to those who make the mistakes. We laugh at Michael Scott because of his idiotic antics and lack of a filter when it comes to controversial conversations and jokes. We laugh at Dwight Schrute because of how weird he is, and Meredith Palmer because of her crude personality and substance abuse issues. Kevin Malone, though, is the epitome of the Superiority Theory. Malone’s obesity and constant stupidity make for a perfect example of this theory, because just about every single bit of humor at the expense of his character is derisive.
Different aspects of the reading helped me understand where the writers of The Office were coming from, but not all of it seemed to be relevant to the show. Before reading these texts, I had never thought about all the thought and strategy that must go into writing an effective comedy. It was very apparent that the writers of The Office were aware of the Superiority Theory, and utilized it to create one of the most popular sitcoms of our lives so far.

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