I really liked how Hannah took a totally different approach to her blog post. I didn't watch all of each episode, but I did look up parts of the episodes and found them both to be fairly entertaining. It was very interesting to see how she broke down the laugh tracks and saw how prevalent they were in each show. I liked how people were more likely to not laugh at something if it included a laugh track which also makes me wonder why shows still have them. Personally, I think they're really stupid unless they're used ironically, so this blog post confirmed that for me, which I really enjoyed.
I just want to mention that I meant to upload this a while back but the wifi cut out and didn't save what I had and then I forgot to rewrite it, so I'm rewriting it. Personally, I love John Mulaney, and I was excited to see that this was the topic for the blog post. I love how, as Caroline explained, we as the audience are put in a position of superiority by looking at how Mulaney puts himself in a position of inferiority. He's incredibly self aware and isn't afraid to make fun of himself, and we're allowed to laugh at the stupid things that he's been through because he's incredible relatable, just like Jim Gaffigan. Caroline also talked about how he uses relief humor by poking fun at obvious stereotypes and allows the audience to laugh at things we usually shouldn't.
Interestingly, (in the original experiment I modeled this assignment after) some shows were ranked more humorous with a laugh track and another was ranked more humorous without. This case study therefore showed that the content of a show has an influence on whether or not a laugh track helps laughable situations. Maybe, the reason Friends continued to employ a laugh track was because the track works well with the content of the episode.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that people used them for a long time because they did work. I think it was more of just a cultural expectation that had to shift first.
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