For this assignment I chose to watch the TV show Malcom in the Middle with the sound turned off. It is a show my daughters just started watching on Netflix and I had not sat down to actually watch the show myself. Based on how the characters are communicating I believe they are all part of the same family. There is woman and a man around the same age who share a bedroom and sit at the opposite end of the table at meal time. They have three boys very close in age also sitting around the table who seem to be the children. The conversation makes me believe the parents are very upset with the children. They are opening their mouths wide and saying something to one of the boys and their faces look angry. The boy then also looks angry and holds his spoon up with mashed potatoes on it as if he is going to throw it at his mother. They keep having a back and forth exchange which looks like they are arguing. At the end of the conversation at the dinner table they all start laughing and then it goes back to the son who again looks angry and seems to be yelling.
My assumptions were definitely wrong when I watched the episode with the sound on. I thought the program was much more serious than it really was. The whole premise of the program was very funny and that was something which was very difficult to tell without the sound on. If this was a show I had been familiar with I would have known the premise and understood the comedic nature. I then would have been able to understand the show better without being able to hear the dialogue.
I was wrong too! what a difference spoken language makes. It makes me aware not to make assumptions based facial expressions and body movements...
ReplyDeleteAlissa, with comedies it is true that sometimes its hard to tell that its funny because the exaggerated theatrics of the characters can sometimes be misleading. Also, the laughter from the audience sometimes hint that what transpired was a joke even though it was not really funny at all.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this show before, and knew that once you turned the sound on, you would realize how funny the characters are. It did not occur to me before just how difficult it is to convey humor without a verbal component. It is something I will keep in mind while communicating via email or text.
ReplyDeleteWe sometimes take hearing for granted. I, like most of our classmates, made the wrong assumptions about the television shows we looked at but did not hear. This gave me the push I need to be more knowledgeable about my nonverbal communication skills.
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