Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Mom! I swear I have to watch TV for my homework! 6165


The Middle. A show I’ve been interested in but have never watched so thanks 6165 for giving me a wonderful excuse.

Without sound I can tell this is a family show. There is a mom and a dad and three adolescent children.  The parents have scenes showing they are discussing something. The actors use lots of facial expressions and hand gestures that look like enthusiasm.  The teen children also use facial expressions however theirs note annoyance, boredom, and perhaps, confusion.  As in any sitcom there appears to be some kind of misunderstanding going on.  The characters are also making eye contact suggesting sending a quick, shared message.  The mom and dad show physical affection for one another.  From what I can tell this is a loving family with plenty of sitcom quirkiness.

Ok Sound on.

Well  I was definitely right about the family part. As it turns out the parents are bothered that the children want to stare at screens all summer and want to do something fun together as a family. So the children exchange concerned glances because they are nervous about what the parents are going to come up with. The parents decide to take them to a drive in movie. This explains both the enthusiasm and the confusion. The parents have to explain and then convince the kids that a drive in movie will be fun.  So they go to the drive in and it all works out as it usually does in sitcoms. 

This assignment was more difficult than I thought it would be. Perhaps if I had watched a show I know well, like Friends or 30 Rock, I would have been able to pick up on different things. 

Just now I thoughtthis would a really crazy assignment to do with say the first episode of the first season of The Real World.  There would be so many elements. Sigh. I will stick with my sitcom. Mostly because I don’t have a clue how to get my hands on an old Real Word episodes.

This assignment was cool because it shows how important non verbal communication is. We express feelings and share messages without words with those we are close to.  

5 comments:

  1. Great Post! I was skeptical of this assignment at first but ending up I think its pretty awesome!! It really does show you how communication is done in a ton of different ways.

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  2. I was hoping someone would pick a reality tv show (I chose a sitcome too) because I was wanting to see the differences between how we viewed a sitcom and how others viewed reality tv. I'm not a fan of reality tv, however there is a lot of non-verbal communication and interesting relationships going on that would be hard to understand if you had no sound.

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  3. Koni

    This assignment did seem easier than some. I found myself sitting in front of the televisions trying to hear when the sound was down. I was making facial expression because of the weird things that were happening. For the most part it was easy to figure out what was going on by the way they moved and gestured. The television show that I chose had the most ridiculous facial expressions throughout the show. It wasn't funny without the sound though.

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  4. Koni,

    I agree with you that watching a known program would have been easier, because we are familiar with it and we know what to expect from the characters.

    This activity was to me like going to a new place where I know nobody, not even the context, and all I know is the purpose of my visit.

    Thanks for sharing Koni!

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  5. Hi Stephanie,
    I had the same thought with regards to using possibly a reality show for this assignment. My biggest issue with the show I chose (which happened to be Friends) was that the reliance on slapstick, physical comedy as opposed to great scriptwriting weighed very negatively on my view.

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