"Community"

First I watched the show with no sound.

For this blog assignment I watched a show on NBC called “Community”.  First of all, it is very difficult to watch a show without the sound.  There were times when I felt lost.  What I could tell was that these were all a group of co-workers.  In the opening scene, there was no one who seemed to show power so I could not tell if there was a boss present or not.  Later one man entered another man’s office.  He appeared to startle the man who was not working.  He wore a suit and commanded attention.  In my opinion, this might be the boss in the office. 

There were many different scenes throughout the episode of different sets of co-workers outside of work together.  Five of the co-workers hung out together at an apartment, and seemed to be conversing and interacting like friends.  They appeared to be having casual talks and laughing.  They even seemed to be discussing a personal matter of one of the women in which they were all trying to help her with. 

Two other sets of co-workers are seen out at a carnival.  One set are two men, one older and one younger.  The other set are a man and a woman about the same age.  The two men seem happy together, and the other two don’t seem to be having a good time.  The woman seems bothered by the fact that the other two are having such a great time.  The woman keeps giving her male friend frustrated looks while playing a game, and notices when the other two men walk by laughing with each other.  After playing the game, they get into an argument.  They almost seem as if they are trying too hard to have fun to prove a point or something.  In another area of the carnival, the two men get into an argument on the bench, and one leaves.  The one who remains plays back their happy moments in his head.  It seems like they are friends, but the one who left got up and stormed off for what appeared to be no reason.  That makes me think they aren’t as close as they appeared.

Later in the episode, all these different co-workers end up back at the apartment together in which one of the men from the carnival says something to the woman who is having a personal issue.  This seems to make her realize something.  He appears to come off as a concerned friend, and she respects him, listens, and takes his advice.  Later they all sit down together to watch the television.  The close friend of the woman and the man who helped her look for a long time at each other and smile.  Their relationship seems closer than that of just two friends.

I could see happiness and friendship expressed through their eye contact and laughter.  I could also sense frustration in the woman with the problem due to her vivid actions with her arms when she talked and her facial expressions.  I could sense the seriousness in the conversation between her and the man due to his serious facial expressions and her expression that showed understanding of her issue.

Then I watched the show with sound.

I was surprised to see that I was very wrong with my assumptions about the basis for their friendships.  These were not co-workers at all, but they were all classmates at a community college (hence the name “Community”).  The man who walked into the office did have some authority; he is a professor at the college.  Although, I was wrong about his relationship with the other man, he was not the other man’s boss.   They are both employees at the college.

I was correct to assume they were all friends though.  The one woman was struggling with a person problem of wanting to call a man who was not nice.  Her friends were trying to keep her from her cell phone so she could not call him.      

The female and male friends who went to the carnival together were only there to spy on the man the woman was trying to call.  The game they spent many minutes at was this man’s carnival game.  They did this so they could talk to him.  The frustration the woman had was because she wanted to ride the rides.  I also discovered that the two men who were there were only there because the older man was trying to prove to his friends that he could have friends outside of their circle.

In the end, even with sound, I could not get a sense of the relationship between the woman and the man due to their look.  I think I saw the same thing both times because there was no verbal dialogue between the two.  If I had seen this show before, I would already have a basis for the understanding of the show, and my assumptions would have been very different.  I would’ve known the background of the shows concept and the character development which would’ve given me better understanding of their relationships that already existed.  This really gave me some insight into communication simply based on nonverbal characteristics and communication with someone or a situation that you are not familiar with.  It can definitely affect your perception of the event and individuals involved.