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.
