Argument for Relief Theory


Jake used strong language in his post to better convey how much he believes in his argument. Reading a post with powerful word choice enhanced the point he was trying to make. Jake, excellent job! I truly enjoyed exploring your view while dissecting your post. However, I must disagree with your claim. Maybe, Seinfeld is the greatest TV comedy of all time. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen the series. But, Seinfeld cannot be the greatest comedy ever produced based on the absence of character development and drama. To make this assumption would be to say the relief theory does not exist.

The shows Friends and The Office use their drama and character development to magnify the laughter in the audience. For example, Friends' iconic scene with Ross and Rachel's breakup employed the Relief Theory to invent new laughs and relieve stress and tension in the most intense periods. According to the Relief Theory, it is as if our minds are begging to release piles of stress and inadequate behavior accumulated over time. It's quite possible the writers of the show, Friends, knew the workings behind humor and created an intensely dramatic situation where the audience would be desperate to release their laughs. A drama aspect in comedies is definitely not for everyone. However, as Jake's post suggests, it cannot be the reason why people may find Friends not as amusing as Seinfeld since drama content is often used to enhance humor in the audience by the Relief Theory.

Comments

  1. Shane HerronSeptember 21, 2018 at 12:45 PM

    It's interesting that we could explain both kinds of show with relief theory: because Seinfeld avoided emotions, it also is relieving in a sense; but in the Office and Friends, we could claim that relief comes from the fact that they do include emotion. I wonder which one is correct. Perhaps both are correct.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 21, 2018 at 1:51 PM

    What a great point! I would definitely agree that building an emotional investment in the characters serves to increase a show's funniness. Well-written!

    ReplyDelete

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