Sound Off
This particular family was made up of a mother, father and a
son. The mother seemed to be the
dominate person in the family. She was
always pointing at them and appeared to be bossing them around. As the other family members talked to her,
they seemed to watch her to see her reaction.
She would show her approval or disapproval by what appear to be yelling,
shaking of her head, rolling her eyes and avoiding eye contact or looking
away. The other characters body language
was more submissive, relaxed and they appeared to be talking quieter. In one scene the father goes to the son’s
room to talk to him. He turns his chair
to face the son and they are talking eye to eye. They appear to be listening to each other. At one point the son takes out a notepad and
writes down what the father was saying.
Sound on
I assumed that the
mother and father had a rocky relationship.
They did not make eye contact and the mother seemed to make angry or
irritated facial expressions. When I
watched the show I realized I was incorrect because the mother was sarcastic
and was not mad. They were communicating
through several inside jokes. I was
correct in that the mother had more of a domineering role and personality. It
would have been much easier if I had seen the show before because I would have
known that this was supposed to be the funny part of the show. Whenever she made what appeared to be a
yelling or rude gesture she was actually making a sarcastic and funny
remark. The audience laughed but the
family did not so I had no idea when I watched it with the sound off. In the end the mother and father stick up for
each other and say things that make the other feel as though they are on the same
team.
Hello Lori,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. This blog assignment exercise is an interesting one, that has a moral behind it. By reading the first section of your story, it has convinced me that we should not make suppositions when we see groups of people communicating and we are not included in the
conversation. This is a learning situation for all of us, since we might have been guilty of such action. I guess you were thinking that this family was in crisis. Is that so?
Joanne.
Lori,
ReplyDeleteThere is such power in eye contact. Non-verbal communication also functions as contradicting behaviour, conveying the opposite of your vebal message ( O'Hair & Weimann 2012). This was evident in your post. It is important as we read non-verbal cues to not make hasty assumptions as these can be turn out to be wrong.
Great post Lori, it goes to show the power in non verbal communication and the assumptions that we often make when we only watch from the outside. I loved that comedy show, and they alos had an important lesson at the end of the show even though how they conveyed their love and affection may be entirely different than how we do.
ReplyDelete