Reflection

• The disruption of expectation in my sketch is through the opening line, “Top five people who didn’t stand up for themselves.” The audience is then misled by the built up social meaning of that statement which is that I’m referring to, a set of people who didn’t assert their position or stance against an opposition and weren’t able to express their own needs, wants, and opinions in a clear and confident manner. The audience is then surprised when they see number five on the list is Rosa Parks who did ‘stand up for themselves’ just not in the literal sense of the meaning because she protested by sitting down on the bus. And as Seth Simons said in ‘Six Small Essays about Comedy’, “This time around I was equipped to understand a line that went over my head 20 years ago..”. The idea of getting a joke makes the ‘bit’ funnier for an audience and for the audience that’s understanding that Rosa Parks didn’t technically stand up for herself. Another expectation which is then also subverted is the genre of music which begins with a typical melody that’s associated with a ranking list to then the ‘Prowler Theme” from ‘Spiderman into the Spider-verse’, the sharp transition which is timed with the subversion of the reveal of rosa parks compliments the moment by enhancing the starkness of it. In Nick’s book ‘Sketch  Comedy’ he mentions, “The first minute or so of any comedy sketch usually introduces viewers to a funny world or worldview,” The bottom half of the video also showcases a copyright free minecraft parkour video which has become a commonplace attention grab to keep the audience focused on social media content but it also sets up that expectation of a set of rules and the world of norms that would come with that. which is an AI narration or a text that is alongside the video or another video on top of it and so on. Another disruption of expectation is the voices that narrate the ranking video starting from the beginning. The AI voice narration sets an expectation for the audience but is followed by a very high pitched ‘Kawaii’ voice and that difference is another stark change that could create humour through the sense of shock or surprise. The last nail in the coffin would have to be the snippet reveal of the number four candidate with another beat of the ‘Prowler Theme’ to coincide with it, a close up of Stephen Hawking who famously is known to be suffering from ALS a motor neuron disease that literally leaves him unable to ‘stand up for himself’ a similar subversion to rosa park but much darker in its context and its tone of humour which is intended to inspire comedy through instilling shock, confusion, incongruity even. The speed at which it is also cut off is another factor added to the piece of comedy.

References:

Simons, S. (2023) Six small essays about comedy, Humorism. Available at: https://www.humorism.xyz/six-small-essays-about-comedy/

 Marx, Nick. Sketch Comedy : Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television, Indiana University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=6513090.