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Tuesday

Audience Studies, Inc.

In writing this post, I am joining several bloggers who have posted about Audience Studies, Inc. Thanks to said bloggers for helping me track down the information posted here.

I recently joined the odd 400 people or so who agreed to watch a sit-com and then report back to Audience Studies, Inc. I was wary when I took the initial call but agreed, mostly because, as I told the young man on the phone, "You can always get my address out of the phone book."

(That poor young man--I don't think his heart was in the call; when I questioned him as to Audience Studies, Inc.'s resume, he said, in a very embarrassed voice, "I can give you a 1-800 number to call." The young man knew, as I discovered, that Audience Studies, Inc. only communicates what agrees with its "story." )

So, Audience Studies, Inc. sent me a DVD as well as two booklets with pictures of products. And I immediately figured out that Audience Studies, Inc. wasn't interested in learning about my reaction to the sit-com; it was doing product research.

Now, I have no trouble with product research. If Audience Studies, Inc. had called me up and said, "We're going to send you a failed CBS pilot from 2005 that we purchased for a nominal fee as well as a bunch of ads and commercials and frankly, what we really want to know about is your reactions to the ads and commercials," I would have said, "Oh, sure, that's sounds interesting. Go ahead." I like commercials.

What is bizarre about this whole thing is how completely Audience Studies, Inc. has created a fake story in order to try to get (supposedly) unprejudiced reactions to products. First of all, the company goes to the trouble to obtain the sitcom (why it doesn't simply create its own is beyond me--the episode was so bad, at first I thought it was a basement production, which kind of impressed me. But the episode I was sent, which I turned off five minutes in because that's what I really do with bad sitcoms, was from "The Rocky LaPorte Show." Don't blame Rocky. It was the dialog and plot that stank.)

Secondly, the booklets of products are printed as "Prize Booklets" complete with "Prize Entry Forms" that you are supposed to fill out (multiple choice fashion) and just coincidentally keep by the phone for when Audience Studies, Inc. calls.

Thirdly, the "Program Evaluation" is not in any way designed to solicit survey responses. It contains questions like "Which character did you like best?" "What parts of the show or the idea should be changed or updated?" No survey company of this type would ask such open-ended questions!

I can't figure out whether Audience Studies, Inc. honestly believes that people won't see through this charade or whether people honestly don't see through it. All the bloggers I read had seen through it, but then bloggers already show a degree of media awareness and saavy. (Which is why they are susceptible to viewing the sitcom in the first place.)

Again, the irony is that I'm a big fan of market research, and I would have helped a request in that area. But I draw the line at so much icky snake-oil salesman patter. Either cough up the dough for a non-failed pilot, people, or come up with a better schtick.
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Nice Humor/Mean Humor

My brother Eugene recently had a guest post on The Motley Vision, "On Humor and the Literary Novel." A question was posed in the comments about why some "mean" jokes make us wince while other "mean" jokes make us laugh. In other words, why does just about every character on Everybody Loves Raymond make my skin crawl but Cox and House don't?

I've pondered this question for awhile, and here's my answer!

I think the difference lies in the intent of the joke (sarcastic diatribe, insult, pun, whatever). I don't mean the intent of the joke to the jokee but the intent of the joke to the audience.

In most of Everybody Loves Raymond, the jokes are made to make the jokee wince with embarrassment. More than that, the intent of the joke is to make the audience complicit in the jokee's embarrassment. The joke is the embarrassment.

Shakespeare, who did everything, employed this kind of joke (as well as all the other kinds). The treatment of Malvolio in Twelfth Night is precisely this type of humor. The joke lies in Malvolio's embarrassment. Which is why, I think, that particular part of Twelfth Night is rather problematic. However, that's just me. There's plenty of evidence (reality TV shows, Three Stooges, Roman games) that human beings enjoy watching other human beings suffer.

That being said, I also think a lot of people feel as I do and prefer the non-embarrassing joke. In Scrubs, for example, Cox belittles J.D. with his "Mary Janes" and "Buttercups," but the intent of the name-calling is not to embarrass J.D.--that is, not to embarrass J.D. before his audience (us). This works partly because J.D. is the narrator and therefore controls the audience's perspective. If he wants us to see him humiliated, there must be a reason. It works also because J.D. doesn't embarrass easily. Finally, it works because, if you've watched the show long enough, you know that Cox adores J.D. (and that Cox and J.D. are actually very similar; I didn't realize how much until the episode where Cox talks about seeing himself sitting on a throne while a conversation is going on--"He's J.D.!" I thought although J.D. is fundamentally kinder and less angry-guy).

This same principle is at work in House. In my post on Cox, Becker & House, I make the argument that everything House says is intrinsic to his personality. He doesn't belittle his interns to make the audience laugh; he belittles his interns because that's how House deals with life.

The point being that in both House and Scrubs, the jokes are not at the expense of the jokees. In fact, the jokes often backfire unto the jokers.

In a tangential kind of way, I think this same principle applies to sex jokes. I almost always wince when American comedians tell sex jokes. Said comedians are almost always aiming for result #1--make the audience wince or laugh with embarrassment. The jokes aren't even funny; they just make people laugh because the jokes are "daring."

In contrast, British comedies like Red Dwarf and Black Adder and Vicar are replete with earthy humor, but the humor is not used to embarrass the audience and rarely to embarrass the characters. Jokes about sex seemed to be used more for their useful metaphorical content than anything else. Consequently, I find them far less leering and salacious.

Or, as C.S. Lewis wrote in Screwtape Letters (see my post about C.S. Lewis' non-repressive nature), sexual humor gives rise to incongruities. There are people who tell sex jokes because they want to talk about sex (American comedians), and there are people who tell sex jokes because they want to use the incongruities (Monty Python and all those guys). So I have never seen any comedy with Ben Stiller, and likely never will, yet I think the beginning of Monty Python's Meaning of Life where the teacher gives an in-depth sexual education class to a bunch of TOTALLY BORED teenagers is absolutely hilarious and far less "dirty" (for lack of a better word).