Schadenfreude or Mittleid?

[akirlu]

We watched several episodes of the second season of Coupling last night. Doing it so soon after we watched the final two Christmas specials of The Office made me think the British have made a sort of comedic speciality out of embarrassment and humiliation. What I can't work out is whether they laugh out of malice (schadenfreude) or sympathy (mittleid), or whether it's a mix. With me it's the laughter of profoundly discomfitted sympathy. There but for the grace... Even in the case of the exquisitely awful David Brent, my fascination lies in the embarrassment I feel on his behalf, for all that he's too oblivious to feel it himself, or at least too bluff and clumsy to show it. But perhaps I'm strangely soft-hearted. I always wanted Wile E. Coyote to win, too.

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

We have, and it's mostly sympathy ...

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

I'd describe it more as empathy. Incidentally, the author of Coupling, Steven Moffat, turned in the chilling Dr Who two-parter "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances".

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I have a real problem with watching the Office, I think it over loads my empathy circuits.

Pheonix Nights, OTOH, leaves me rolling on the floor in tears.

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I watch Coupling purely because it can be clever and witty. I don't engage with the characters in such a way that I might feel either schadenfreude or mittleid. Which is why I find The Office boring and irritating, no wit, no clever lines, just people acting badly, acting stupidly. Since I see this every time I go to work I see no reason to invite the same into my living room.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

An odd thing is that by the end of The Christmas specials we're rooting for Brent. We want his date to succeed. And when he turns and tells that smug guy who replaced him to "fuck off" we cheer.

Brent is ghastly but we come to love him. I'm not sure I can quite figure it out.

[profundo-rosso.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's that there's the tiniest inkling that he's becoming self-aware. Sometimes, people don't see the obvious until it's reflected through another's eyes; if it works out, she could be the (re)making of him.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Generally, embarassmen comedy strikes me as horribly unfunny and painful to watch.

I can't abide Coupling

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I expect you're right. I noticed in comparing Changing Rooms with it's American imitator, Trading Spaces that the latter had a brittle mean-spiritedness that the former doesn't. I think that came in because of trying to adopt the same tone, without understanding that even when there is conflict and mockery in Changing Rooms, it's overlayed on a basic mutual affection and shared experience.

John Cleese has this theory that embarrassment is the one thing that the British are genuinely terrified of, and so making comedy about it is presumably a way of facing one's fears. The thing about Cleese is that he is very good at showing his fundamental empathy even when he's making fun. I think it's what drives the character of Basil Fawlty, for instance. He's supposed to be this genuinely horrible mean-spirited bastard, and yet you always feel for him.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I think Steve has a point about the tiny dawning of David's self-awareness being part of what makes him sympathetic at the end. Also, we've been forced into this position of empathy for so long, and watched David's completely inevitable doom and humiliation catch up with him, so we're used to being a little bit on his side if only from knowing how we would feel in the same situation. So when he redeems himself a tiniest bit, I think that frees us up to cheer for him.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

The Office is really hard to watch. For me it's a gut-crawly experience every time. I don't think I could stand it if there weren't the central, old-fashioned romance story arc between Tim and Dawn to draw me along. (And interestingly, the commentary track from the DVD of the Christmas specials suggests that the writers know that Tim and Dawn, rather than David, are really the center of the show.)