In class we discussed the idea of humor in the Presidential primaries, specifically talking about the debates. We watched a video that showed Biden and Ryan having their debate, one which included much more humor and one liners. It became evident that Biden was much more willing to use his humor and one liners to degrade the arguments, which often seemed false, of his opponent Paul Ryan. I really found this to be interesting because we made the connection between this debate and that of one between Obama and Romney in saying that the humor was not as funny. As a class we made the assumption that this was due to the fact that the individuals running for president were scrutinized more and the person running for VP could get away with more.
Relating this issue to one of our past readings, this reminds me of negative and positive face. For me, the Biden and Ryan debate instilled an idea of positive face in Biden. How so? Seeing Biden express his humor in the ways he did really allowed me to relate to him and want him to be the person to assist in running our country. Being someone who tends to use humor to express themselves it really helped me relate to him on a personal level because I could understand his personality and understand the way he thinks. His actions which instilled, in me, a positive face reaction made him likeable, whereas, had an effect on Ryan that had a negative effect and made me not like him even more...giving him the negative face effect.
Good point! This also relates to the humor reading when the author discusses the idea of credibility and being able to relate to the audience through humor. Of course, as the author also said, if you come off as trying too hard or if you appear mean, your humor will backfire and your audience won't feel a connection.
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