"In Living Color" was really funny. Please laugh. Sheepishly.

I never know what to do when we're shown a funny clip in class.

Because senses of humor vary from person to person, laughter can turn into an intensely private matter. I wouldn't laugh at Whose Line Is It Anyway? while watching by myself the same way I would if I watched it with others. (Largely because I fall from the couch to the floor and get an ab workout in the process. At least, I did when the shows were new and not reruns on YouTube.) I would feel slight peer pressure if I showed a solitary reaction around others because I wouldn't know if they thought it was as funny.

The "as funny" factor plays a larger role in a course on race, gender and the media than it generally does on an improv show. The show's subjects can surely be racy, but in a course like this one you're guaranteed to see something that is meant to get laughs but shouldn't be funny. The clip's goal is usually to shock the viewer into laughter by playing to stereotypes, so an ill-fitting laugh is not only frowned upon, but often glared upon.

But a laugh will happen, no matter how hard the student tries to keep it in. And when the laugh enters the rarefied air of the classroom, it will find a partner in crime. At the least, the first one out will give the others the courage to announce their presence and will, if in large enough numbers, make everything more comfortable.

The "In Living Color" clip was the best chance to find that comfort. Yes, some "funny" clips shown in class deserve silent watching, but a guilty-feeling laughter was called for here. It's certainly appropriate with comedians like Jamie Foxx and Jim Carrey leading the skit, basically begging for a well-placed guffaw session from the audience.

Such a clip, both hilarious and outrageous (in a racial AND gender sense), brings everything to the table. Once a student finds that others think the clip is (inappropriately) funny, the discussion can turn to why it's perceived as funny and why people feel guilty laughing about it. This can lead to why we feel guilty, should we feel guilty, should we have laughed in the first place, etc. All of this accomplishes more than would silence, largely because it starts with a frank and honest, "Ha!"

(P.S.: I laughed sheepishly during the clip. ...Okay, it was more of a snicker, because I didn't want it to be too loud. To be completely honest, I laughed more often when I heard others laughing, especially women and black students. They made it for me; right or wrong, I felt that if they thought it was funny, my laughter was acceptable.)

Men aren't always hierarchical. Women aren't always democratic.

I about blew a gasket in class Wednesday. And the female IDS staffer sitting next to me might have supported me.

The discussion before Bob Zaltsberg concerned the stereotypes associated with newsroom leadership by gender. I could understand some of them, especially as they related to perceived distance between management and the rest of the staff; but others I thought were slightly uncalled for.

I’m cool with the conclusion, derived from the study of the Sarasota Herald Tribune that male-dominated and female-dominated newsrooms are run differently. Although I have a bone to pick with the contention that it could be a bad thing that males are associated with simple reporting of the facts (it sounds, at least on some level, to be a sensibly scientific approach to things), I can’t argue against the main premise from my own experience with IDS editors-in-chief.

I have more experience with female EiC’s than with male ones, but I’ve been able to tell differences between Michael Sanserino’s style in spring 2009 and Sarah Brubeck’s style this fall. Sanserino acted a bit more above the newsroom and seemed a little more cool and aloof; Brubeck, on the other hand, gets hands-on with every desk to make sure things are running smoothly and is not afraid of being close or showing she cares.

Though these differences exist, they can’t be applied as a rule like they seemed to be in class. Although I have those above-mentioned experiential differences, I also have personal evidence to the contrary, that the stereotypes can be switched. Natalie Avon, the fall 2009 EiC, mixed “typical” female caring with a healthy aloofness that might be construed as male in the present scheme. The IDS colleague I sat with in class could easily identify women journalists (at least on the sports side) who act with “typical” male ferocity. The current IDS photo desk, with Courtney Deckard and I at the helm, trade off between hierarchical assigning of photos and open-season democracy on who takes pictures of what.

The point I’m trying to make here is that Wednesday (before Bob came in; he seemed to make a lot of sense) was maddening. The fierce negatives fell mainly on the male side when they could apply to the female side in many cases; and the caring positives fell mainly on the female side when they could just as easily be found in males. I've seen those examples in everyone I know, male or female, including in positions of power. The stereotypes can be used as guidelines, but please, simmer down on the blanket generalizations.

I feel sorry for "All in the Family."

I haven’t watched very much of All in the Family, but the episodes I have seen made me laugh a bit too much for how real-life its topics are. (Were?) And that fact troubles me the most: It’s really, really smart politically, but that’s not what I (and most TV watchers) look for when they flop onto the couch.

The History and Discovery channels notwithstanding, I watch TV for relaxation and entertainment, not to have my mind changed. This does not rule out watching shows like The West Wing and House that make a concerted effort to be smart; in fact, I always try to watch them and stay away from vapid programming like Keeping Up with the Kardashians. (Search engine optimization!) And when I watch those “smart” shows, I can examine an episode all I want, especially if I set out to watch that show specifically.

But that’s not the norm for me. My norm is sitting there and letting it wash over me. I’m sure that’s how a lot of people want to watch TV: unchallenged, eyes wide open and mind relatively shut.

In that sort of mindset, I might be Archie. (Especially when thinking of Mike’s response to Gloria’s plea to see things from Archie’s side: “That would be impossible, Gloria. We’d have to close our minds first.” Season 3, episode 45) I don’t often look to have my mind expanded or opened when I watch TV, so if I were shown something that challenged what I believed previously, I might either ignore it or interpret it to fit my worldview.

Such a thing happened in Vidmar and Rokeach’s study from 1974. It’s already mentioned in the book, but the gist is that people who watched the show didn’t see Archie as a bigot and often saw him as making better sense. The “lovable” part outshone the “bigot” part, and what part of his bigotry showed was often condoned. In the words of the researchers, “many persons did not see the program as a satire on bigotry,” and highly prejudiced people saw “him winning in the end.” In other words, “the program is more liking reinforcing prejudice and racism than combating it.”

Given that the show’s creators meant to challenge what was thought, this is quite unfortunate.

“The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are.” (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContentWarnings)

Hence, I feel sorry for All in the Family. It fell into the media’s inherent (dis)ability to reinforce already-held attitudes. Damn.