Bergson applied to Pop Culture

To sum up Bergson in a few words: A comic character is unaware that he is behaving comically or that his behavior is in anyway being judged. Obviously its more than that but that is how I would more or less paraphrase it.

I mentioned to my group that such a theory reminds me of two television characters: Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) from "The Office" and G.O.B. (played by Will Arnett) from "Arrested Development", two shows which I think provide some of the best comedy in the last decade, if not longer.

Michael Scott is the oblivious boss that runs the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. For those who haven't seen the show, Michael Scott can be easily explained as a socially-unaware and inept yet tremendously self-confidant manager. G.O.B. is the cocky son of the Bluth family that rides on his inherited coat-tails and is not as suave with the ladies as he thinks he is. 

The two reasons which make these characters so funny is that they have no idea people, both watching t.v. and those that surround them, are laughing at them. It is tremendously humorous is you are watching a comedy in which people don't know they are in a comedy. If you asked G.O.B. whether his life would me a comedy or a drama, he would probably say drama. He lives a overzealously serious life in the middle of a comic world. 

What makes this humorous? Maybe it is the contrast. Maybe it is the fact that someone that ridiculous and oblivious could exist.