My expectations when I registered for the class were different from what the class actually was, but I enjoyed it. I had expected that the class would focus more on current comedy rather than the older comedy movies. Once I learned what the class was going to be about I would say that it did meet my expectations of a class about comedy. The class itself was somewhat easy in the way that the assignments were presented. The only thing I found to be difficult was having assignments due on Sundays at six, because most online classes I have taken before you had until midnight. It was difficult six o’clock time because of scheduling on my part.
Taking other online classes sometimes you get backed up on work and you need that extra time to proof read and other things to make sure you turn in a quality assignment. I would have to say that I did not like the format of the class as to the way it was structured as a blog. I like the way that canvas is used for most classes because when you have your assignment done and posted you can see it right away. I think the canvas environment also makes it easier for classmates to carry on a discussion with more input than the blog did.
Some of the interesting things I learned from the class was the different was comedy is associated with things such as gender bias and the different classifications of comedy. I feel that when one looks at comedy they just look to see how funny it is rather than looking deeper into the subject. I found all the lectures interesting and did not have one that was my favorite as I liked all of them. There was nothing in the lectures that I disagreed with.
A couple of the movies that I really enjoyed was It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Nine to Five. I liked these because to me they were very funny and were what I consider as typical comedy. One of the films I liked the least was Dr. Strange Love. I felt this movie to be very disjointed and not very funny in my opinion. I typically will not watch this type of movie. I will have to say because of time restrictions I usually could only watch one selection. There were weeks when I had actually already seen the other selections so I went with the ones I had never seen before.
I felt that the information that we covered did fit well with the course. I felt that the lectures went very well with the selections that were available for us to view and gave a better understanding of the film as we watched it. As for the text books I feel that maybe we could have had something that was easier to obtain. Both books were either not in stock because they were not carried by many suppliers. When I did find them the King book was rather expensive for a paperback book and the other I could only purchase through Amazon for viewing online. I did not have a favorite chapter in either book while I did find the PDF’s more interesting.
The only other thing I would like to mention is that the movies were not easily accessible as Netflix did not carry them, and you could purchase viewing of them online but that started to get pricey. I did not expect to have to purchase movies every week for the class as while the cost to obtain them was low it did add extra costs over the period of the class and being a student money is sometimes hard to come by. I think it should have been stated in the syllabus that there would be extra fees for watching the films. All in all, it was a great class and I feel I learned a different aspect when it comes to comedy.
