I was thinking about the joys of the Fast Show’s Channel 9 – a ludicrous spoof of foreign TV shows.
(Click here if you can’t see the embedded video)
You can see this as typical British poking fun at foreigners I suppose. For me, it’s more about how funny it is watching TV in any country where you don’t understand the language.
What makes such telly funny is not I think the foreigners. It’s that without the distraction of the understanding the content, Channel 9 flushes out all the tired tropes that appear on our own TV that we don’t notice because we’re so engaged in the content. We’re perhaps laughing in recognition of the clichés of our own TV, thrown into relief by the nonsensical language.
So I tenuously suggest that this a little what it’s like to facilitate at meetings where I’m less engaged in the content and more in the process. I think it makes me more aware of the familiar patterns of engagement, often rather unproductive, that we often slip into without noticing.
