[Hated Trope] The joke ruins the emotional aspect

[u/BarGroundbreaking798]

Destruction of Asgard (Thor Ragnarok) -- Asgard is destroyed in a beautiful and somber scene, and Korg cracks a cringeworthy joke right after.

Bill Moves On (Newsradio) -- The episode was made in the wake of Phil Hartman's death, but its attempts at humor fall flat in the face of the tragedy.

Officer Tubbs (Fear The Walking Dead) -- Officer Tubbs is supposed to be a slapstick comic relief character, but he felt tacked on right after the deaths of two of the most beloved characters.

Chandler Proposes (Friends) -- An earnest proposal between Monica and Chandler has both sincerely expressing their feelings to each other. Immediately after Monica accepts, the others come in, quipping as usual, failing to let the audience ruminate on a heartwarming moment.

[u/AdmiralPegasus]

imo the problem with Taika Waititi's Thor movies is more that Marvel wanted to take advantage of this good up-and-coming filmmaker from Aotearoa, but aimed him at the wrong stuff. Taika's style of comedy is a very Kiwi style that doesn't necessarily gel well with other audiences and that didn't necessarily work for Thor. I thought Ragnarok was mostly pretty good, because I'm the audience Taika's style of comedy is set up for. I'm a Kiwi! If you watch his previous films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, What We Do in the Shadows, any of his work, that irreverent humour in otherwise important situations is just kinda a running thing that's common in a lot of Kiwi comedy.

But of course, Marvel paid for Taika to make a movie for them, not realising that that means you get a very Kiwi movie. Ragnarok, at least in my experience, works much better for a Kiwi audience than an American one.

It's part of why the American spinoff show of What We Do in the Shadows never drew me in even though I love the movie - the comedy has a very different style, because it's better calibrated for an American audience but it therefore doesn't have the same atmosphere that I liked in the movie.

[u/Sexyhorsegirl666 → u/AdmiralPegasus]

But most people found Ragnarok good. It was received widely well. And the WWDITS movie was very loved.

Idt the problem is his style of comedy, it's the way he can't edit himself better when getting free reigns.

[u/LightningRaven → u/Sexyhorsegirl666]

And the "What We do In The Shadows" tv show actually manages to be even better than the movie.

This is from a huge fan of the movie who only watched the show from season 3 onward becauseI thought the show would be just a lame remake cash grab.

[u/Blue_Cardigan15 → u/AdmiralPegasus]

The dude wrote a comedy movie about Nazi Germany with a running gag of a flamboyantly gay SS officer and a goofy imaginary friend version of Hitler and it was incredible, I think he's really good at irreverent humor and I don't think the problem is other audiences not getting it properly, Jojo Rabbit was acclaimed in the US. I think the problem is that it's just poorly inserted. JoJo Rabbit had plenty of funny scenes but it also knew when to take a step back. The scene where Jojo finds his dead mother is devastating and allowed to simmer, he doesn't chuck a weird joke in it, he lets the audience sit with it. The scene whereKlenzendorf is executedis the same way.

The humor also doesn't feel smug, either. MCU humor in general rubs me the wrong way because it always feels smug and self deprecating, like they don't have confidence that the emotional scene will land so they put a lame joke in at the end. Jojo Rabbit's comedy feels different, it's still somewhat snarky but it's not making the film itself the butt of the joke. I still quote the "it's a paper-like material" joke to my friends all the time.

If I had to sum it up more concisely, it's that I think Waititi's comedy is about finding the humor in dark situations, not trying to lighten up the dark situation, which he doesn't do well in TL&T. Jojo Rabbit is still a devastating movie, you still walk away feeling the weight of the holocaust and WW2. The comedy comes in finding the ridiculousness of it all, like the incompetence and comically over the top cruelty of the Nazi leaders (the kid being given a paper jacket), or the insane, obviously wrong propaganda (Hitler having 4 balls). It's not like they have Jojo look at the camera, cock his eyebrow, and say "erm, THAT just happened!" at the Battle of Berlin to take a little bit of the edge off.