Response to Cathrine's Blog

The 2017 remake of the film Baywatch was an absolute hit with audience members for its raunchy humor, hyper-sexualization of the main characters, and tribute to the original tv show. The scene where the character Ronnie get his penis and balls stuck in a lawn/beach chair has always made me laugh. The scene demonstrates incongruity theory, superiority theory, and benign violation. Ronnie begins choking while walking along the beach with his friend and at this point the audience has become aware of Ronnie's crush on one of the Baywatch members, CJ. CJ notices Ronnie's condition and runs over to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. These shots are then depicted in slow motion, demonstrating that Ronnie is turned on by CJ saving him from choking. This is humorous and demonstrates incongruity because usually we would not associate the heimlich with arousal.  Seconds later he coughs up whatever was preventing him from breathing, and is left with a massive boner. In order to hide this embarrassing situation, Ronnie does the first thing that comes to mind: he jumps straight down onto the lawn chair, getting his "man parts" caught in between the wood of the chair. This is where superiority is displayed as the audience laughs at Ronnie's pain and initial reaction to jump downwards. He tells CJ he is fine and she can leave but the audience is aware that his junk is stuck. A moment later CJ returns and is trying to calm Ronnie down in order to fix his new problem, however, her chest is in his face and is not aiding in turning him off. CJ then has to call over Mitch, the head of Baywatch and beloved lifeguard, in order to help. Eventually they get Ronnie standing upright with the chair still attached to him, causing a crowd to form around him. Mitch presents Ronnie with the only other solution he can think of- to cut it off- causing Ronnie to then send himself and the chair onto the ground, breaking the chair and setting Ronnie free. Ronnie shamefully drags himself away as his friend films the entire thing, along with the crowd that has formed. This presents incongruity because usually a friend would try and lessen not only Ronnie's physical pain but embarrassment, however, his friend simply laughs and makes fun of Ronnie with the rest of the crowd. The entire situation demonstrates benign violation as come may find it offensive and too raunchy of a scene, however, I thought it was extremely funny and sets up the expectation of Ronnie's character for the rest of the film.