I am a huge fan of Saturday Night Live. The comedians on that show really seem to nail human emotions, actions, and habits and are able to exaggerate the qualities of their characters to such a degree that we find humor in it. One character in particular stands out, and that is Penelope. Kristen Wiig has made several performances as Penelope, a competitive woman with annoying speaking tendencies. Being that we’ve been talking about speech delivery and flaws associated with orations, I think that Penelope is the perfect example of what not to do when public speaking – or even just talking in general.
Penelope just about covers each bad delivery habit we went over in class. For one thing, she plays with her hair the entire time she talks. Another issue she has is that she raises her volume at the beginning of each sentence and ends much more softly, causing the person listening to her to have a difficult time understanding her last few words. She does this with every sentence. Also, Penelope ends several sentences with “so,” which is hardly a conclusive closing. Verbally, Penelope is pitchy, making her tough to listen to, and visually, she is uncomfortable to watch because of the odd facial expressions she makes. Overall, Penelope is the epitome of a bad speaker.
Even though SNL is a comedy show, it is still relevant to our lives. Rather than watch a character like Penelope and simply write her off as being highly irritating, we can learn from her numerous errors and opt to never be a Penelope.
YES! I love Penelope. Such an original idea to tie in a pop culture reference with what we learned about public speaking dos and don'ts. Great writing too. And thanks for the link :)
ReplyDeleteWow, I've been consciously indifferent to this character for a long time, it never even occurred to me as relevant to what we've been learning about speech delivery. Great idea, really enjoyed reading it.
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