Most comedy is mean. That’s just the easiest way to be funny: be cruel. I’m not sure what it is about us that makes us laugh when someone is mean. It touches something in our lizard brain that we don’t want to acknowledge, but the people who make our entertainment know it’s there. They play to it.
It’s extremely rare that I consume comedy that fills me with anything other than the desire to imitate that funny meanness. Ted Lasso show is one of those rare shows.
One of the funny things about Ted Lasso is that he’s never mean. He’s always nice even when he’s being judged unfairly. Comedy comes from the unexpected, and we don’t expect someone to endure abuse without trying to reciprocate or do something else to come out on top.
The show leaves our expectations about what comedy is in the dust because Ted leaves our expectations of what kind of people we could be in that same dust. His wins help us imagine what we might be able to achieve if we acted with kindness and integrity. It’s a fable with the same moral every week. It delivers the moral not by stating it explicitly but by showing Ted’s outcome.
It leaves me wanting to imitate Ted instead of the jerks who normally make me laugh. It also makes me wish more entertainment would want to imitate Ted like I do.