Group Communication Concepts: The Wedding Ringer
Within any given day, a person will most likely depend on his or her ability to communicate as a means of sharing information. Regardless of whether a person is speaking, talking, writing, listening or texting, they will find that it is important to communicate thoughts, ideas or emotions. However, the process of communication is typically given inadequate thought, especially in consideration of the context in which it takes place. Human beings will find that they belong in a particular group in one way or the other, typically to satisfy the needs that they cannot meet on their own. While in these groups, people pull their knowledge and experience, mainly through communication, to inform their decisions and achieve tasks that would be rather difficult to be accomplished by a single individual. For example, in the film The Wedding Ringer, a group of men comes together to make a wedding plan successful. This paper analyzes concepts of group communication, especially as it applies to the film, The Wedding Ringer.
Discussion
Starring Kevin Hart, who acts as Jimmy Callahan, Josh Gad, as Doug Harris, and Kaley Sweeting as Palmer, The Wedding Ringer is one of the best comedy films of 2015. The film focuses on the story of an accomplished tax lawyer, Doug Harris, who is planning to have a wedding with his girlfriend, Palmer. However, Doug is worried because he does not have any friends from whom he can choose a best man for his wedding. In a move to find a solution to Doug’s predicament, his wedding planner, Edmundo, refers him to Jimmy, who provides best man services for a negotiable fee. Doug meets Jimmy, and they agree on a price of $50,000, with the condition that Jimmy will provide the services of a best man along with a group of other individuals. Jimmy hires some of his old friends with whom they form a group to help Doug accomplish his wedding plans. In the end, Jimmy, along with his group, provides a successful best man’s service that meets the expectations of Doug.
Human beings form groups to accomplish tasks that may prove difficult for a single individual to achieve. People consider groups so imperative that on average, a person will spend a year of their life in group meetings. Certainly, the more efficient the operations of individual members in a group are, the greater the return on the resources committed to accomplishing a group task. Communication must be the principal activity in any group to make its operations effective. Through communication, group members can communicate a wide range of ideas, which inform the ability of the group to come its conclusion. For the group to realize its potential, individual factors, among which are discussed in the following paragraphs, must be put into consideration.
According to Wood (2014, p.198), task communication places emphasis on the problems, issues or information that present to a group. Through task communication, a group can acquire ideas and information, and members can understand the issue at hand, which enables them to use reasoning to evaluate their ideas. Once a task has been communicated to the group members, and they can contribute their ideas relating to the issue or the problem that needs a solution, the concept is typically referred to as task contribution. As group members engage in task contribution, they can respond to each other’s ideas, or critically evaluate information before the group. Also, through task communication, members of a group can make comments on the issue presented before the group (Wood, 2014).
In the film The Wedding Ringer, Jimmy pulls together a team of old friends that he uses to accomplish the task presented to him by Doug: being a best man. Before engaging in the task at hand, Doris (Jenifer Lewis), Jimmy’s secretary, organizes a meeting with the team members. During the meeting, Doris communicates the work that needs to be achieved to all the members of Jimmy’s team. More importantly, Doris emphasizes to the team members that they are hired because Jimmy needs people who can pull out tricks to distract the wedding party in case any problems arises. During this task communication, group members contribute their various ideas on how they can best represent Doug as groomsmen. For example, one of the group’s members, Bronstein (Dan Gill), suggests that the best party trick distraction move he can pull is dislocating and relocating his shoulder.
Another concept that applies in the context of group communication is communication climate. According to Wood (2014, p.198), this concept refers to the relative reception or rejection that a member of a group feels in relation to the socio-psychological tone of their relationships with each other. Communication climate recognizes that in addition to being a task unit, a group also comprises of people who relate to each other in a more or less pleasant and open manner. Within the group context, communication climate puts the focus on the establishment and maintenance of a conducive environment in which members can contribute and evaluate ideas critically. By establishing and maintaining a communication environment that is supportive, a group can build enthusiasm within its members. Additionally, group members can make productive contributions, and cases of conflicts within the group are likely to be minimized.
In the film starred by Kevin Hart, the group leader, Jimmy, ensures that he has established a supportive communication climate within his team of groomsmen by using a number of techniques. Firstly, Jimmy employs his old friends, who have a well established relational background, to act as his team members. In this regard, the team members already understand each other; hence the group is likely to experience a more supportive communication climate. Secondly, Jimmy motivates his group members by organizing a bachelor party for Doug, where the group members have fun and even understand each other more. He also treats his team members as equal partners within the group. This makes the team build enthusiasm in their task as groomsmen, which they accomplish whole-heartedly. Establishing a supportive communication climate within his team of groomsmen Jimmy ensures there are no conflicts during planning as well as the execution of the entire task.
In addition, group communication utilizes non-verbal communication to convey messages to each other within the group. The non-verbal communication is inclusive of all acts of communication with the exception of speech. Mandal (2014, p. 421) notes that this form of communication comprises gestures, facial expressions, use of signals and symbols, eye contact, body posture, voice tone, and positioning that are present within a group, among other ways that do not utilize speech to communicate. Non-verbal forms of communication are indicative of the basic social orientations associated with the human cognition in the social environment. Group members need the ability to sense non-verbal messages in order to realize the full potential of non-verbal communication. As people recognize and respond appropriately to non-verbal communication, members can improve cooperation within the group.
As a category of communication considered under nonverbal forms of communication, facial expression is used to relay emotional messages. The expressions on one’s face can indicate the attitude, emotions, and the state of mind of that person while communicating. For instance, in “The Wedding Ringer”, Jimmy’s group rushes Doug to a hospital after a practical joke involving a dog went wrong at the bachelor party. While driving to the hospital, the group is stopped by a policeman, who comes over to their van and asks them questions. From the facial expressions displayed by the group members, the police officer can recognize that everybody inside the van is drunk, including the driver.
Also, as explained by Mandal (2014, p. 421), people can communicate non-verbally through eye contact within groups. Typically, in a group context, the group leader maintains a longer eye contact than the other members of the group. A direct and long stare from the sender of the message in a communication context expresses openness and honesty. It draws out the feeling of trust from other group members. To exemplify this, in one of the scenes in the film, Doris maintains a long stare towards Jimmy’s group members as she communicates the tasks that each member is required to perform. Although the group members do not take things seriously, the direct long stare from Doris, manages to make them listen and grasp the tasks assigned to them.
In most cases, one is likely to find that the concepts that apply to interpersonal and intrapersonal communication are also prevalent in group communication. This is because groups are made of individuals who communicate at both intrapersonal and interpersonal levels. In this recognition, it can be argued that as a form of non-verbal communication, tactile communication also applies within the group context of communication. Camps et al. (2014, p. 240) define physical communication as communication as that type of non-verbal communication that takes place through touch. When used appropriately, this type of non-verbal communication can create a message that is more direct than hundreds of words could; used inappropriately, it can create obstacles and cause mistrust. Tactile communication enhances the process of conveying a message, especially by building an emotional impact in the news.
Several instances of physical communication are prevalent in the film “The Wedding Ringer.” For example, this type of communication occurs in one of the scenes when Jimmy’s group takes Doug to the hospital after a dog bit his genitals. Doug is in much pain and screams almost all the way to the hospital. However, when Nadia (Nicky Whelan) holds Doug by his hand, he calms down, almost as if her touch was communicating. Also, while, at the hospital, Nadia’s touch on Doug shows a direct hint that she would like to know Doug better. This illustrates the profound emotional element that tactile information bears on a message.
Another critical aspect of group communication is group think. According to Rose (2011, p. 38), group-thinking is a concept that people use when they are completely involved in a stable group. In such a group, the members strive for harmony, ignoring their motivation to consider alternative courses of action logically. Normally, the result of group think is an irrational decision outcome. In this type of thinking, the members of a group make efforts to reduce chances of conflict and come to an agreement. They make decisions with disregard to the alternative points of view, by actively restricting contradicting perspectives, and by suppressing influences from outside the group. Group members are required to remain loyal, and to avoid coming up with contentious issues or alternative solutions to the problem in consideration. In this regard, individuals within the group lose their ability to be creative, unique, and independent in their thinking.
The concept of group-think encourages individuals to rely entirely on the dynamics that occur only within the group without any regard to outside alternatives. In this view, members of the group have an illusion that they make the right decisions and that they come up with the right ideas. Therefore, in a significant manner, the in-group overestimates its ability to make decisions, and considerably underestimates the decision-making abilities of its opponents (Rose, 2011, p. 39). In The Wedding Ringer, Jimmy’s group of groomsmen entirely believes that they have everything under control in regard to Doug’s wedding. They underrate the ability of the bride’s family to realize that Jimmy and his team of grooms are not Doug’s real friends. The group entirely trusts its leader’s (Jimmy) ideas and plans to successfully provide the services of a best man and those of grooms during Doug’s wedding.
However, the bride’s sister, Allison (Olivia Thirlby), discovers that Doug’s best man and groomsmen are hired individuals and not his actual friends. Moreover, due to group thinking, the group underestimates any chances that the people who would attend the wedding would recognize that Doug’s ‘friend’ (Jimmy) is not a soldier come priest as claimed. In consequence, due to logistical issues, the priest that was to oversee the wedding cancels on the wedding day. This forces Edmundo, the wedding planner, to organize for another priest to replace the family’s priest who had canceled at the last minute. Things get complicated for Jimmy’s group when the priest that replaced the family’s priest turns out to be Jimmy’s former school principal.
Conclusion
As discussed in this paper, group communication is characterized by various concepts of communication such as task communication, communication climate, and non-verbal communication. These concepts are not merely theoretical but are used on a daily basis within group dynamics. To prove this, the paper has provided several examples from the film The Wedding Ringer, which utilizes various concepts of group communication to enable the actors to interrelate and communicate well with each other within the film. The discussion considered within this paper is informed by the need to find competent communication when sending and receiving messages. As highlighted in the paper, for communication to enable people to interact with each other (achieve communication competence), certain concepts, or factors, such as group-think, must be put into consideration.
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