Media Studies
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Number 011
Hilarious Situations – What makes a sit com funny? d. My Family*
The aims of this Factsheet are to: • identify the common codes and conventions of the sit com genre • consider how the genre creates humour and audience gratification
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1655000/ images/_1659708_lindsay150.jpg * This situation does, however, apply to many other sit coms and so other examples will be equally as correct.
The name sit com is short for Situation Comedy and, as the name implies, the genre works on presenting a familiar situation in a humorous way. e. Joey
Activity Can you identify these sit coms (one or two are quite old now)? a. A group wake up to discover that they have been asleep long enough for the human race to become extinct and they are stranded on a space ship. b. Six twenty-somethings live close to each other in New York and each set about starting and dealing with adult life. c. A young doctor gains experience working in a hospital. d. A family with somewhat conflicting personalities deal with day to day life. e. A struggling actor moves to LA after all his friends get married. He starts a new life with his sister and her son. f. After his divorce a man and his young son move in with the ‘playboy’ bachelor brother/uncle.
h t t p : / / w w w. s m h . c o m . a u / ffximage/2005/02/14/ joey_wideweb__430x281.jpg
f. Two and a Half Men
http://z.about.com/d/tvcomedies/1/ 0/B/3/-/-/cast_two_half_men.jpg
Depending on your TV viewing experiences, some or all of these sit coms may seem familiar to you. The answers are: a. Red Dwarf Even just by looking at these images, you can see that the description d) relates to all of the texts identified if a group of friends, a collection of hospital staff or even a group on a space ship are seen as a metaphorical family. Sit coms work using a collection of conflicting characters and placing them in a limited location. The genre works on the humour generated by the interaction between the characters and their environment and the events that unfold.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/en/thumb/8/84/ RedDwarfCast.jpg/300pxRedDwarfCast.jpg
b. Friends Taflinger identifies sub genres of sit com based on the way that the humour is generated: • The Action Comedy – where the humour comes from the events depicted, physical mishaps or misunderstandings. Characters tend to be a little one-dimensional as they are used as devices to interact with the action of the narrative • The Drama Comedy – where, within the comedy characters have to deal with serious situations or issues. Whatever the problem is in dramatic comedy, it will require the major characters to try to cope with it, to try to solve it, or, at least, learn to understand or comprehend it • The Domestic Comedy- focussed primarily on characters rather than events. There tends to be a collection of protagonists rather than one main ‘star’ and the plots centre around relationships.
http://epguides.com/Friends/ cast.jpg
c. Scrubs http://www.channel4.com/ entertainment/tv/ microsites/S/scrubs/ images/ scrubs_main_414x260.jpg
It is very likely that in contemporary sit-com, you will find texts demonstrate a combination of the above sub-genres.
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Media Studies
011. Hilarious Situations – What makes a sit com funny?
www.curriculum-press.co.uk
Activity
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Limited number of main characters o Sit Coms may include secondary characters (ones that appear regularly but are not the main characters) and transient characters (those who appear briefly – perhaps just to play a part in a particular scenario)
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Realistic mis-en-scene, sound, editing and lighting o Usually sit coms use eye-level camera work, high key lighting and invisible editing. These technical choices create the appearance of reality
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Fourth wall presentation o As sit coms usually use static sets, the audience views the action through an imaginary ‘fourth wall’ which is never seen – this is reminiscent of a stage in a theatre
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Usually diegetic sound o Non diegetic sound may be used to mark changes of location (particularly in US sit coms) but the sound heard in a sit com is usually generated within the world of the programme – apart from
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‘Canned laughter’ or the laughter from a studio audience o Some sit coms are filmed in front of a live audience (hence the theatrical appearance). The sound of the audience responses is retained for broadcast. Where this does not happen, ‘canned laughter’ (a pre recorded laugh track) is often used instead
Go back to the six sit-coms identified (or substitute ones you are more familiar with). Which of Taflinger’s sub-genre(s) do they fall into? What evidence do you have for this?
An Example: Friends Friends was the most popular sit com in TV history based on its viewing figures and subsequent DVD sales. E4 continuously repeats all the episodes and once the 10th season is complete, they will start again from the beginning. Perhaps one of the reasons for its success is that it combined all three of Taflinger’s sub genres. In the episode where Ross has trouble with his leather trousers (Season 5: The One with All the Resolutions), the comedy is based on action. Ross attempts to get his trousers back on
Representational Codes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Friends_s5_ep11.jpg
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The scenes with Ross covered in talcum powder and body lotion, with his trousers around his ankles are based on physical humour – or slapstick. We laugh at the the ridiculous nature of his situation and feel empathy for his social discomfort. We also feel relief that we are not suffering the same embarrassment that he is experiencing.
Sit coms tend to follow conventional gender, family and social roles The genre uses sympathetic (if often foolish) characters Stereotypes are used extensively
Narrative and the Genre • Generally episodic o Each episode solves the problems that have been set. There may be some form of overarching narrative (often based around relationships) but this is usually less dominant
Primarily though, Friends is a domestic comedy. The main source of humour is through the clearly defined characters and their interactions. The ‘Ross/Rachel’ and ‘Chandler/Monica’ storylines focus on personalities and domestic issues. However, at times Friends touches on drama comedy. There is never anything truly serious within Friends, although Monica and Chandler’s inability to have a baby and the subsequent plot regarding the adoption could be seen to touch on drama comedy. If this is compared to the way another sit com like Scrubs deals with the serious topics such as loss and death, Friends does look less dramatic than domestic in the way it approaches serious issues.
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Usually no main hero but a small ensemble cast is used o Sometimes one character does stand out from the others as being the main protagonist but this is not as heightened as in other genres
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Villains tend to offer limited amounts of threat o Threats do not tend to offer any real danger to the characters. A sit com ‘villain’ is more likely to be a bad tempered boss or a disapproving parent rather than a violent character
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Can use overlapping narrative arcs o Having an ensemble cast allows two or three separate stories to be followed during one episode.
As with all genres, not all examples of sit com will follow every convention. What follows are the most commonly used conventions.
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They provide simplistic resolutions o Problems are usually solved within 30 minutes
Media Language Genre Codes
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They use omniscient narration and dramatic irony o The audience tends to know more about a situation than the characters. This allows the audience to laugh at characters’ misunderstandings and mistakes
The Genre Codes and Conventions of the Sit-Com
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30 minutes long (allowing for advertising) o Sit coms sometimes have longer episodes or ‘two-parters’ to mark the end of a series or a special occasion. e.g. Christmas Specials.
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Limited use of locations o Often only three or four main locations are used. Sometimes other locations are used when particular scenarios require them. For example, hospital locations or locations when the characters go on holiday. These are called secondary locations.
In addition, sit coms can be relatively cheap for institutions to make as they do not have to deal with location shooting or the creation of many sets. They are also appealing to a broad target audience and so, when successful can be very profitable.
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Media Studies
011. Hilarious Situations – What makes a sit com funny?
www.curriculum-press.co.uk
Ideologically they tend to be consolidating of dominant ideas and values. They can provide many pleasures for the audience including entertainment, diversion, time-filling, identification and relaxation.
Activity Why do you think Scrubs has adopted such different techniques? Consider the way it breaks conventions and the different types of emotional responses the sit com generates?
Activity How do you use sit-coms and what pleasures does the genre provide? Relate you answer to uses and gratification theory.
As with all genres, the basic repetition of codes and conventions can become boring and predictable for the audience. Even Friends, which was more conventional than Scrubs, broke common sit com conventions occasionally to add extra interest and provide the audience with new experiences within the genre. For example several episodes use flashbacks to events in the characters' lives before the came together in New York and two episodes are based around a fantasy world where Ross was still married to his first wife and Monica was still fat (Season 6: The One that Could Have Been – parts 1 and 2).
However, when analysing a sit com such as Scrubs, it is clear that many of the standard codes and conventions of a sit com are not always followed.
An Example: Scrubs – manipulating the codes of a sit com Scrubs generally offers us the viewpoint of one character, JD. This is done primarily through voiceovers which cause the audience to identify with JD during the situations which develop.
What is Funny?
This means the audience is most often only viewing situations with the same amount of information as JD (a restricted narrative) and he is the main protagonist. The setting of the hospital allows the fourth wall convention to be broken and the programme uses a range of different camera and editing techniques to provide an ‘unusual’ looking sit com. In addition, the constructed realism is often broken through the depiction of JD’s daydreams and fantasies rather than just a simple representation of events.
Having identified the most commonly used codes and conventions it is worth considering the primary function that is shared by all examples of the sit com which is that they intend to make their audiences laugh. What then do we find funny? Exam Hint: Even though these ideas have been used to discuss the sit com, Taflinger’s ideas work equally well for other forms of comedy. When analysing other types of comedy texts you can use these ideas to consider how they work to create humour.
Taflinger puts forward a set of ideas which are said to be required if something is going to work to make us laugh. For comedy to work… ‘… it must appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions’ Finding something funny is not an emotion but an intellectual engagement with a situation. How this works follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:My_Life_In_Four_Cameras.JPG
JD (above) fantasises that he works in a ‘sit-com hospital’ as he wants a ‘positive resolution’ for one of his patients. This season four episode is called My Life in Four Cameras, a direct reference to the standard filming technique of TV sit coms (but not used in Scrubs) and this section of the episode is presented using conventional sit com codes and conventions.
1) ‘… it must be inherently human, with the capability of reminding us of humanity’ • Even though situations and characters in comedy will always be extreme, it is crucial that characters react in a way that appears natural and human. In any sit com, characters are exaggerated but they have recognisable human traits. Eliot’s insecurity in Scrubs is extreme but is a reflection of insecurities that people may experience – just exaggerated. Similarly, the romantic situations presented in Friends may remind us of our own lives, for example feeling intimidated by a girlfriend’s (or boyfriend’s) parent cannot be an uncommon occurrence. Ross’s girlfriend’s father was, however, an action hero (Bruce Willis).
Some of the plots in Scrubs touch on serious issues. Its hospital setting allows a more dramatic tone to be adopted and a common plot device is personal tragedy which plays against the farcical comedy that is also used. Dr Cox and Jordan have to deal with the death of Jordan’s brother (Season 3: My Tormented Mentor)
2) ‘… there must be a set of established societal norms with which the observer is familiar, either through everyday life or through the author providing it in expository material, or both’ • This can depend on the situation presented. Things that are normal in Red Dwarf, such as time travel would not be considered normal in a sit com like My Family which is set in the ‘real world’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:My_Tormented_Mentor.jpg
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Media Studies
011. Hilarious Situations – What makes a sit com funny?
www.curriculum-press.co.uk
3) ‘… there will be incongruity … the situation and its component parts (the actions performed and the dialogue spoken) must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surrounding or associations (i.e., the societal norms)’ • Three aspects of incongruity are literalisation, reversal, exaggeration and the use of taboo subjects to create humour (i) In literalisation the joke comes from taking a figure of speech and then performing it literally. Many sit coms use a ‘dumb’ stock character who is often shown taking things literally. Their humour often comes from their lack of sophistication in interpreting what people mean. This role was taken by both Joey and Phoebe in Friends. (ii) Reversal is simply taking what is normal and expected and doing or saying the opposite. In an episode of Friends (Season 10: The One Where the Stripper Cries) Joey loses a TV quiz because he cannot name super models – the opposite of what is expected of the character. (iii) An exaggeration is taking what is normal and blowing it out of proportion. Events occur to which the characters will react beyond all proportion. Dr Cox’s rants in Scrubs are funny because they are so over the top. (iv)The greatest incongruity is the violating of societal taboos. This violation can provoke the greatest laughter. In society it appears that the greatest taboos are discussions of sex, death, and biological functions. These are all subjects which society has decreed should be discussed seriously, discreetly, and euphemistically, if discussed at all. In the Friends episode The One Where the Stripper Cries Ross discovers that what he had believed to be his first kiss with Rachel was in fact a passionate kiss with his sister Monica. This touches on a taboo topic and presents the characters horror and embarrassment to the audience in a way that they will find humorous 4) ‘… it must be perceived by the observer as harmless or painless to the participants’ • The comic action is perceived by the audience as causing the characters no actual harm: their physical, mental, and/or emotional well-being may be stretched, distorted, or crushed, but they recover quickly and by the end of the performance they are once again in their original state. This applies to real life, as well as comedy. It is funny when someone slips on the ice and falls: people laugh - until they realize that the person broke his leg. At that moment the event is no longer humorous. A character in Friends can be heartbroken over the break-up of a relationship but they will quickly recover. The exception to this rule is in drama comedy when the characters may be represented as suffering after a dramatic event. In Scrubs Dr Cox becomes depressed and drinks heavily after a decision causes the death of three patients (Season 5: My Fallen Idol). This event is shown to have negative effects on the character but his recovery is still relatively swift.
Activity Using a sit com you know well, identify the way codes and conventions are used, the plot specifics which may identify its position in a sub genre and evidence for the rules of comedy.
Acknowledgements: This Media Studies Factsheet was researched and written by Steph Hendry Curriculum Press. Bank House, 105 King Street, Wellington, TF1 1NU. Media Factsheets may be copied free of charge by teaching staff or students, provided that their school is a registered subscriber. No part of these Factsheets may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any other form or by any other means, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISSN 1351-5136
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