What's So Funny About America Analysis

As a polysemic text, television has the power to inspire a range of interpretations according to the denotation or encoding of the producers and the connotation or decoding of the televisual consumer. As first described by Stuart Hall in Encoding/Decoding, and then by Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch in Television as a Cultural Forum there exist three basic categories of potential readings of a singular text within the broad range of potential interpretations: dominant or preferred, negotiated, and oppositional, each of which depends on the ideological, political, and social position of the interpreter, as well as their experiences, making them, according to Newcomb and Hirsch cultural interpreters, or cultural bricoleur. As a parody, a genre

Parodies are usually used when comedy is intended, but sometimes they are also used to reflect much deeper issues. The world Truman Burbank inhabits in The Truman Show (1998) is a parody of the world of the audience of “The Truman Show”, but Truman’s world is just as much the truth to him, as the world of the show’s audience is to them. It can be argued Truman’s world is both a reflection and a refraction of the world of the show’s audience.

In this essay, I am going to discuss how undoubtable/valid TV may seem, in regards to media convergence, social class in American sitcoms, Post-Fordism, and televisual Black fatherhood.

Comedians entertain audiences by revealing the unexpected. These breathtaking moments are caused by the creation of stereotypes. The controversial video entitled, “The Substitute Teacher,” reveals Mr. Garvey’s difficulty in adjusting to different classroom settings. Within the classroom, Mr. Garvey applies an inappropriate adaption of black culture even though the majority of his students were Caucasian. The comedic aspect is illuminated by Mr. Garvey’s stereotypical nature when pronouncing names through roll call. The video reasons his nature through his “experiences” in substituting at inner city schools. Ironically, a majority of the students in the classroom possess a middle-class socioeconomic background. Parodies such as “The Substitute Teacher” seem hilarious; however, it causes audiences to feel remorseful after becoming aware of these stereotypical jokes. Some comedians reveal social injustices, while others accomplish more by teaching audiences how stereotypes are evident in real life situations.

Sitcoms reflect the changes going on in the world to show what society is like. Sometimes it’s a show about nothing and oftentimes sitcoms actually affect the world. Sitcoms created gender role stereotypes for society and they did not always show an accurate representation of life. Early on, sitcoms were family focused and they eventually begin to shed light on different problems in society. Throughout the sitcoms The Trouble With Father, Sex and the City, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Bewitched women transitioned from being in the traditional role to being an effective part of the workplace. Women were portrayed differently throughout these sitcoms; they portray women to be leaders, submissive, or the fool.

In 1993, David Foster Wallace wrote his essay “E Unibus Pluram”, which addressed the way irony had been incorporated into different types of media within the 20th century. Focusing on two main elements, he starts out by exploring how irony is used in television and then moves on to explore the way irony is used in literary fiction. While he was researching, Wallace found out that the average American household watched about six hours of television every day (Wallace 151).Though today, the average American household only watches about five hours of television every day. The decrease in hours is thought to come as a direct result of the usage of smart phones or other streaming devices and websites (Hinckley). Throughout “E Unibus Pluram”, Wallace brings up the point that as a society, we love the characters and often build a relationship with them. However, the actors who play those characters are strangers to us and those who portray those characters are strangers to our lives and could not be farther than the ‘friends’ we make on the television screen (Wallace 154). This can be understandable as we know that television is false therefore the characters on the screen are also false, but how can we create a friendship with something that is only part of reality during the hour of on air time that it has? It is true that most characters that are written for television are marketed towards the audience of the show, but even though those characters

“The Simpson’s” is about the satiric adventures of a working class family in the city of Springfield. “The Simpsons" is an example of an American sitcom. A sitcom is situation comedy, which is when the same setting and same characters appear in every episode. Sitcoms surfaced in the 1950's in America showing the "ideal" family. Slowly sitcoms started to show the reality of life and dealt with social issues such as divorce and unemployment. Sitcoms have become very popular because people could relate to the program, since they show problems that happen in every day life. In this essay, I am going to analyze "The Simpsons" and demonstrate how it follows the conventions of the sitcom genre.

Rugnetta’s use of pop-up cartoons and humor allows him to take complex theories and make them simpler for his audience to understand. Rugnetta’s idea that TV shows are written in series rather than episodes today because of new time shifting technology can not only be uninteresting but also puzzling for his viewers. However, Rugnetta introduces this idea by suggesting

     In this essay, Berger does a wonderful job in conducting a semiotic analysis of the television show, “Cheers';. One might not agree with all

The film, Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class, by Loretta Alper illustrates how the media uses stereotypes in a humorous manner to gain viewers. The film is based on the 90’s sitcoms. As described by the film, many of the most memorable characters of these sitcoms are of the working class (2005). Furthermore it states that since we view television as a source of entertainment not education, we are easily being subconsciously manipulated. Most if not all the sitcoms presented, showed the working class as buffoons. From characters like Doug, from King of

Situation Comedies now versus in the 50’s look a lot different. Most show’s whether new or old contain some of the same attributes and have the same affects on people. There’s sexist matter, an influence on society, an image that each character or gender portrays and the list goes on. Analyzing these attributes and effects is eye opening and often can and does compare to society.

"Black Sitcom Reduces Stress." New York Amsterdam News, vol. 91, no. 17, 27 Apr. 2000,

Due to the political unease of the of the 60’s and 70’s, many social issues were addressed in the T.V. world instead of in other arenas. Much of the media was merely industrial, but even comedies and T.V. dramas addressed social problems of the day. Norman Lear’s situation comedies, particularly All in the Family, dealt with controversial issues of the day that T.V. sometimes avoided, such as race relations, feminism, sexuality, and abortion. M*A*S*H chose to mix the humor of a sitcom with the horror of a war. A new wave of minority comedies, such as Stanford and Son, Good Times, Chico and the Man, and The Jefferson’s, employed stereotypes of the day. T.V. continued to threaten the viability of motion photos, which were forced to go where

In conclusion, it is evident that throughout time one of the things that remained constant in television is the use of sociological theories to describe the functions of families. Select shows that display this are Switched at Birth, Full House, and The 100 which represent conflict theory, symbolic interactionalism, and feminist

Sitcoms were revolutionary during this era because they were a feel-good show, not showing any real world problems, therefore giving people a break from reality. These shows ?consciously avoided controversial issues and glossed over life?s harsher realities.? They did not show poverty, political uncertainty, or racial discrimination.3 A domestic comedy was a generic family comedy, based on a white middle class suburban family, with typical values.4 These programs allowed viewers to attempt to model their lives after the ideal families that were shown in these programs. A sitcom was a comedy with a repeated cast who ?resolved situations about everyday lives? in each episode.5 They gave the traditional ideas of marriage, family, and the roles of each gender.6 One chief role portrayed was the man in the office working and the woman at home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. The Flintstones was a television sitcom that ran from 1960-1966, featuring a prehistoric family and setting. It was a typical sitcom, where life lessons were to be learned and problems were to be resolved in each episode, but it also showed the typical structure of a family. Fred Flintstone was the husband