Sitcom Essay

A Comparative of Sitcoms A situation comedy, or sitcom, is defined as a comedy series involving the same characters in various day-to-day situations which are developed as separate stories for each episode (Dictionary.com). The structure of a sitcom has not changed much since its inception on radio, but the characters and premises of the show change with the different times the shows are based in. This paper will focus on the history of sitcoms as they made the transition from radio to television

‘network’ examination the former Chief Executive of Channel 4 Jeremy Isaccs said of sitcom “It is a form in which it is impossible to bring new work. It is the most conventional form in British television,”(Neale & Krutnik, 1990) while this comment is nearly 30 years old I feel Isaccs point still stands. Since television 's rise to dominance in the 50’s and 60’s television sitcom hadn’t progressed much from their radio sitcom forerunners, by the 1980’s the cliche and the tropes were so ingrained in British

a television had watched a sitcom of some kind. Ether it’s a good episode of Big Bang Theory or a whole season of How I Met Your Mother we all had experience a sitcom. A sitcom or situation comedy is a kind of genre that forces on a set of characters in a certain environment. Each episode would have an event that will affect the characters in the show, and then those characters will react in a comical way. Over the decades of sitcoms airing on television, certain sitcoms started to fellow some kind

The sitcom world is rife with tropes: Love Interests of the Week, the Secret Relationship, the Yo-yo Plot Point (any story the writers just can’t stop going back to). These tropes have been defined and redefined for new generations of viewers. Characters striving to maintain the perfect nuclear family on Leave It to Beaver became characters looking to achieve a work-life balance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, became characters inept at both work and life on 30 Rock. That New Girl’s Jess Day and Nick

that sitcoms are incorrectly regarded as simplistic, and that to uncover their complexity and fully explain sitcom a comparison to other television and film genres needs to be made (Mills 2005:25-29). There is truth in the claim that sitcoms are complex. This is proven through analysing how sitcom relates to a wider cultural and social context, and understanding how hidden cultural references work as vehicles of humour. The narrative complexity and cultural references of the American sitcom Unbreakable

Historically, sitcom has been used to display an aspiration lifestyle, as stipulated by dominant norms (Brown 1990:18). However, UKS creates narrative complexity by depicting multiple social issues and conflict, which are brought together by the protagonists’ friendships. This includes landlady Lilian’s struggles to resist gentrification in season three, Titus’ continual search for employment, and all the characters’ ongoing negotiation of romantic relationships. The humour derived from these overly

A Sitcom is defined as “ a situational comedy; a show that is on television regularly that is about a group of characters who are involved in different funny situations” (“Sitcom”, 2015). Sitcoms are the primary medium of television comedy, and the number one form of entertainment on television for a number of reasons. First, viewers are able to identify and connect with characters of the show. Second, events and situations are often exaggerated and dramatized to enhance and make the plot more

First, the late nineteen sixties was a big turning point for feminism in television. American sitcoms began to change a bit during this era. The way females were portrayed was one of these changes. Most sitcoms up to this point all women were characterized the same, which was the American homemaker better known as the housewife. The husband was in control and in charge. In the book, “Signs Of Life In The USA” the report titled “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” by Aaron Devor states that “These

Sitcom is a genre of comedy centred on characters shared the same environment (situation). It’s also a type of television series. The two conventions in the sitcom are circular narrative and stereotype. Circular narrative is a special structure of sitcom which suggests that an episode of sitcom should have beginning, muddle which is that the problem can’t be solved too early, character has to be failed before they succeed and ending. The circular narrative follows that at the beginning of the sitcom

s of sitcoms, men and women had a stereotypical role in a couple. Over time, the traditional roles of men and women in a couple have evolved to be more realistic to real life. An interesting time in the history of these original gender roles was World War II. When the men of this time went overseas to fight in the Second World War, only the women were left at home, meaning that they had to take the jobs the men had. Women became very large helpers for the war. “As men were needed on the battlefield