CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: SITCOM

We started the lecture by watching the pilot episode of Vodka Diaries. Watch out for:

Mise En Scene:
- How many locations? - Living room, bedroom, kitchen, hallway, stairway, outside the house
- Real or studio? - Real location
- Reflect characters?

Camera & Sound:
- Single or Multi-camera? - Single
- Audience laughter? - No
- Diegetic or non-diegetic sound? Diegetic - Music from phone, dialogue and door bell. Non-diegetic - music at the beginning and end of the programme, numbers changing during instagram photo


Narrative or genre conversations:
- Realistic characters or crude stereotypes? - stereotypes. 
- Acting naturalistic or exaggerated? - exaggerated acting for all characters
- Humour verbal or physical? mostly verbal humour through the programme but some physical such as the fire extinguisher being sprayed on the kid.

What is genre?
- Types or class of media texts that share common codes and conventions
- How texts are determined by historical/social/political contexts
- How texts emerge as commercial products from an industry
- Genre audience contract with text

Codes and Conventions:
- Dominant in deciding the form of a film or TV programme
- Technical codes - (seen) camera, sound, editing = narrative
- Symbolic codes - (unseen) Mise En Scene, subtext = context

What is a sitcom?
- 'Sit(uation) Com(edy)' - sub-genre of comedy unique to television
- Typically located within single location (or minimal number of settings
- Characters resolve comic situation or series of circumstances
- All sitcoms share common codes and conventions

Sitcom genre - technical conventions:
Traditional studio sitcoms:
- Big Bang Theory
- Shot as multi-camera
- Edited 'as live'
- Audience laughter track
- High-key uniform lighting

Location sitcoms:
- Modern family
- Single camera
- Post-edited
- No 'live' laugh track
- 'Mockumentary' - style

Sitcom narrative conventions
- Episodic series format - Typically 30 minutes, closed narrative
- Repetition - circular narrative to keep characters in comic situation at the story's resolution and feed into further episodes
- Resolution - drama (tragedy) end with change; comedy ends with order and harmony restored

Sitcom genre - narrative conventions:
- Comic trap
- running joke
- one liner/sight gag
- innuendo and double- entendre
- irony and sarcasm
- Farce and slapstick
- Parody and satire

The comic trap
- the basic premise of a sitcom: physical or emotional situation characters attempted to resolve or escape
- repetition ensures further traps will be encountered

The Running Joke
- Repeating visual joke or verbal line (often a catchphrase)
- familiarity/popularity with viewers encourage their repetition in long-running series

The one-linear and sight gag
- humorous throwaway remark, often observational of a situation or event that has just occurred. Periel's retort to Nic "if you can't shift it, don't shag it" is a classic one-linear

Irony and sarcasm
- irony - to express something different from and often opposite to literal meaning
- sarcasm - when a person says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect

Farce and slapstick
- farce - highly improbable narrative situations and coincidences combined with exaggerated physical humour. 'Black comedy' uses farce and taboo humour
- Slapstick - physical comedy, usually incorporating props and elements of comic violence

Parody/spoof
- parody mocks or pokes fun at an original work, its subject or author through humorous imitation
- A spoof typically mocks or pokes fun at a genre or style

Satire
- Similar to parody, but usually with a more angry or polemical intent
- Often political and targets the elite and bureaucratic

Sitcom genre - symbolic conventions
Mise En Scene:
- Setting/location
- Character (costume, make up, etc/)
- Staging (performance and interaction)

Mise En Scene in sitcom

- classic sitcom sets are typically designed (or chosen) to maximise comedic interaction
- multiple doors for comic entrances and exits
- a central focus such as sofa, kitchen table or office desk around which characters lives revolve
- set décor will often reflect the characters personalities and social/comic situation

Costume, make up and character
- sitcoms heavily reliant upon generic stereotypes derived from 'classic archetypes' (the rebel, the fool, the authority figure)
- often exaggerated for comic effect, through costume, makeup or performance
- clash between contrasting stereotypes provides catalyst for much humour in sitcoms (authority vs rebellion; aggressive vs passive; uptight vs laidback)

Archetypes/stereotypes
With Vodka Diaries:
- Nic the Rebel
use aggressive humour (sarcasm, physical comedy)
- Alex the libertine
can be playful or hypersexual. Typically use innuendo and double entendres
- Holly the authority figure
their thwarted attempts to control are a staple of sitcoms. will often use the comic put-down
- Periel the dork/fool
Often seen as the least self-aware, but usually says the smartest things. Uses visual humour (sight gags) and one-liners.

Ideology and Hegemony
- hegemony is a dominant ideology within society: in sitcom traditionally reflected in the 'nuclear family'
Many contemporary sitcoms utilise a more pluralistic and diverse family model:
- the work family (parks and recreation, the office)
- Co-habitees (vodka diaries, friends)
- Extended family (modern family)

Critical approaches to genre
- Psychoanalysis - jung on archetypes; freud on humour (release of repressed energy) and personality types
- Surrealisim - humour from absurd/irrational scenarios; bizarre comic juxtapositions; dreams and nightmares
- postmodernism/alienation - reflexivity; 'mockumentary' form' POV (Peep show); Breaking 4th Wall (Fleebag)
- Representation - gender, race, class and sexual stereotypes; social shifts; emergence of new stereotypes