Television Sitcom
- ISBN-10
- 1844570878
- ISBN-13
- 9781844570874
- Category
- Performing Arts / General
- Pages
- 185
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2006-01-12
- Publisher
- British Film Institute
- Author
- Brett Mills
Description
Despite its global reach, longstanding popularity, and immense profitability, sitcom has been repeatedly neglected in theoretical work on television and media. This book demonstrates that this lack needs to be sorely addressed, by dragging analysis of sitcom up to date, with a wealth of contemporary examples, a range of new approaches to the genre, and examination of the roles sitcom and comedy play within society. The book takes as its starting point the variety of ways in which sitcom has traditionally been explored. A chapter on genre examines the history and development of sitcom, and the institutional structures which produce it. There is also analysis of differences between sitcoms produced in a range of countries, and what happens when a programme gets sold abroad and remade. A chapter on representation explores the debates about the ways in which sitcom chooses who to make jokes about and why, and whether this matters. And a chapter on performance argues that this is a vital, and underexplored, aspect of sitcom's funniness, and interrogates the ways in which comic actors make their performance funny. With specific case studies on Will and Grace, The Office, and The Cosby Show, as well as analysis of a broad range of contemporary and historical examples throughout, this book will be of interest to students of sitcom and comedy, as well as those of television and popular culture.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Writing Television Sitcoms (revised)
By Evan S. SmithAnthony Mattero and Melissa Ryan, two industry professionals who, no matter how busy, always cheerfully make time to help me find hard-to-locate scripts. And I thank Anne and Erick Taft, mother and brother of Alex Taft, a most promising ...
-
The 25 Sitcoms that Changed Television: Turning Points in American Culture
By Laura Westengard, Aaron BarlowReaders of this book will see how television situation comedies have consistently held up a mirror for American audiences to see themselves—and the reflections have not always been positive or purely comedic.
-
Critiquing the Sitcom: A Reader
By Joanne MorrealeGilligan's Island A close analysis of Gilligan's Island — its conception , characters , plot , and production — reveals an intense reworking of the themes of progress and primitivism , imperialism and escape . With Gilligan's Island the ...
-
Comedy of Errors: Vulgar Misadventures of a Television Sitcom Dad
By Erik JohnsonEven when his heinous acts make us squirm with discomfort. Erik Johnson has stepped into his own darkness just long enough to confront his demons and write the great American novel.
-
African American Television Sitcom Stereotypes & Society: The Stereotypical Connotations Used in African American Television Sitcoms and Their Effects on...
By Natriece BryantThis book contains a summary of how African American television sitcoms have negatively portrayed African Americans.
-
Tribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms
By Dustin TahmahkeraTribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms
-
Television Comedy Series: An Episode Guide to 153 TV Sitcoms in Syndication
By Joel Eisner, David KrinskyThis book is the first and only one of its kind! Every episode (!) of every comedy series from the beginning of television to the 1980 season is listed. Titles,...
-
Beyond Sitcom: New Directions in American Television Comedy
By Antonio SavorelliThis book explores the mechanisms that have driven the evolution of televisual comedy from the classic sitcom, a genre deeply rooted in its theatrical origins, toward a more mature stage of television's history.
-
The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed
By Mary M. Dalton, Laura R. Linder... teacher narratives on film and television and also contrasts the television sitcom with the film of the same title . Dalton reads this sitcom and the resulting motion picture against the grain to argue that Miss Brooks's pursuit of ...
-
The Sitcom
By Jeremy G. ButlerButler, Jeremy G. “Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s,” in Television Style, 173–222. New York: Routledge, 2010. Caldwell, John Thornton. Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television.