For this assignment I will explain what a sitcom is and its patterns of consumption.A sitcom is short for situation comedy which revolves around a group either family or friends who deal with day to day problems and situations that relate to peoples real life situations and are portrayed in a comical fashion.
The most popular sitcom in the USA is The Big Bang Theory.The Big Bang Theory is about a group of friends who are scientists and find themselves facing social problems. Sitcoms can also be cartoons and the most popular sitcom in the USA is Family Guy.
Family guy:
Family Guy was created in 1999 and is still around to this day. The creator of the cartoon sitcom is Seth MacFarlane. The Sitcom is about a stereotypical American family who live in the city of Quahog, Rhode Island. The family consists of the dad and mainly based character Peter Griffin with his wife Lois Griffin with their children Stewie Griffin, Chris Griffin and Meg Griffin, along with their talking dog Brian Griffin. Lot of Family guys humour comes from everyday problems and situations involving each member of the family and from family member usually Peter mentioned references that are quickly showed to the audience.
In terms of the family it is very unbalanced with characters being more important than others. The main character Peter is dim-witted and has not much sense of what is going on, with him usually resorting to drastic measures to accomplish things. His wife Lois is usually sensible but at times can act strange and can also be dim-witted at times. She usually is frustrated by the rest of the family's strange actions. The oldest child Chris, bares a huge resemblance to his father Peter of being dim-witted and not realising much of what is happening around him, Chris is bullied at school and goes to extreme measures at times to make friends which often backfire. The middle child Meg is the most irrelevant character of the family and is constantly teased by the rest of her family, mainly Peter. Meg is often depressed as she is often teased at school for being ugly which also results in her going to extreme measures to make friend which also usually backfire. The youngest child Stewie is most probably the smartest in the family even though he is only around one years old. Stewie has a strange posh English accent, with high level intelligence and uses high level of vocabulary whilst speaking to other people, he also is best friends with Brian and has a strange sexual orientation, which most likely shows that he is bisexual. For many seasons Stewie plotted to kill his mother Lois and had secret weapons in his room, he also had a time machine. The family pet dog Brian is also one of the smartest and has a high level of intelligence like Stewie. Brian in the show spends most of his time with Stewie but at times is seen at bars of clubs being drunk and talking to women.
The Sitcom is most likely for aged for teens and adults.
I think that for a sitcom whether it is a cartoon or not it must have a range of different characters with different personalities and each of them has to be in their own situations throughout and this is shown to be true when Catherine Seipp of the National Review Online described it as a "nasty but extremely funny" cartoon(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Guy#Reception_and_legacy). This links because to have a successful sitcom it usually has to involve some explicit things in a comical way.
Consumption: For a cartoon sitcom like Family Guy the age range of consumption is usually from teens to adults because of the humour and explicit imagery in the sitcom. This is because many teenagers like to relate to the characters of Family Guy especially Meg and Chris who deal with day to day situations just like many teens who watch the show. Adults are likely to watch the show as the show does have a good amount of adult humour and at times does reference back to the 1990's or 1980's with some of its jokes. Although some say that teens who watch Family Guy are most likely to misbehave in class because of how Family Guy usually portrays things to be chaotic and not in anyone's control."
The most popular sitcom in the USA is The Big Bang Theory.The Big Bang Theory is about a group of friends who are scientists and find themselves facing social problems. Sitcoms can also be cartoons and the most popular sitcom in the USA is Family Guy.
Family guy:
In terms of the family it is very unbalanced with characters being more important than others. The main character Peter is dim-witted and has not much sense of what is going on, with him usually resorting to drastic measures to accomplish things. His wife Lois is usually sensible but at times can act strange and can also be dim-witted at times. She usually is frustrated by the rest of the family's strange actions. The oldest child Chris, bares a huge resemblance to his father Peter of being dim-witted and not realising much of what is happening around him, Chris is bullied at school and goes to extreme measures at times to make friends which often backfire. The middle child Meg is the most irrelevant character of the family and is constantly teased by the rest of her family, mainly Peter. Meg is often depressed as she is often teased at school for being ugly which also results in her going to extreme measures to make friend which also usually backfire. The youngest child Stewie is most probably the smartest in the family even though he is only around one years old. Stewie has a strange posh English accent, with high level intelligence and uses high level of vocabulary whilst speaking to other people, he also is best friends with Brian and has a strange sexual orientation, which most likely shows that he is bisexual. For many seasons Stewie plotted to kill his mother Lois and had secret weapons in his room, he also had a time machine. The family pet dog Brian is also one of the smartest and has a high level of intelligence like Stewie. Brian in the show spends most of his time with Stewie but at times is seen at bars of clubs being drunk and talking to women.
The Sitcom is most likely for aged for teens and adults.
I think that for a sitcom whether it is a cartoon or not it must have a range of different characters with different personalities and each of them has to be in their own situations throughout and this is shown to be true when Catherine Seipp of the National Review Online described it as a "nasty but extremely funny" cartoon(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Guy#Reception_and_legacy). This links because to have a successful sitcom it usually has to involve some explicit things in a comical way.
Consumption: For a cartoon sitcom like Family Guy the age range of consumption is usually from teens to adults because of the humour and explicit imagery in the sitcom. This is because many teenagers like to relate to the characters of Family Guy especially Meg and Chris who deal with day to day situations just like many teens who watch the show. Adults are likely to watch the show as the show does have a good amount of adult humour and at times does reference back to the 1990's or 1980's with some of its jokes. Although some say that teens who watch Family Guy are most likely to misbehave in class because of how Family Guy usually portrays things to be chaotic and not in anyone's control."
Most popular sitcoms in the USA and UK:
The Big Bang Theory:The Big Bang Theory is the most popular sitcom in the USA.The Big Bang Theory is about four scientists that have bad social skills and despite their intelligence they find it hard to deal with social problems.The main for four characters are Sheldon,Leonard,Howard and Raj.Each character has their own personality and had different relationships with one another.Sheldon can be seen as the main character,he has the highest IQ out of all of them and often uses this to ridicule others.Sheldon is often selfish and resorts to drastic measures to get what he wants which often leads to mixed reactions from the others.Dispite Sheldon's high intelligence he finds it hard to adapt socially and is often very socially awkward.Leonard is best friends with Sheldon and can be seen as the co-main character.Leonard can be seen as the only straight man out of the four with him being the least socially awkward out of them and having the best luck with women with him dating apartment neighbour Penny.Howard is most closest friends with Raj.Howard is not as socially awkward as Raj and believes that he can attract women,this is often not the case but during the later seasons he gets a girlfriend who then becomes his wife.Raj is often shy of women but still has better luck with women than Howard despite his lack of confidence.Tom Gliatto of People remarked of season 5, "It's bright and obvious as a cartoon yet written with a clean, precise patter of jokes. It's also very well cast"
The Inbetweeners:The Inbetweeners can be seen to be the most popular sitcom in the United Kingdom.The Inbetweeners shows some similarities compared to The Big Bang Theory as it is mainly based around four characters who struggle to fit in socially.The inbetweeners are a bunch of teenagers who find it hard to deal with school and are socially awkward amongst others.The main characters are Will,Simon,Neil and Jay.The character of neil narrates throughout the show and explains things through his perspective.Will is the smartest out of all of them but finds himself in situations due to peer pressure from the others and often ridicules the others with their plans fail.Simon is the most sociable out of the four and has the best luck with women but has problems maintaining relationships with girls.Neil is the most laid back of the group but seems to be not socially aware but along with Simon has the best luck with girls despite this.Jay is shown to be the most confident but it is shown that this is not the case and that he constantly lies about having sexual encounters with girls to make himself look cool when in reality he has the least amount of sexual encounters out of the four.The sitcom has received a good reception with good compliments from viewers,for example, Joe McNally writing for The independent said "exquisitely accurate dialogue, capturing the feel of adolescence perfectly"(The independent newspaper).
Situations in a Sitcom: Situations in a sitcom are usually in a few set setting throughout the season,this is proved to be true from source (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/29/american-sitcoms-cities-depict-new-york-state-mind) "Sitcoms are shot mostly indoors on standing sets, so the impression of an American city you receive from watching one is necessarily cerebral, detached, made up of talk. You can’t form your own ideas about how the place looks or feels; instead you’re gathering the ideas of others, of the people who are inside, talking."
References: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/29/american-sitcoms-cities-depict-new-york-state-mind
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/coulsdon/reader.action?docID=10295063
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory#Reception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inbetweeners#Reception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Guy#Reception_and_legacy
No comments:
Post a Comment