And of course during the rest of the episode Gary does most of these stereotypical things and the audience laughs at the fact that Gary does these.
Gary then states his views on women:
- Obsessed with chocolate (this idea that woman are controlled by their hormones and not their intelligent)
- Wear skimpy clothes, “a skirt the four tea bags, but complain when men look at them”.
- Always saying “ooh look at those curtains”, this stereotypical domestic role of woman.
- Know about as much about men's sexual desires as they do about wiring a plug, this may have two assumptions, that woman aren’t as interested in sex as men, and that woman are not all practical or technical.
- “You blame as when you have periods, you blame us when you don’t”, stereotype of woman as ‘moody’, ruled by their emotions, irrational.
Tony then arrives to let Gary know that their pub is closing down, both shocked Gary walks out abandoning Dorothy, this is a stereotypical think that men don’t care about woman as much as booze, or footie.
In scene 2 Gary and Tony have a drink with the new pub landlord; the drink is seen as a stereotypical bonding way of men.
Scene 3 in Debs’ flat is a good scene because it shows how careless men are, when Tony shows up with a condom machine badly wrapped, this also supports the stereotypical idea of men being obsessed with sex. Debs’ flat is stereotypically ‘feminine’ in that it is tidy, clean, bright, homely and tasteful unlike Gary and Toni’s flat which is dirty and overloaded with beer cans. When Debby tells Tony about her interest in astrology Tony then gives her a stereotypical male view of it “guys don’t believe in all that bollocks, unless they want to get off with a girl who really thinks (it’s true)”. Tony then makes a joke with a sexual overtone, “you show me yours, I’ll show you mine”, again this stereotypical idea that men only think about sex.
In scene 4 Tony and Gary go o n a pub crawl to find a new pub, as mentioned they approach this as if buying a house, as it will become their home from now on. Gary makes a list of what to look for in a pub, the list includes taking a good look at the outside step (when they are drunk), and local take-ways (stereotypical lad’, them getting drunk and getting the munchies). Over the scene Gary and Tony start dancing drunkenly in the street, this is a very stereotypical.
In scene 5 we see Gary’s flat which has been turned in a pub with the old pubs filthy toilets and the optics. They then start having a conversation about ‘girly’ words like: ‘loo’, ‘doobry’, ‘oops’, ‘potty’, ‘flip flop’, being different from ‘guy’ words such as ‘carburettor’, ‘penalty shoot-out’. The girly’ words have a more soft and connotations of home, where as the guy’ words are linked to stereotypical male obsessions like cars and football. When Dorothy comes in and Gary tries to explain the importance of pubs to men by comparing a pub to cathedral, suggesting that drinking is their religion. Gary then enacts all of his bad habits mentioned earlier. When Gary goes to the pub he lives to-do notes for Dorothy, and she from furry goes to the pub and does a role reversal and acts like a stereotypical ‘lad’ does. Now what Dorothy does is, in effect, to expose the dominant ideology that says it’s socially acceptable for men to behave like this, but totally taboo for woman to do the same. The humour in this scene comes through the surprise of the role reversal/breaking of stereotypes showing us what we do not expect to see.
The second comedy I am going to look at is AbFab, now the humour comes form the characters breaking the stereotypical representations of woman, unlike MBB where the humour comes form the exaggerated stereotypes. AbFab is an almost entirely female sitcom, there are hardly any men in the programme, and those that appear are usually either gay or unimportant (seen as sex objects, as woman would be seen in MBB and earlier sitcoms. The humour in this sitcom comes from Patsy and Edina acting in this extreme, and in social terms unacceptable behaviour.
The episode of AbFab that I’ve studied is the first ever episode made of AbFab. In scene 1 and throughout the episode we see that Edina breaks the stereotype of being a ‘good mother’ and there is a theme of ‘role reversal’ in which Edina is, is a teenager and Saffy is the responsible mother figure.
The scene opens with Edina’s room and she’s in bed as she had a hangover from the previous night. This is where we see that she had none of the qualities of a ‘mother’: as she is messy, get drunk and smokes to excess (we see bottles, ash trays and cigarette buds all over the room), she is irresponsible (as she cant be asked to get up to go to work), she is lazy and she is very loud. The role reversal is seen when Saffy comes in and starts shouting at Edina to get up and go to work (as if a parent would do to their child), Edina reacts by hiding the drink bottle under her duvet so that Saffy doesn’t see it (again as a teenager would hide drinks or fags). The comedy comes from Edina breaking the stereotypical ‘mother’ image.
In the second scene we see Edina’s kitchen and again that is also covered with drink bottles everywhere. We see the Edina is not at all domestic because she confuses the washing machine with a cupboard, this reveals that she is not a stereotypical domestic housewife and the humour comes from that.
Saffy is presented as a stereotypical mother should be: caring, responsible, practical, concerned and trying to tell Edina the difference between right and wrong (as a mother should instead it’s the daughter). Edina acts in a very ‘unfeminine’ manner, as she is loud, vulgar, aggressive and childish (like a stereotypical teenager would be perceived as).
In scene 3 we meet Patsy for the first time, now as soon as she enters the room we can tell that Saffy doesn’t like her (like when parents meet daughters boyfriends and think their not good enough). Patsy arrives in a smart suit (this reflects the dominance over Edina and as if she is the man in the partnership). She has a sixties ‘beehive’ hairdo, this is a throwback to the time that Patsy and Edina are stuck in. now Edina sees her relationship with Patsy more important that the motherly relationship with Saffy ( un stereotypical, as mothers should put their kids before everything else), similar to the relationship in MBB, where they see mates more important than girlfriends.
In scene 4 we see Edina and Patsy doing things to excess like drinking, smoking (these are ‘unfeminine’ vices), later we see them taking drugs like it’s a everyday, normal thing. Edina seems to have few maternal instinct and Patsy none, Patsy asks what’s the point of having kids when all they do is ruin your body, and not come with you to fashion shows, Patsy only sees the disadvantages. Patsy is independent and in control other own sexuality without any maternal hang- ups at all (like a stereotypical man, who has one night stands all the time and doesn’t care). Patsy breaks the stereotypical traditional feminine stereotypes as her life seems to revolve around; drinking, smoking, bitching, drugs, and drugs, those things you would expect only a man to do, this breaks all feminine stereotypes, and that’s why it’s seen as funny to the audience as they would never expect a woman to do that.
In scene 5 we meet Bubble, she is perceived as and extreme ‘dumb-blonde’ stereotypes, her name presumably refers to the fact that she is an ‘air-head’, but also she is reversing the stereotype of the ‘efficient’ female assistant. In this scene Edina is very much her own boss (as you would expect a stereotypical man to be), also you see how AbFab is a ‘world of woman’, as there are no men in it or the fact that no men are mentioned. We also see how ruthless, insincere, heartless and totally lacking maternal feelings Edina is (you wouldn’t expect to see woman like that, it breaks away from the stereotypical representation of woman) when she organises the fashion show.
Scene 6 is backstage at the fashion show where we see Patsy and Edina taking the traditional, male role of initiating casual sex and the two ‘male models’ taking the traditional female role of sex objects.
Scene 7 in back at the office where Edina and Patsy arrive completely drunk and vulgar, this breaks the ‘feminine’ stereotypes that are meant to be responsible.
In the last scene we see Edina having a flashback when she was younger going home drunk, the flashback shows how they have not changed and refused to grow into ‘responsible’ women.
AbFab breaks all the female stereotypes by being: rude, aggressive, treating men like sex objects, smoking, drinking, taking drunk, ignoring the maternal instinct, basically acting like a stereotypical man.
To conclude the humour in Men Behaving Badly’ comes from the characters exaggerating the stereotypical roles and duties of men and woman, whereas the humour in Absolutely Fabulous comes from the fact that the characters break all of the female stereotypes and act like a stereotypical man.
