CASE STUDY: SITCOM AND GENDER Text: Men Behaving Badly

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CASE STUDY: SITCOM AND GENDER Text:     Men Behaving Badly

Earlier, we looked at Taflinger's descriptions of the kind of character types to be found in the sitcom universe. With this kind of formulaic approach, it is hardly surprising that sit-com should be so heavily reliant upon stereotypes to fill its environments. The images of men and women with which we are presented in sit-com have to be easy to recognize and relate to. They do, however, raise some key questions about the way in which we are positioned in relation to these types in order to generate laughter.

We suggested previously that the humour of sit-com often arises from the undermining of a shared set of ideas about what constitutes 'normal'. Unsurprisingly, then, gender becomes an obvious arena in which humour can be generated from the contrast between expectations of the audience and the behaviour or attitudes of the characters. For example, male sitcom protagonists are often marked by some clear deviation from the dominant views of the qualities which make up masculinity. Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, for example, demonstrates masculine drive and ambition, but is constantly thwarted in his attempts to establish control of his hotel, his staff, his guests and his wife by his overemphasis on the superficialities of class distinctions and social niceties. Similarly, Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses suffers because he lacks the professional skills to realize his business plans and because he is handicapped by the brother and grandfather (or uncle in later series) whom he has to look after. In both cases, their comedy flaws derive from a misplaced feminine trait -in Fawlty's case, the desire for conformity and for acceptance into a class community and in Del Boy's case, the need to protect and nurture his family.

On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of sitcoms whose humour derives from the exaggeration, rather than the undermining, of existing stereotypes. In this case, we are being asked to examine our own ideological positions in relation to the programmes, acknowledging and finding humour in the extremes of the protagonists' representations. Classic examples of this kind of approach may be found in Till Death Us Do Part or Rising Damp. Alf Garnett and Rigsby embody a range of social prejudices, particularly linked to gender and race.

In both cases, the unacceptable nature of their views is tempered by the characters' placement in a clearly dysfunctional or abnormal 'family' setup and by the cyclical nature of sitcom narratives in which they are unable to make any progressor development through life. As such, it is made safe to laugh at the characters and their prejudices, recognizing our own normality as an audience. The risk inherent in this approach is that the audience begin to identify with, rather than against the protagonists, a risk exacerbated By Garnett ana Rigsby's  narrative centrality as well as the casting of well-known faces in those roles. Johnny Speight, the writer of Till Death Us Do Part, has lamented in a number of articles that some members of the audience have taken to their hearts a character that he clearly intended as a caricature.

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The ambiguity of audience's reaction to this kind of sitcom, coupled with the complex ways in which humour and comedy filter the ideological processes of the text, create the potential for multiple readings. This has allowed some debate as to the progressive potential of certain sitcoms and their ability to challenge or question established representations, particularly in the field of gender. Debates on the political importance of sitcom have tended to argue that the excessive nature of the representations offered and the subversive power of laughter and comedy allow dominant views to be opened up to examination, so that their ...

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