How does 'The Royle family' challenge the conventions in a sitcom?

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Tessa Neathey 10N

Media coursework                                                                                                                      

How does ‘The Royle family’ challenge the conventions in a sitcom?

The aim of a sitcom is to make us laugh. It does this by showing the main character’s situations in a humorous way, which the audience will find funny. Most sitcoms are half an hour long. In most sitcoms there are a small group of characters that centre around a few settings. The plots of sitcoms are usually contained within one episode and most problems are resolved within an episode.

I am going to compare a traditional sitcom that displays these features, ‘Friends’ with one that challenges the conventions, ‘The Royle Family’. Often sitcoms challenge the conventions by using different types of humour such as taboo or dysphemisms or a different plot structure.

The title music is very important to a sitcom as it sets the mood for the show. In the more traditional sitcoms such as ‘Friends’, ‘Happy days’ and ‘only fools and horses’ the theme tunes are upbeat and cheery and their lyrics relate to either the title or the theme of the show. For example the ‘Friends’ theme tune has the lyrics “I’ll be there for you….” Whereas ‘The Royle family’ uses grim, sober music. The opening credits of ‘The Royle family’ do not show clips from previous episodes like ‘Friends’ but shoe each member of the family sitting down as the actor’s name appears on the screen. The effect of this on the audience sets them up for a sitcom that is different from the norm.

Some of the more conventional sitcoms use characters that are stereotypes. The do this so that the humour used by the characters can be exaggerated. An example of this would be Joey from ‘Friends’ who is the stereotype of an Italian-American ladies man, because this stereotype has been used by the writers can play on his background to make the audience laugh. One of the ways ‘The Royle family’ fits in with the conventions is the way they also use stereotype of a fat, lazy middle-aged man who watches television all the time. Characters are especially important in family based sitcoms because we can identify the character who most fits our age range.

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The conventions of the language used in sitcoms depends a lot on which country it originates from. If the sitcom is English e.g. ‘Only fools and horses’ it may use cockney slang if it is based in London or informal language if it is a conventional American sitcom such as ‘Friends’. But in most conventional sitcoms regardless of nationality there is very little swearing and even if it is used then it is unlikely to be serious. I think the reason for this is because traditional sitcoms are sometimes on earlier in the evening and so attract a more family ...

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