American TV comedy often seems more 'universal' in its appeal than intensely 'local' British sit-coms, but both rely on stereotyped representations of social

Gutemberg Dantas Araujo 24/03/2004 Journalism and Sociology/ Film studies

Tutor: Dr Bruce Hanlin

“American TV comedy often seems more ‘universal’ in its appeal than intensely ‘local’ British sit-coms, but both rely on stereotyped representations of social class”.

Discuss this proposition, illustrating your answer with appropriate examples.

Sit-coms in television history have been one of the most important genres for expressing the values of the middle and lower classes in our society, not in order to make fun of them but to express the best of them in a softer way. For the general public today, the sit-com is like the pantomime was for the Victorians. British comedy still has a Victorian taste, but it is one that is only recognized and truly appreciated by the British, which makes the British sitcoms less universal, and it does also express a more localised British culture.

In reality, the appeal of American sit-coms in relation to the British is clear. In the UK, the use of social class stereotypes is more intense; they rely on a more complex social background than the US. Although it is generally felt that UK culture is gradually becoming less defined by the stereotypes of social class, it is notable that in the last five years of television, many sit-coms in UK television continue to approach mainly social class issues, which have more to do with the working class than ever before. For example, in the last year there were two productions that clearly illustrate this point: Shameless and Little Britain, recent productions by Channel 4 and the BBC, used the stereotype of the English working class. In one way it is not a universal appeal, the cultural facts make these productions localised for the UK audience.

Shameless was about a family living on benefits in a council flat in Manchester. The main theme was their struggle to survive every day life. The central characters are seven children who where abandoned by their mother and are now looked after largely by their older sister because the father is an irresponsible, but arguably charming, alcoholic living on benefits. Little Britain centred around two actors who created a series of sketches; different situations which portrayed many peculiar stereotypes in English society, from a shoplifting seventeen year old girl living in east London, to a ‘disabled’ man in Birmingham on benefits who shamelessly uses his generous best friend to help him with the basic daily tasks, despite the fact that he is perfectly capable of doing these tasks himself.

These cultural issues make British sit-coms funny to those who recognise the social types, but if it is to be shown to an American audience the essential part of the funny elements are lost, principally because it is not related to Americans in the same way it relates to the English. In American sit-coms the appeal is more universal; there are more general jokes and the use of class is less than in the UK. Sit-coms like Friends and Will and Grace have a more general approach and the dramatisation of social issues is almost nonexistent. The jokes are directly related to the actors. When Will from Will and Grace wants to make a joke he makes one, it is not his background and his social status which is the joke but what he says. In Friends, the audience can observe the same phenomenon. Joe’s jokes have more to do with himself, or other members of the cast, than about his new girlfriend or the fact that she is from a working class family.

Situation comedy in Britain evolved from radio comedy which in turn had its roots in music hall and variety. American sit-com developed from radio ‘soap opera’, weekly drama series which were devised to attract audiences in order to sell products. The domestic setting predominated in both variations of the form. Many early American sit-coms were transferred from radio to television.

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Radio comedy assumed a sit-com format to attract a broader audience and to encourage listeners to listen to the shows on a regular basis. Stopping to listen to a sit-com radio show at a certain time of the week became a habitual form of entertainment for many families. For the television industry, the formula was already developed by the radio and, like everything else which is successful, copying this form was inevitable.

Most sit-coms fit into our reality principally because they try to use ‘real’ people in realistic situations. The programmes only last half an hour and for a fixed number of episodes. In the basic sit-com, the location is the same and every episode is self-contained; it has an end (most of the time happy) in the thirty minute slot, which allows the narrative to flow at a different pace in different weeks. The stereotypical fashion of the characters and their social types provide the humour and the ideology of the sit-com.

Sit-com cannot function without stereotypes. In a space as brief as a thirty-minute sit-com, immediacy is imperative, and for a character to be immediately funny that character must be a recognisable type; a representation or embodiment of a set of ideas or a manifestation of a cliché.

For the American sit-com, the stereotype has to have a more universal appeal, where in Britain these stereotypes are more easily recognized in our local society, and the male and female stereotype interacts with the surroundings, making it part of the actor’s character. However, audiences can notice a change in American sit-coms in the last five years. They are using a more straight-forward form in sit-coms like Will and Grace. In this show, there is a new use of gay stereotypes being very open but with a universal appeal. Will is a camp ‘butch’ gay guy whereas his best friend is camp and feminine, perhaps the funniest of the two of them.

In Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, there is the camp gay guy who interacts with an ugly and fat flatmate. But the jokes and situations in which they are involved do not have a universal appeal because their jokes exploit additional stereotypes in English society that make the programme incomprehensible for anyone other than the British. The use of such stereotypes promotes the illusion of community which can be recognized by an audience. Making fun of any strange behaviour which is not acceptable in society, one way or another, is part of the sit-com format.

Situation comedy is seen as light entertainment. According to TV producers, its function is to attract funding and to catch the audience early in the evening, offering a laugh which temporarily gives them an escape from reality. In the early days of television they were seen more as a kind of family programme. Nowadays, this light form of entertainment appeals more to a middle class part of society where after a hard day of work individuals want to watch TV without stress. It is more a form of general entertainment than anything else. Such entertainments were deliberately escapist, in that they allowed audiences to briefly recapture the sense of community destroyed by industrialisation and urban expansion.

There are three possible locations in which a situation comedy takes place. The first is the home and it is generally based around a family situation. The second is the workplace and the situation that occurs as a result of interaction between characters in the work environment. The third area is less clearly defined but involves a group somehow connected in a situation outside that of the workplace.

Shameless uses the characters’ neighbourhood to plot the situations, where Friends uses a flat and a local café, in which the characters usually meet. The use of similar locations guarantees a more realistic experience for the viewer. For Shameless’ viewers, the association is automatically recognised by an English audience. However, for the American audience the association would not be clear. The English audience is used to the number of council areas around many of its cities where Americans are not. In Friends, the locations appeal to both nationalities; friends meeting in a coffee shop and living together can be recognized in either country in the same way. The connection with reality engages the public more and makes Friends a more universal and commercial program than Shameless, where the scenery can only be recognized by an English audience.

Despite the fact that most English sit-coms use local stereotypes, some English sit-coms have been successfully translated to American television. The show Absolutely Fabulous was originally a successful show in the UK and became one of the rare examples of a show which was screened in America and achieved the same success as it did in Britain. The only problem was that before the series could go on view, the producers decided to change many of the jokes which, for the American audience, were considered to be too rude.

Plans to show the series in the USA met with problems because it was regarded as too vulgar and too pro-drug, as were the scripts for an ‘American remake’ submitted to ABC TV after Roseanne Barr acquired the rights. In the end, the first British series was screened in the USA in 1994 and met with success, winning two Emmys (television’s equivalent of the Oscar). It achieved a cult status in the USA, as it did in Australia.

What the American producer judged as too vulgar was only a representation of British society during the Thatcher era. Absolutely Fabulous is no more than a production which explores the 70’s and 80’s in the present context. In one way or another, it is a portrait of English feminism and a society where post-industrial Britain had strong capitalist roots. The past and the Thatcherite present are, at times, played off against each other to produce comedy and social comment while at other points they meld together in hilarious confusion.

The main characters spend most of their time shopping and drinking, where Edina’s daughter is more linked to nature and late twentieth century values (the post-feminism era). She only drinks natural drinks and dresses with a feminist attitude. It is the clash of both present and past which makes the comedy. The exchange of values in the way that the mother’s role, which is to look after her daughter, is inverted, and the confusion with the past by Edina and Patsy which transforms Absolutely Fabulous into an international sit-com.

In conclusion, there is one answer for the question ‘Why is the English sit-com not that universal?’ British TV productions have had some success exporting their productions. However, the answer rests with the cultural aspects of the programmes themselves. The English audience is more open to American productions due to the fact that they are more universal; the jokes, the plots, and the sceneries can be incorporated into any culture with no need of any adjustment. The British sit-coms usually explore a more local stereotype and surroundings which make the export of these productions almost impossible. The amount of cultural ideology, which makes them funny, cannot be translated in many cases.

Productions like Friends and Will and Grace explore more the actors’ personalities and lives than their surroundings. The cultural aspects in many cases are nonexistent. When the shoplifter from Little Britain appears, the joke is often not what she says but her accent and the way she dresses. It is a clear association with somebody who lives in the east end of London - the stereotype - which makes it funny, the association of the audience with reality. For a Londoner, this association comes automatically because each viewer probably knows someone like that, or would have seen somebody or even heard such an accent before.

This kind of aspect cannot be translated, and in the British sit-com these references play an integral part. American productions are more appealing to an international audience because they do not focus excessively on local cultural aspects.