American television has an excellent track record in sitcoms and long running series such as Frasier, Friends, and Cheers which were very popular. British sitcoms include My Family, The Vicar of Dibley, and The Royle Family. The main difference between British and American humour are that the British tend be more negative than the Americans who are always positive. As well as this, the British like making fun of themselves whereas the Americans take themselves more seriously. Spoofing seems to be a big part of American comedy and tend to use exaggeration situations in examples. The British have got many comedy programmes that focus on news and pop music such as “Have I Got News For You” and “Never Mind the Buzzcocks” whilst late night shows are American like Letterman and Leno.
Audiences define media because they are an essential to the process of communication. Media producers shape their products to meet the needs of the audience to ensure that the message is delivered at a certain time and place. The audience are the people who read newspapers, watch television and use the internet. Media producers always target a certain market segment through age, where they live and how they spend their leisure time. For example, My Family targets young families and Ugly Betty aims its program mainly at females.
Generally comedies aim to appeal to a wide audience because there is a mass market for them. The majority of people enjoy watching comedies as it provides a form of escapism and entertainment. During the 1960’s and 70’s people watched many sitcoms because the broadcasters BBC and ITV relied heavily on using comedy programmes to entertain people. However, in reference to Ugly Betty, it is targeted at a narrow market which is the younger female audience. This is because it emphasises on one girl’s miserable life that is turned around by becoming a successful woman in a magazine.
However, I found that programs like “My Family” still receive a large audience as it is aimed at a family mainstream audience. BARB stands for Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board BARB and measures television audiences. It conducts a weekly survey of reactions from 3,000 viewers and was set up in 1981. BARB shows the figures for how many people watch Ugly Betty and how many people watch My Family. Through BARB, I found that on the week of 10th of June 2007, 3.28 million people watched Ugly Betty whereas 6.10 million watched My Family on the 30th of September 2007 on BBC1. This shows that approximately twice as many people watched My Family rather than My Family. Therefore this suggests that My Family has gained more viewers because it appeals to a wider target market such as families whereas Ugly Betty mainly appeals to a limited target market that consists of women.
John Hartley (2001, Teaching Film and Media Studies: Teaching TV Sitcom – James Baker) divides sitcoms into two types which are the family sitcom and the workplace sitcom. The family sitcom is about family relationships which create a mix of tension, conflict and comedy. The families are not traditional as to families in reality as they are very eccentric for example Absolutely Fabulous, Cybil and Men Behaving Badly. Workplace sitcom focuses on relationships within the workplace through sexual tension and flirtation. There has been a growth in the number of workplace sitcoms on television particularly in the US (Thomas Schatz). This includes ‘Taxi’ and M*A*S*H that targets more affluent, up-market people. This suggests that Ugly Betty is a mix of both types of sitcoms as it revolves around family life as well as problems in her workplace.
Technology has had a huge impact on things like television because nowadays there a lot more advances. For example there is Sky Digital which has the use of the red button and recording a program without the use of a video. In turn, this growth has lead to sitcoms being a key ingredient in the success of channels such as UK Gold and UK Play. These channels provide an opportunity for audiences to watch their favourite comedies over and over again. Also there are DVD’s which stands for digital versatile disc. As a result from these, people can watch what they want when they want. Broadcast technologies are converging but not yet the way that they’re used. Even though radio is available on digital TV, some TV programmes are available on the internet and the internet is available in some form via the TV set, the main locations of use are still the kitchen for radio, lounge for TV and study for the internet. With all this choice and diversity, people can make selections about when, where and how they want to engage with the media. As a result, this affects sitcoms because there a lot more channels and programs nowadays therefore there isn’t a mass market.
Self surveillance is the idea that adverts and media products ask women to check their appearance and lifestyle constantly. This pulls aside the psychological factors that people who have a good appearance should succeed. This links to Ugly Betty because Betty’s role in the hit sitcom breaks this mould as she is not seen to be an attractive woman. Advertisements use this theory regularly when it makes people see their faults and insecurities therefore enticing people to purchase products. For example, products such as wrinkle creams focus on women’s bad points and persuade them to products as they believe this will make them acceptable. By using celebrity endorsement, this further encourages people to buy a product because people immediately associate the product with the celebrity and they believe that it is good.
The reception theory shows how every individual receives and interprets a text depending on their background such as gender, class and age affect (Stuart Hall). This suggests that the meaning of the text is determined within the relationship between the text and the reader. In turn, if the audience and the artist have a shared cultural background they are more likely to understand the text’s meaning. This links to Ugly Betty because many people can relate to her life and the problems which have occurred in her life. Therefore they are more likely to understand what she is going through as they have been through it themselves.
Blumler and Katz devised a uses and gratifications theory that states that people have different forms of satisfactions that need to be met. The psychological basis for this model is the hierarchy of needs identified by Maslow. The gratifications identified are surveillance which allows the audience to gain an understanding about society from documentaries or news. In addition, personal identity is where people watch television to look for characters that relate to themselves and find out how they feel about themselves. Also, entertainment which is also known as diversion is used for enjoyment reasons and lastly people create personal relationships with the characters in a text because they can sympathise with the lives of others (The Media Students Book page 148). All of the gratifications stated above links to Ugly Betty because it is form of escapism from peoples reality and gives them a chance to relax. The audience of Ugly Betty may have formed their own personal relationship and personal identity with her character because they may not have been accepted whether it’s in the workplace or with friends. Therefore people can easily relate to her character as they are going through the same difficulties and this can be a way to encourage people to continue to watch the program. This can lead to the water cooler effect which means word of mouth and get people talking about the show. This is beneficial for Ugly Betty because it gains free publicity.
Programs fall into recognisable categories so producers can program, marketing and schedule easily. TV programmes are grouped according to their genre such as sport programs, documentaries, game shows, and in this case comedy. Each genre has a system of values which determines its characters, dramatic, conflicts and solutions to problems. Genres develop familiar one dimensional character who acts out a predicable story within a familiar setting. The plots develop through conventional conflicts to predictable resolution which is varied to keep audiences interested.
Ugly Betty is about an ordinary young woman that tries to fit into the world of high fashion as an assistant to the editor of a magazine. She is a figure which people can easily relate to as she is seen as an unglamorous person though with a good heart but has a problematic life. Betty’s problems between her home life and the workplace show the typical problems and dilemmas of an ordinary person. Her character is like a female heroine that all young women aspire to as she is not a typical stereotype of a beautiful person but her dreams have come true through hard work and determination. As a result,
Betty gives hope to young people who think that they are not good enough in terms of their looks and personality to pursue their dreams in spite of how they feel about themselves. This links to the ideology of the program which is people should aspire to their dreams no matter whom they are or where they come from.
Betty is shown to have a dreadful physical appearance which is seen through her glasses, bad hair and braces that is now associated with the character. As well as this, her dress sense is quite flamboyant and different to other people’s tastes therefore making her stand out from a crowd. The misc en scene suggests that the location is in New York because of the yellow taxis and the busy streets. Also, there are several camera angle shots such as close up shots that are used to emphasise the expression on someone’s face e.g. when Marco’s mother found out the truth; that he is gay and when Marco was kissed Betty. This was used to make the audience feel uncomfortable about the character. In addition, panning shots were used regularly throughout the program.
The other characters in Ugly Betty also follow the structure of a comedy because there always tends to be certain type of people. For example, in Friends there is Joey who plays the ‘dumb’ character, Rachel who plays the ‘ditzy’ character and Ross who plays the ‘geek. In relation to Ugly Betty, the scene shows the generic formulas of sitcoms as mentioned above. There is always a chorus person who in this case is Mark, the ‘gay’ guy, and a straight person who is not funny who is played Ignacio’s (Betty’s father). To a certain extent, all the characters in Ugly Betty play funny roles therefore this is breaking the codes and conventions rules. This is because a sitcom always has certain types of characters.
Suspense plays an important part in the narrative structure of sitcoms. Many sitcom plots involve a plan or scheme which involves duping others or pretence. Ugly Betty follows this form which can be seen in the scene where Marco, the ‘gay’ guy pretends to be going out with Betty as his mother does not know that he is gay. This is comical because Betty and Marco make an odd couple and Betty’s family have to be a part of this façade. Another type of suspense plot involves misunderstandings or ignorance as a consequence of events of which only a viewer is fully aware (worksheet). This is known as comic irony. The final type of suspense that plots normally involve is a comic surprise in which the characters and audience are kept in ignorance until the revelation.
There are three main audience theories that play a part a key role in the plot. Firstly, the theory of Barthes which is called the enigma code plays a key role in the plot which means that there is a problem, puzzle and a mystery. This gets normally gets resolved by the end of the program. This is done to capture the audience’s interests. For example, the main problem in this episode is that Marco does not feel accepted by this mother so he is always trying to please her. This is solved when at the end of the program; Marco confronts his mother by telling her that he is gay. This has an unhappy ending as his mother doesn’t want to be a part of his life anymore due to this and walks out the house. Another audience theory that is used within the programme is Propp’s theory which involves the princess, helper, father and villain. The princess in Ugly Betty is Betty as she is someone who everyone turns to for help. This is shown in chapter 10 of the DVD when Daniel is racing his sister to print a new edition in Mode the magazine and he turns to Betty. The father is usually the helper as well as a father because he is calm person who always comes to Betty’s aid when she needs advice. The villain in this program is Wilhemina which can be seen at the beginning of chapter 12 in the DVD when she is trying to seduce Bradford (who owns Meade publications) because she is after his money.
The message of the story is that beauty is on the inside and dreams are possible no matter who you are or what you look like. Also, the program shows the ideas and attitudes of the ideal “Middle American” family who struggle in terms of money. The ending of the scene shows that family is important highlighting every character’s family being with each other and looking after each other.
In this essay, I have attempted to show why comedies such as Ugly Betty attract and appeal to large audiences. Situation comedies appeal to people because it involves many different factors such as entertainment to ensure laughter within the household as well as providing an escape from reality for the majority of the audience. Sitcoms avoid the audience getting emotionally attached as they understand the norms of society and the audience perceives them as harmless. Characterisation is the way in which a character behaves and interacts with other characters and their surroundings. After thorough research; I believe that this is the most important contributory factor in a good situation comedy because it enables the audience to relate to certain characters. Furthermore, all situation comedies have a title, a theme, situations in which characters find themselves and locations where the action takes place. These can also help to contribute to why people enjoy situation comedies. The program Ugly Betty shows that the main character, Betty is 'trapped' in a position where the recognition she wants is not attained due to the circumstances they find themselves in. This adds to the humour in situation comedy. However, I think that the main problem with sitcoms nowadays is that it is designed to appeal to a narrow audience rather than a mass market like in the 1960’s. Postmodern audience is divided into niche markets rather than the mass audience of 1960’s. Ugly Betty hits well within this by appealing to its younger female audience.
