An entire generation grew up watching what could possibly be known as the most aired show in television history; Friends. Since the year of my birth, 1994, the audience has applauded this show and watched the first episode in joy, and shed tears of sadness during the last episode of its 10th season. The show not only gave the entertainment we demanded, but also alluded to as some of the most important cultural issues during the 1990s. However, does it really define who we are culturally or what social norms we tend to pose in our daily lives? The show had many groundbreaking aspects that attached the the masses to the show, which complemented the creation of the six relatable characters that we know as “Friends”. Friends reached its peak of …show more content…
It became a difficult task to film with live audience, as the background noise was something that affected the actors' next dialogue. Through many edits and takes, the directors finalized on making each episode exactly 22-minutes which allowed them to emphasis their quality rather than quantity. Marta Kauffman, along with her production team and casts were insistent of labeling friends as a “Generation X” show that was made for the Baby Boomer generation. Kaufmann, being a baby boomer herself believed that what the characters are experiencing on the show is universal; it is easy to relate to. In a real-life setting, it may be perceived as stereotypical , but they prove to have a deeper meaning than that. It is very similar to what Stuart Hall mentions in his writing about encoding and decoding a message. A sender may have one notion while delivering the message, while the receiver may have a different background of what that message is suppose to decode. Similarly, Kaufmann and her producers focused on delivering realism rather than morals and lessons. Sitcoms were not always like this. TV shows focused on having friends or groups hang out at work or cafes, for leisure and the humour was based on wit and situational comedy. However, the change Friends provided was more meaningful about the differences of American friendships in …show more content…
However, this point cannot discredit the innovation and success of the show overall. A sitcom is not the right place to have conversations about race; it would not have fit in the light-heartedness of the show. The appeal of the characters on Friends stems from the viewers’’ ability to identify with them regardless of their race or gender. Friends could possible go down as the most entertaining sitcom to be aired on television that teaches us a lot about friendship and living through your twenties. It contains fights, arguments, breakups, love and most importantly the revolution it created for a young-adult transitioning into becoming an adult. At the end of the day, it will always be perceived as a TV show, but viewers will always have the connection of what it taught
Now, the new sitcoms have introduced new family situations, and controversies around them. However, these family members aren’t the sweet, funny, semi-normal characters that were adored in (Full House). They seem to have very different, weird and somehow funny personalities. (Modern Family) introduces the typical “mom, dad, and three kids” family along with an old man married to a younger Columbian woman and gay men with an adopted Asian baby. These new sitcoms like Modern Family introduce family diversity, something that wasn’t exactly present in older sitcoms. Another difference between the old sitcoms and the new is that the humor is a bit more old school. Now the older sitcoms were very seldom and profane and they relied on more classic, clean cut direct humor. Current sitcoms often include less G-rated humor, relying on crude humor to get laughs. There’s not much harm in that though, as long as it doesn’t go overboard. Older sitcoms were based on more functional families, where newer ones tend to be based on dysfunctional families; new sitcoms, Modern Family especially, rely on this dysfunctionality to make their viewers laugh. Older sitcoms, like Full House, had a lot of feel-good moments of bonding between family characters, but new sitcoms seem to take away from that
In the article “TV’s Callous Neglect of Working- Class America” written by Noel Murray explains the modern day TV shows un-relatable plots to Americans today. Murray describes how shows in the ‘50s through the ‘90s were relatable to Americans and how they lived their lives. The TV shows then were able to get such great reviews because the jobs the actors had in the shows were average money making jobs. The characters are meticulously when it came to how they used the money they earned. However, as the years have passed, the shows that are on today are not as relatable to Americans. The shows express the fantasy, perfect life that everyone strives to have, but in reality, it is not possible for every family. The programs on today do not convey the difficulties that average Americans face each day, causing the shows to become more and more relatable to average TV viewers.
Younger generations and the more vulnerable in society can be influenced in avoiding peer pressure, but for the individuals filled with wisdom, the shows can reflect based on American modern society. Everybody Loves Raymond and Full House are great shows who faces similar life obstacles a typical person living in the US has today. As a result, most modern family comedy sit-coms are reflecting our society’s generations and the more vulnerable. Based on the success of early family sit coms, American’s adapted to a fast pace lifestyle with the help of modern
Americans love their television, and television loves the American family. Since the 1970’s, the depiction of the American family on television has gone through many changes. In the 70s, the Brady Bunch showed an all-white nuclear family. Today, Modern Family, shows a family of blended races, ages, and sexualities. For thirty years, the sitcom family has reflected the changing society of its time and there is no exception of this for the families in The Brady Bunch and Modern Family. The lifestyle, social aspects, and economics situations of the Bradys and the Pritchett-Dunphys are similar in their attempts to portray the lives of families of their time, but differ drastically in the types of families they represent. The characters in Modern
The word sitcom is short for Situation Comedy. A good sitcom story idea places the star (or supporting character) into a situation in need of a resolution, which will cause the character to respond in unexpected, exaggerated, and hugely sidesplitting ways (Rannow, pg. 13). A comedy now days are different from how they were in the 1960's and 1970's though. Today directors use sexual content and foul language to make people laugh and do not usually have a purpose or point to get across to the audience with each show. In earlier comedy, such as The Brady Bunch, Director Jack Arnold tried have a lesson learned in each episode while still maintaining a sense of humor, minus the foul language and sexual content. Although the show is not extremely funny to most people it is still a classic show that deserves to be remembered.
Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the 1990s, nearly 14% of the television families were African-American (Bryant 2001). These statistics obviously show the substantial impact our American culture has had on African-American television families.
Seinfeld’s catch was that it was “a show about nothing.” But the only real truth in that statement was that it was a show about nothing in particular; it was a situation comedy without a specific situation. What made the show unique and revolutionary was that it focused on the lives of four adults who were anything but what television and society itself had taught us to expect adults to be. Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer resembled more closely four children who never grew up, or never learned what it meant to be an adult. By the age of 40, none of them had spouses, children, or serious careers (I say ‘serious’ because Jerry did have a career, but it was very non-traditional—he was a standup comedian). Yet it can’t be said that they were unfulfilled or less happy in their situations.
"Seinfeld" was always present in my home during its nine-year run on Thursday nights as "Must See TV," and the social commentary was welcome humor. However, not everyone was thrilled by Seinfeld's prominence in American society and the subject matter with which Seinfeld dealt. Many Christians, Jews and other minorities had problems with the show's portrayal of their respective groups. Despite criticism from ethnic and religious groups, Jerry Seinfeld and his show were possibly the best sources of social commentary that America's mainstream had to offer. The show is missed in today's current television line-up and no post-"Seinfeld" sitcom has come to the same level of cultural criticism.
For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary
...d what they consider entertaining or even humorous in a sitcom. Overall, modern sitcoms rely on sex, violence, and the most ridiculous situations that you could ever find yourself in to create entertainment, and although Mary Tyler Moore does have some of this, such as the “Chuckles Bites the Dust” episode, for the most part the show relies on the contemporary ideas of the time. The ideas that they explored was the feminist movement of course. This is why the show Mary Tyler Moore holds up as a historic show rather than a comedy. The audience has simply changed what they find as funny over time.
MTV’s reality show Buckwild and NBC’s sitcom Friends may seem to have very few things in common, but if a closer look is taken, there are a couple similarities that are able to link the two shows together. Not only do both shows document the lives of post-college-aged adults, but they also focus specific social classes and the stereotypes attributed to them. Buckwild was a reality TV series that was abruptly cut short after airing for only one season. The reality show followed a group of 20-something year olds around Sissonville, West Virginia and recorded how the small town kids got their kicks. From making a swimming pool in the bed of a garbage trunk to shooting potato guns across the holler, the show seemed to capture a rare glimpse at a hillbilly theme park. On the contrary, the cast of Friends had the city of New York as their playground, though they rarely left the comfort of their favorite coffee house, Central Perk. The sitcom aired for ten seasons, probably due to its relatable nature and sarcastic sense of humor.
Since television came into existence, it has evolved into a useful tool to spread ideas, both social and political, and has had a great effect on the generations growing up with these heavily influential shows. To these younger generations, television has taken the role of a teacher, with the task of creating a social construction by which many of us base our personal beliefs and judgments on. This power allows television shows take the opportunity to address problems in a manner that many audiences can take to heart. Many television shows present controversial topics in a comical matter, in some ways to soften the blow of hard-hitting reality at the same time bringing attention to the issue being addressed. In the television show, Everybody Hates Chris, season one, episode four entitled “Everybody Hates Sausage”, the stereotypes that continue to fuel racism are examined in a satirical motif, and class is presented in a comical way, but carries serious undertones which present a somewhat realistic view of the different social strata within the United States.
Most people’s lives in the 21 century are in some way affected by media and it is affecting the way individuals preform daily tasks. Television shows are a great example of this; they show the development of characters over a period and display how greater social forces shape what they have become. C. Wright mills uses a term the sociological imagination, it is the theory that people’s lives are shaped essentially by greater social forces and society’s expectations rather than biology and genetics. The show Modern Family is a good example of the sociological imagination because it has a diverse cast and the characters have many personalities, wants, and desires. Modern Family is a television show that has stories of separate individual families who are related. Claire and Mitch are siblings and Jay is their father. The families are Claire, Phil, Alex, Hailey and Luke. Mitch, Cam and Lilly and Jay, Gloria and Mani.
There are many types of people in the world and many types of friends. Knowing that, it becomes all the more important to select the right people so that one might have the correct friends, but which types of friends are required? There are ten different types of friends that everybody should have, each fitting into one of three categories: the occasional friends, the benefactors and the greats.
In life we come across many people. Some will hate us while others will adore us. The ones who hate us can be referred to as enemies and the ones who show us adoration are referred to as friends. There are three types of friends. They are the aquaintinces we make in school, the friends we loose as one grows, and best friends who may stray, but never too far away.