This essay is to give an analysis of the television series, The Big Bang Theory CBS (2007- ) specifically the first episodes of season one, which introduces the five main characters of the series. I will be taking a look at the genre of the programme and how the programme falls into the specific genre and also a look at use of mise-en-scène used in the first episode of the series. I will be undertaking this essay by explaining each approach with the use of theory and analysing this against the program in question and finally, my conclusion will be a summary of the points I have made within the analysis of genre and mise-en-scène.
In applying genre theory, I will proceed to analyse how the television series, The Big Bang Theory falls into the situation comedy as a genre. Firstly an understanding of genre is needed before an analysis can begin. ‘Genre derives from the French word meaning type’ (Bignell 2008: 116). Broadly used in, literary and media, more recently linguistics, to referring to a distinctive type of 'text'. (Chandler 1997). The term ‘Can be defined as patterns/ forms/ styles/ structures which transcend individual art products, and which supervise both their construction by artists and their reading by audiences.’ (Ryall, 1975: 28). Genres allow us to organise material into smaller categories, identify the ‘artistic product we want’ (Creeber, 2008). Having begun with the Greek philosopher Aristotle when he began to outline different works in to categories the term is still in use today and, now in television genres are used to differentiate a number of diverse television shows from each other, distinguish the comparisons between them in the content, style, and format of the show. Genre in television has become a sign...
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...defined but with theorists having their own views and opinions on in what way they organise genre. Questioning whether genre is a possession of television texts themselves or a method audiences and producers understand them. Furthermore, mise-en-scene a respected tool for supporting directors in filmmaking for them to help the audience convey what is occurring within each scene with use of locations the characters are seen in and the props used by these characters. The Big Bang Theory fits the category of being a sitcom having followed in the footsteps of previous sitcoms with its comedic actors and continues jokes, familiar settings and sticking into its thirty minute time slot. In addition, the use of mise-en-scene is used well, viewers will be able to look at the scene of The Big Bang Theory and know the concept of the show and works in a way like genre does.
Within William Rowe’s Chapter two of “The Cosmological Argument”, Rowe reconstructs Samuel Clark's Cosmological Argument by making explicit the way in which the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or PSR, operates in the argument as well as providing contradictions of two important criticisms from Rowe’s argument.
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
The Big Bang theory is a theory that states that the universe originated as a single mass, which subsequently exploded. The entire universe was once all in a hot and dense ball, but about 20 million years ago, it exploded. This explosion hurled material all over the place and all mater and space was created at that point in time. The gas that was hurled out cooled and became our stellar system. A red shift is a shift towards longer wavelengths of celestial objects. An example of this is the "Doppler shift." Doppler shift is what makes a car sound lower-pitched as it moves further away. As it turns out, a special version of this everyday life effect applies to light as well. If an astronomical object is moving away from the Earth, its light will be shifted to longer (red) wavelengths. This is significant because this theory indicates the speed of recession of galaxies and the distances between galaxies.
The television show Lost displays many of the key traits found in postmodernism works. The show follows the lives of survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island somewhere in the south pacific. There, they must negotiate an unknown monster, an unpredictable group of prior occupants, strange, other worldly inhabitants, polar bears and each other, as they attempt to survive and attract rescue. In this basic synopsis of show it is clear that the show incorporates a large degree of generic hybridity, from the show’s outset it has exhibited elements of science-fiction, mystery, drama and the action-adventure genre. This is even prevalent in the show’s advertising, the varying genres that show exhibits can be found in an early trailer for the show’s first season that originally aired on Channel 4 in 2005, directed by surrealist artist David LaChapelle. The trailer features th...
“The Big Bang Theory” is a television show about two brilliant physicists, Leonard and Sheldon, geniuses in how the universe works and in the laboratory, but socially awkward when it comes to everything else. Their lives change when a beautiful, young, newly-single woman, Penny, moves in the apartment across the hall from theirs. Penny quickly becomes part of Leonard and Sheldon’s social group, which includes equally socially awkward Howard and Raj, due to Leonard falling in love with her. With Penny’s common sense and social skills the four male friends will soon find out that they truly know little about the world around them.
Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven the most durable and popular of American broadcasting genres. The sitcom’s success depends on the audience’s familiarity with the habitual characters and the situations
Have you ever been watching a TV show and find yourself relating it to your life in some way? You might relate it to some problem that is going on in your life or some issue going on around your society. All of the sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically one day when I was watching the TV series Grey’s Anatomy. Almost seven series in, I started to realize similarities between Grey’s Anatomy and topics we have been learning about in class. I noticed ideas and concepts that related to sociology. From norms and agents to theories and structures, the series Grey’s Anatomy is a great analysis of sociology.
Run Lola Run, is a German film about a twenty-something woman (Lola) who has 20 minutes to find $100,000 or her love (Manni) will be killed. The search for the money is played through once with a fatal ending and one would think the movie was over but then it is shown again as if it had happened ten seconds later and changed everything. It is then played out one last time. After the first and second sequence, there is a red hued, narrative bridge. There are several purposes of those bridges that affect the movie as a whole. The film Run Lola Run can be analyzed by using the four elements of mise-en scene. Mise-en-scene refers to the aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater. Mise-en-scene pertains to setting, lighting, costume, and acting style. For the purpose of this paper, I plan on comparing the setting, costume, lighting, and acting style in the first red hued, bridge to that of the robbery scene. Through this analysis, I plan to prove that the purpose of the narrative bridge in the film was not only to provide a segue from the first sequence to the second, but also to show a different side of personality within the main characters.
Between eighty and eighty-five percent of people in the United States are religious and the others are atheist or non-religious. This number of atheists in the United States has doubled in the last fifty years but, why? Advancements in science has made believing in a monotheistic religion quite challenging. The Big Bang theory, evolution, and natural selection are some advancements in the scientific community. This information is easily accessible and a well educated person thoroughly knows about these topics. The Big Bang theory is a theory on how the universe was created around thirteen to fourteen billion years ago. This theory does not prove that god is nonexistent but, an explanation on how the universe was created. In many religions, a monotheistic god created the universe, the explanation on how the universe goes against the religions. The Big Bang theory is directly related to why atheism is coming more prevalent in society.
King states that “the greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size” and goes further to state that “size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size” (-The Man In Black). The Tower that encompasses life is called the Dark Tower, and it appears throughout The Dark Tower novel series. King intends this building to represent the center of creation for each of the “"standalone" works [that] are [a] part of [the] much larger meta-story” (A Reading Guide to…). The Dark Tower’s cosmology mirrors the real worlds, the Big Bang Theory, in that the they both “created the universes and infinite alternate universes” that exist in their respective realms (Gan). Besides the Tower being the epicenter of life, it also provides structure
“Live long and prosper” may be the words which bring back good memories for the average geek in America but this may not be the case for a typical British geek. This is despite the fact that science fiction series in television have been hugely popular in both the U.S. and the U.K. all throughout history. After the 1960s, ‘New Wave’ science fiction began to take over television screens. ‘New Wave’ refers to science fiction which was characterized by a high degree of experimentation (Wolfe). It was during this time when the U.S and the U.K started to telecast science fiction series which had a huge impact on society. Star Trek became the forefront of American science fiction series in television while British science fiction series could be best represented by Doctor Who, a hugely successful production which started in 1963 and still runs today. Both nations revolutionized the way science fiction was shared and interpreted, being the leaders behind this ‘New Wave’. Yet, the unique socio-cultural differences between both societies lead to slightly differing tracks of science fiction television series.
Humans have long been curious about the origin of the universe. They also have been curious as to how and when the Earth was formed. It all started with the Big Bang. The life we are living as we know it would not be the way it is without it. In order to better understand The Big Bang Theory one must understand what it is, how it began, the evidence, and what happened during it.
The big bang theory reveals the beginning of the universe. It states that the Universe was formed about 14 billion years ago for a giant explosion of very dense and hot matter which then expanded and as it expanded, it started to cool down by going through different transitional phases. Since, it has been expanding.
The Big Bang Theory according to National Geographic was a massive blast that had occurred 10 to 20 billions of years ago. It allowed all the universe’s known matter and energy, including space and time to evolve from an unknown type of energy, that has only been unraveled up intill the big bang. The theory believes that at the instant of that very second after the big bang had happened, the universe started to increase at an unclear rate of speed, that has not never been recorded. From what was once a small dot in the middle of a blank universe it began to expand, scientists couldn’t be sure of what went down after the big bang. All of having the thought as time slowly passed, over the billions of years the universe was still expanding, matter had cooled, and there arose a variety of atoms. Which eventually created the stars and galaxies that we can now see from our present world that we live in. The three main pieces of scientific evidence that supports the theory of the big bang that were the most important were
Presently, the Big Bang theory is the most logical scientific explanation of how the universe began. The majority of cosmologists favor the Big Bang theory and the idea that the expanding universe had an initial, incredibly hot and dense start (Peterson 232). According to the Big Bang theory, at one point in time, more than 12 billion years ago, matter was condensed in a single place, and a huge explosion scattered matter out is all directions (“Big Bang Theory” 403). At the moment of its origin, the universe was infinitely dense and hot, but as the expansion occurred, the universe cooled and became less dense (Narlikar 12). The debris the spewed from the initial explosion became the building blocks of matter, forming the planets, stars, and galaxies (Narlikar 12). Officially, the Big Bang model is called the standard cosmological model (SCH), and it has been the most widely accepted theory of the origin of the universe since the 1960s (Rich and Stingl 1). Most astronomers are in agreement that the universe’s beginning can be traced back to 10 to 15 billion years ago following some type of explosive start (Narlikar 12). Big Bang theorists have estimated the actual bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago and was followed by an inflationary period that created time, matter, and space (Rich and Stingl 1).