Screen Comedy and Online Audiences by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore

Author:Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore [Bore, Inger-Lise Kalviknes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Performing Arts, Comedy, Computers, Design; Graphics & Media, General
ISBN: 9781317672791
Google: Ev8nDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-06-14T03:25:50+00:00

So, the show’s comedic modality offers a form of “insulation” (Palmer 1987: 45) that can make it easier for audiences to laugh at difficult subject matter and to experience a sense of relief that racism has been acknowledged and positioned as an object of laughter. The 1980s setting also sometimes seemed to provide additional distance, with one reviewer writing that the series “Reminds us of how times have changed and how to laugh at ourselves”.

This sense of safety was frequently indicated by contributors who described the show as family friendly:

This is a great show for the WHOLE FAMILY! My 3 kids (esp my 12yr old son) absolutely LOVE it. (…) While I don’t condone a lot that’s on TV, this show seemed to be pretty nice for the middle school crowd and we are sorry to see it go.

Like this reviewer, many contributors identified themselves as parents or grandparents. Some reported buying the series for their children or grandchildren, suggesting that it is suitable for younger viewers because it is “clean” or “wholesome”, and positioning it against the “trash” TV that would otherwise be available to them. Many others inscribed the programme with a cross-generational appeal that was often linked to a sense of recognition, for example of 1980s culture, of family life or of childhood experiences. This valorisation of family viewing complicated the narrative of the stratifying TV audience, in which viewers “gather according to social formations of taste”, often along the lines of age, gender and “sexual preference” (Brunsdon and Spiegel 2008: 2). It also problematised the distinction between mainstream, multi-camera sitcoms and single-camera sitcoms developed for niche audiences (Mills 2009: 55). These viewers indicated that they had bought the DVD or paid for the streaming of episodes in order to access the show when they could sit down as a family and to continue doing so after the series had concluded. So, these responses located the communal experience of comedy within the (nuclear) family and the home, rather than within an imagined, wider audience that shared tastes and values. This suggests that the sitcom still has the potential to provide a temporary “family hearth” (Tueth 2005: 12), with the aid of time-shifting.

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