Details

Subject(s)

• Situation comedies (Television programs)—United States—History and criticism [Browse]
• Television programs—Social aspects—United States [Browse]
• Popular culture—United States [Browse]
• United States—Civilization—1945- [Browse]

Series

Routledge television guidebooks [More in this series]

Summary note

"In this new Routledge Television Guidebook, Jeremy G. Butler studies our love-hate relationship with the durable sitcom, analyzing the genre's position as a major media artefact within American culture and providing a historical overview of its evolution in the USA. Everyone loves the sitcom genre; and yet, paradoxically, everyone hates the sitcom, too. This book examines themes of gender, race, ethnicity, and the family that are always at the core of humor in our culture, tracking how those discourses are embedded in the sitcom's relatively rigid storytelling structures. Butler pays particular attention to the sitcom's position in today's post-network media landscape and sample analyses of Sex and the City, Black-ish, The Simpsons, and The Andy Griffith Show illuminate how the sitcom is infused with foundational American values. At once contemporary and reflective, The Sitcom is a must-read for students and scholars of television, comedy, and broader media studies, and a great classroom text"-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Introduction: comedy genre, humor theory
• Understanding the sitcom
• A critical/cultural history of the sitcom
• Comedy, family, and small towns
• Comedy, sex, and gender identity
• Comedy, race, ethnicity, and religion
• Comedy, televisuality, and convergence.

Show 4 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9781138850941 ((hardback))
• 1138850942
• 9781138850965 ((paperback))
• 1138850969

LCCN

2019047117

OCLC

1124776156

Statement on language in description

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