CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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The Problem I Have With British Television Comedy

Friday, June 03, 2011

this entry brought to you by the dodos, "walking"


First of all, I need to defend my British comedy cred. While I am by no means a huge fan of British comedy, I should say that my favorite comedy of 2010 was In The Loop, which was very dry, very British, and it was fucking hilarious. I should also say that I was exposed to Monty Python's Flying Circus show as a kid way before I saw Holy Grail. And I'm talking about 4th grade, which would've been 1988. It would be years before I could say that I watched something called "Monty Python" and got something other than suspicious looks, and when I did get someone who knew what it was, it was from someone supremely nerdy. I've also watched Black Adder, and while I admit to having no idea as to what was going on, I thought it was funny. I started watching the British Whose Line around 1993, and I still have no idea what that opening animation had to do with the show. More recently, I bought the British version of The Office before they even announced they were making an American version.

I say all that because I want to make it a point that I'm not completely ignorant to British comedy. So, even with the admittedly somewhat limited exposure to British comedy, there's a problem I have with British sitcoms:

In Britain they have a much more firm class-based society than we have here. And British sitcoms tend to fall into one of three categories: Lower class, which tends to be very "lads will be lads", and is just gross and low brow and stupid; High Class, where the main character is rich, verbose, and spends the entirety of the show making fun of one particular doofus. And then there's the third category, which is just absurdity.

I've always found it strange when foreigners say that American comedy is based on putting down people, when I've always found it to be the opposite. The majority of American comedy, at least in terms of television, is based on the lovable loser, a tradition that goes all the way back to The Honeymooners, where the main character is a doofus and is rightfully put in his place, but is always shown to be a sympathetic character that you can't help but love. Ralph Kramden was a loudmouth who constantly made fun of his idiot sidekick, but he too was continually put in his place by his better half (even though he threatened violence against her once she did, she never really took crap from him). This tradition carries on to characters like Archie Bunker, and even Homer Simpson. We care about our doofuses. Whereas the doofus in British comedy is the butt of jokes and that is it.

Now, of course, there are exceptions I'm sure you could point out, but whenever I meet an American who prefers BBC over American TV-- and granted, the argument could be made that most American television comedy is middle class, and therefore funny to absolutely nobody who actually enjoys jokes-- I never quite understand it.
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with love from CRS @ 4:43 PM 

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