Comedy, Tone, and Left Field Cinema

Comedy is the focus for today's class. While many might see Comedy as something that shifts as time and culture shifts, the virtues of the Comedy genre do not change. Consider the main characteristics of Shakespearean Comedies (from Wikipedia with my annotations):

A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. Patterns in the comedies include movement to a "green world", both internal and external conflicts, and a tension between Apollonian (wholeness) and Dionysian (individualistic) values. Shakespearean comedies tend to also include:

* A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders
* Separation and re-unification
* Mistaken identities
* A clever servant
* Heightened tensions, often within a family
* Multiple, intertwining plots
* Frequent punning

We can think about the structure of the two shows we are watching today as the carriers of these main attributes. Pam and Jim can be seen as the struggling lovers in the Shakespearean sense. Mistaken Identities can be shown by Amy's revelation of her true identity and Ken's questioning his own identity based on this revelation. Heightened Family tensions can be seen in the Weir's household as they're going to meet George Bush or from the upcoming job interview that might disrupt their "office" family. Even the punning (or clever word play, where words have more than one meaning) can be seen throughout the Office and Freaks & Geeks ("How are you doing, guys.").

While even some of the tragic shows display similar attributes, one of the things that separates comedy from tragedy is the tone, which is something that we'll discuss in today's class as we try to link these shows with the previous shows we've watched together.

Modern television is the inheritor of Shakespearean tradition, especially current American television which is based on British Television's finite series formulas and character-intense plots.

HOMEWORK:
READ/LISTEN to episodes of "Left Field Cinema." This an excellent example of film criticism which attaches a theme or idea to a film(s) and uses the film(s) (as well as an understanding of the film creator's style and tone as gleaned through interviews) as an attempt to understand the underlying message of the piece of film. Listen or read a few of the episodes (2-3) before next week's class and come prepared to talk about ideas for your paper.

READ the Wikipedia entries for "Kings TV Show" and "Battlestar Galactica TV Show"