The Sitcom Reader

America Viewed and Skewed

Edited by Mary M. Dalton & Laura R. Linder

Subjects: American Studies
Paperback : 9780791465707, 353 pages, October 2005
Hardcover : 9780791465691, 353 pages, October 2005
Out of print (Paperback)
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART ONE
CONVENTIONS OF THE GENRE

1 Origins of the Genre: In Search of the Radio Sitcom
David Marc

2 Breaking and Entering: Transgressive Comedy on Television
Michael V. Tueth

3 American Situation Comedies and the Modern Comedy of Manners
David Pierson

PART TWO
REFRAMING THE FAMILY

4 Who Rules the Roost?: Sitcom Family Dynamics from the Cleavers to the Osbournes
Judy Kutulas

5 From Ozzie to Ozzy: The Reassuring Nonevolution of the Sitcom Family
Laura R. Linder

6 Against the Organization Man: The Andy Griffith Show and the Small Town Family Ideal
John O’Leary and Rick Worland

PART THREE
GENDER REPRESENTED

7 I Love Lucy: Television and Gender in Postwar Domestic Ideology
Lori Landay

8 Our Miss Brooks: Situating Gender in Teacher Sitcoms
Mary M. Dalton

9 Talking Sex: Comparison Shopping through Female Conversation in HBO’s Sex and the City
Sharon Marie Ross

PART FOUR
RACE AND ETHNICITY
10 The Hidden Truths in Black Sitcoms
Robin R. Means Coleman and Charlton D. McIlwain

11 Segregated Sitcoms: Institutional Causes of Disparity among Black and White Comedy Images and Audiences
Amanda Dyanne Lotz

12 Negotiated Boundaries: Production Practices and the Making of Representation in Julia
Demetria Rougeaux Shabazz

PART FIVE
SITUATING SEXUAL ORIENTATION

13 Ellen: Coming Out and Disappearing
Valerie V. Peterson

14 Sealed with a Kiss: Heteronormative Narrative Strategies in NBC’s Will & Grace
Denis M. Provencher

15 Poofs—Cheesy and Other: Identity Politics as Commodity in South Park
Karen Anijar, Hsueh-hua Vivian Chen, and Thomas E. Walker

PART SIX
WORK AND SOCIAL CLASS

16 Women, Love, and Work: The Doris Day Show as Cultural Dialogue
Phyllis Scrocco Zrzavy

17 Liberated Women and New Sensitive Men: Reconstructing Gender in the 1970s Workplace Comedies
Judy Kutulas

18 “Who’s in Charge Here?”: Views of Media Ownership in Situation Comedies
Paul R. Kohl

PART SEVEN
IMPLICATIONS OF IDEOLOGY

19 Sex and the Sitcom: Gender and Genre in Millennial Television
Christine Scodari

20 Cheers: Searching for the Ideal Public Sphere in the Ideal Public House
Robert S. Brown

21 “It’s Just a Bunch of Stuff That Happened”: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Postmodern Comedy
H. Peter Steeves

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Offers a variety of perspectives on the sitcom genre and its influence on American culture.

Description

Despite the popularity of the sitcom, one of the oldest and most ubiquitous forms of television programming, The Sitcom Reader is the first book to offer critical essays devoted specifically to the form. The contributors address important topics in relation to sitcoms, such as conventions of the form, the family, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, work and social class, and ideology, and they do so from a variety of perspectives, including cultural studies, feminist theory, queer theory, and media studies.

Mary M. Dalton is Assistant Professor of Communication at Wake Forest University and the author of The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers in the Movies. Laura R. Linder is Associate Professor of Media Arts at Marist College and the author of Public Access Television: America's Electronic Soapbox.