Situational Comedies Film Analysis

Situational Comedies, or more frequently referred to by their portmanteau, Sitcoms, are largely a product of the minstrelsy's formula for success. After thinking on the topic of stereotypes as a means of entertaining people in theater, I can easily think of many shows that utilize this style of humor to create their characters. In the TV Series "Taxi" Danny DeVito plays exactly what you would imagine of a New York small business owner, he's rude, arrogant, self-centered, but despite all of this, his character is hard to hate. Some of the rest of cast there's the dumb military man, the janitor with a screw loose, the confident snarky New Yorker. Jumping forward a decade to the 90's, the show "Friends" debuts Lisa Kudrow's famous character Phoebe, the ditsy blonde that was nominated for Emmy Awards 6 years in a row. While the series may be more than 20 years old at this point, the fact that it still airs speaks a lot to its success. …show more content…
The two "standard nerds", as their incompetent boss refers to them, have a woman assigned as the head of their department, that, as stereotypes demand, knows nothing of technology, and a lot about people skills. Despite the fact that all the characters are obvious exaggerations of how people perceive people in the IT Department, the show manages to find plent of interesting situations for three main characters to get into shenanigans inside and out of the office.

Overall, the prevalence of stereotypes in sitcoms is rather ridiculous to think about. Have anyone in this course seen a sitcom that doesn't rely on the use of stereotypes as the backbone of their