Concept Exploration - Television

                I am a film buff and a lover of television, so Chapter 8 was pretty intriguing to me. The legalities and happenstance regarding business bored me to tears, but the types of television shows and their evolution I found enjoyable. For instance, I liked the transition of America’s favorite type of comedy from sketch to situational. I enjoyed the analysis of situation comedies (sitcoms) regarding culture—that the characters portrayed are made incompetent so that the audience feels smarter than them. In sitcoms, the characters make many unfortunate mistakes and while problems arise and even out every episode, the characters do not grow and develop. Instead of learning from past mishaps, the people in sitcoms make errors over and over again, building up the viewer’s ego to make he or she feel superior to the apparent idiots being watched on screen. I found this portrayal of characters interesting. There are, in contrast, domestic comedies, where the characters do grow and develop. I also found it neat that episodic series, especially chapter shows, reflect America’s hopes, fears, and other emotions.