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What can Liz Lemon’s dating life tell us about American race relations, and how does “the gang” from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia explore issues of mental illness? In Is It Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Social Discourse through TV Comedy, seniors Shaan Merchant and Reed Collins have students question their own media literacy by analyzing the ways in which television can address larger issues in American society through comedy.
The idea for the course came quite naturally to Shaan, who is designing his own major to reflect his passion for sociology, political science, and film and media studies. He is currently writing his senior honors thesis on late night comedy, but notes that the idea for teaching about TV comedy came from his own experiences watching television, only half-joking when he said this course was an attempt to do “something semi-useful with the many hours spent watching TV.” His co-teacher, Reed, presents an unusual perspective in class as an International Relations and Arabic double-major, and an infrequent television consumer.
However, Shaan is not alone in his bingeing habits: according to a recent Nielsen Media and Entertainment report, young people ages 18-24 watch a daily average of two hours of traditional television. While overall television consumption has decreased since the mid-2000s, it is still a staple of American society, with the average American watching approximately eight hours of television per day. It is precisely this trend of overconsumption that Shaan and Reed are attempting to address in their course.
“Now that TV is so bingeable with Netflix and Hulu, you can just sit and consume so passively,” Shaan said. “Most of our students are not film and media studies majors—they take the class because they love TV, and watch TV, but don’t get the chance to have discussions about what they are watching.”
While TV Comedy seems to encompass an endless array of shows, Shaan and Reed center their course around thematic arcs that continually reappear across series and networks. Drawing consistently upon certain shows like Modern Family, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or Blackish, the class spent the first third of the semester analyzing television through the lens of gender and sexuality. Eventually, they will go on to examine patterns of mental illness, politics, and “the college experience,” as illustrated through TV. Now, midway through the semester, the students are discussing portrayals of race and ethnicity in television comedy.
Many discussions thus far have focused on analyzing why content is relatable or who it is marketed towards. As Shaan explained, TV Comedy centers largely around Laura Mulvey’s famous male gaze theory, and towards “slumpies,” who Shaan described as “socially liberal, urban-minded professional youth.” As a result, many comedies provide a punchline or an “out” for viewers, who networks assume are “young people who want to feel good about themselves for being progressive,” relieving them of the need to sit with their discomfort for too long. But for Shaan, this uneasiness is precisely why TV comedy is important.
“Our conversation got heated and uncomfortable, and some people wanted to shy away from the conflict,” Shaan said, recalling their most recent discussion on race and ethnicity in Blackish. “But I think there is a lot of power in discomfort. Television comedy especially provides a good stepping stone for delving into these larger social discussions, since it is so relatable and so universally consumed.”
Shaan hopes that, moving forward, students will become more aware of their own media consumption. “There is no greater determinant of social norms in society today than the media, with television playing a large part in that,” Shaan said. “It tells us what beauty is, what normal is, what right is...if we can analyze media and recognize the messages its telling us, we can become more than just passive viewers. While discussions like these [on race and ethnicity in TV comedy] will not solve racism for example, by having these conversations we are hopefully opening the door to further and deeper discussions where students will feel more comfortable discussing these issues in the future.”
About the Author
Emma Hodgdon is a senior studying English literature. Apart from reading Gothic fiction, she can be found practicing cello for the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, or dancing with the university’s ballroom dance team. She spends her free time experimenting with calligraphy, learning to speak Chinese, and caring for her succulents, Verotchka and Geraldine.
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