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Fascinating and Scary Sitcom Truth
3 years ago
For a while I've seen sitcom analysis videos and one thing ai find fascinating and Scary is how little the shows actually tell us about their characters!
Think about it, functioning on the premise these are "Real People" is the actually time the show spends with them enough to judge them as people? The show focuses on specific stories, on the most dramatic and interesting parts of life. The high highs,the low lows. The outrageous and intresting inccidents focused around the show's core premise. That leaves so much of thier lives as mysteries, so much to happen off camera. The show gives us a fraction of their life, most of it not shown or mentioned.
The Divorced parent with split custody. They seem like a bad parent, we barely or never see the child. But is the kid involved in the show's core premise? Is the truth that they spend tons and time with the kid, be the kid is never on the show because they logically wouldn't be involved with the story?
The Ditzy Blonde who seems to have no job? What if she has a great job, but manages her time so well that her vaction days coinsode with when the gang goes on a wacky adventure?
Is Big Tough John gay? Well there is no evidence, but no one sociaizes with him outside work, he never speaks about dateing. He doesn't act stereotypically gay, but that means nothing.
If you really think aboutnit you could have two Sitcoms, with the same main character,but because the situations they revolve around are physically or socially no where near each other the cast never mix. The main character to their own ignorance leads a double life. He changes his bahavior based around who's he's with, so the character has different personalities on each show, yet is still the same guy.
Think about it, functioning on the premise these are "Real People" is the actually time the show spends with them enough to judge them as people? The show focuses on specific stories, on the most dramatic and interesting parts of life. The high highs,the low lows. The outrageous and intresting inccidents focused around the show's core premise. That leaves so much of thier lives as mysteries, so much to happen off camera. The show gives us a fraction of their life, most of it not shown or mentioned.
The Divorced parent with split custody. They seem like a bad parent, we barely or never see the child. But is the kid involved in the show's core premise? Is the truth that they spend tons and time with the kid, be the kid is never on the show because they logically wouldn't be involved with the story?
The Ditzy Blonde who seems to have no job? What if she has a great job, but manages her time so well that her vaction days coinsode with when the gang goes on a wacky adventure?
Is Big Tough John gay? Well there is no evidence, but no one sociaizes with him outside work, he never speaks about dateing. He doesn't act stereotypically gay, but that means nothing.
If you really think aboutnit you could have two Sitcoms, with the same main character,but because the situations they revolve around are physically or socially no where near each other the cast never mix. The main character to their own ignorance leads a double life. He changes his bahavior based around who's he's with, so the character has different personalities on each show, yet is still the same guy.
Also, the less you know about them, the more they can have interesting things from their past randomly show up without causing a plot hole.
Because of the scary and fascinating reality of sitcoms writers can never reviel what some one does. Use the fact things aren't explain for a joke, like a character who never appears despite the story revoleing around them. Have thnrestof the characters as a question about what somoene does when they aren't with them only ever get answers that could mean more than one thing. Save up answers for sweeps week.