Audience Pleasures (4b) Friday Night dinner

Friday night dinner
       

This sitcom has a narrative in which the repetitive features are: setting the scene with the sons outside the house, they go into have dinner with their family, are interrupted by the weird neighbour and then leave. There will be a different story in the middle which the family have to cope with; the episode we watched was they were selling a sofa bed to a man. They then got it stuck on the stairs, the man was told his father died (who he was buying it for), then we watched how they awkwardly coped with it and the consequences of the sons immature behaviour. The show is always set in an around the house.

It is harder to put the characters into the 8 comedy characters as there are only 5 main characters and they don’t show the traits as much as the characters in bad education.

1.The Logical Smart One – responsible, stable: Jackie, meets the stereotypical mother role

2.The Lovable Loser – sarcastic, optimistic, needy, impulsive: Adam and Jonny the sons show the same traits throughtout even if they aren’t prominate

3.The Neurotic – awkward, nervous, controlling, worried: Jackie showed this trait the most in the episode we watched as the sofa bed starts ripping the wallpaper she yells at them to stop. She takes care of the family and is friendly and kind to the weird character Jim because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.

4.The Dumb One – friendly, naïve, gullible, no ulterior motive: Martin, the dad

5.The Bully – mean, insensitive, insecure, doesn’t apologize: Adam and Jonny pick on  each other in the typical sibling way so slightly meet this as they bully one another.

6.The Womanizer/Manizer (AKA “Slutty Spice”) – charming, seductive, horny, superficial: n/a

7.The Materialistic One – judgmental, entitled, spoiled: Adam and Jonny are ungrateful for a lot of things, I put them as this as they are too childish to even realise.

8.In Their Own Universe (AKA “Spacy Spice”) – odd, eccentric, uses illogical logic: Jim, the neighbour

This show has an audience demographic in B and C1 , there is a larger array in the age of the characters because the parents and neighbour will be known well by those 28-40 which then attracts them to the program. There isn’t the immature childlike humour that we see in bad education although we do see that in the sons. This then makes the viewer feel superior to the sons as the still act like children. Females watching will relate with the mother, Jackie, as she is the most sensible and in charge of the males of the family. The husband, Martin, is simple so also has jokes made from him as he can act like a caveman e.g. he was eating food from the bin, this will appear funny to females.

The target audience is both male and female but would initially attract males because of the characters. Jewish people would be the focus of their audience as it is based around a Jewish tradition of coming together for a meal with family on a Friday night. For those who are middle aged they're more likely to know Tasmin Greig from a variety of comedy sitcoms like greenwing.  Simon Bird is well known for being in the inbetweeners, a comedy about a group of boys in college,  which has a younger target audience to this program so younger viewers would likely watch it as he’s very recognisable. Tom Rosenthal isn’t as well-known as he was on a program for a younger audience so; it wasn’t as popular as the inbetweeners. Paul Ritter would be well known with the audience as he is of a similar age and has been in a lot of popular shows and films. Mark Heap is similar to Paul as he has also been in popular TV shows and films, and is of a similar age to the audience.  Due to the amount of well-known male actors in the program it suggests an audience of 25 year olds to middle aged men.

Friday night dinner is on channel 4, they have a lot of comedy shows for all ages, but it is typically for an older audience of 30-45. The show has two producers; Popper Pictures and Big Talk Productions. Channel 4 is a terrestrial program meaning it is on all TV’s. Channel 4 is commercial;  it makes it money from advertising so there are breaks every 10- 15 minutes. The program is on after the watershed at 9 pm because of the use of language and inappropriate references, for example the joke the sons have calling each other ‘pissface’.

Audience Pleasures (4b) Bad Education

4. (b) Discuss in detail how one programme (Bad Education) offers audience pleasures. Give examples from the programme. [15 marks]

Bad Education

A narrative pleasure is the plot that is repetitive but has a different middle, which is typically Alfie messing up somehow, and finishing with him not losing his job. The excitement and build up to the catastrophe that Alfie creates brings an audience. ‘Bad Education’ is set in the same place usually, some times there is a trip but the scene stay the same of familiar throughout, the school, and has the same characters so the audience develops a relationship with them and watches them develop.  In the episode we watched Alfie began his bad day by having built up bad things throughout, which is the structure of his sitcom, he starts the day with a hangover and then is told he needs to mark his students mock exams or else they will fail. So all of a sudden he has the job of marking a lot of exams before that parents evening that night. Alfie struggles with it so he decides to let the students mark them which shows he is unprofessional. The deputy head who the audience are supposed to hate then reveals that she knows he got them to mark the tests so then all the students fail. This is another consequence of his bad choices which adds to his rising of bad choices in the lead  up to the main event. Throughout Alfie tries to flirt with another teacher who has been fundraising for a disease, Alfie pretends to know it then says a child in one of his classes, who is now presumed a push over, mother has the disease and over exaggerates her symptoms e.g. her fingers fell off.

The main character is Alfie wickers who is the teacher of a class of teens presumed to be 16. The class meets the usual stereotypes of a sitcom:

 1.The Logical Smart One – responsible, stable: This is predominantly  the Asian girl, Jing , which meets the stereotype of comedy and the media in  general.

2.The Lovable Loser – sarcastic, optimistic, needy, impulsive: Both Alfie and Joe show this trait as they have bad things happen to one another, Joe’s is usually because of Alfie

3.The Neurotic – awkward, nervous, controlling, worried: Joe, fits mostly at of them all

4.The Dumb One – friendly, naïve, gullible, no ulterior motive: Joe also fits this character as he is brought into trouble by Alfie

5.The Bitch/Bastard – mean, insensitive, insecure, doesn’t apologize: Mitchell and Remdog are the unliked ones of the sitcom as they bully people by taking the mick out of them

6.The Womanizer/Manizer (AKA “Slutty Spice”) – charming, seductive, horny, superficial: Chantelle fits this character as she tries to flirt with Alfie throughout telling him things like he’ll need a rebound after being embarrassed in front of Mrs Gulliver

7.The Materialistic One – judgmental, entitled, spoiled: Stephan is this character and also fits the stereotypical gay character

8.In Their Own Universe (AKA “Spacy Spice”) – odd, eccentric, uses illogical logic: The head teacher Fraser fits this character as he acts very childish and is an unconventional head teacher. In the episode we watched Fraser and Alfie were competing for Mrs Gulliver’s attention.

The fact that the teacher, Alfie, and head teacher, Fraser, are called and known by their first name shows that they are immature where as Mrs Gulliver is more professional and due to her calm and passionate nature throughout it reflects why she isn’t called by her first name. Mrs Gulliver is taken seriously.

Stereotypes are important in comedy as it can make the audience feel superior for example the ‘chav’ Mitchell is dumb and Alfie often take the mick out of his family’s situation. As Alfie is more snobby not only does it make him feel superior is does too for the audience. The smart one is usually of Asian ethnicity and outwits the other cast members, Jing will do this by saying something in Chinese under her breath but then Alfie will counter act it with a completely different topic not knowing what has been said. Chantelle also meets the ‘slut’ stereotype and often makes euphemism and ‘offers herself’ to Alfie she wears tight clothes and short skirts. In the episode we watched it carried on her stereotype as we meet her mother who is also very forward. This offers the audience gratification because of humorous it is to see certain characters being ridiculed. Plus, in some sense it establishes a relationship characters like Alfie and the audience due to the audience being able to relate with the characters with them agreeing with.

Research for scheduling question (4a)

Bad Education    

BBC commissioned Bad Education for the channel BBC 3,  Tiger aspect produced the series.
The audience of the program is typically 15-19 year olds who are in school so find the program relatable. It appeals to both males and females, as they're both represented and equally stereotyped. the creator of the series is a comedian called Jack Whitehall who is very popular in young adults and teens as he has been parts of 'coming of age' sitcoms e.g. fresh meat which is about university students, therefore would appeal to that age group. Jack tends to meet the immature jokes which are popular for the target audience so are in constant use throughout his sitcoms.
This program is shown after the watershed at 9pm, due to the sexual references and str=g language which also attracts the age range of 15-19 as it can be seen as a form of rebellion listening to the rude language, which is common for the age range. Especially as the program was on Tuesday nights.   BBC 3 broadcast the channel as this is viewed as the younger generations channel. BBC is a public service broadcaster, a terrestrial broadcaster that doesn't have advertising so is not payed for by advertisers  They use BBC 3 as an experimental channel for comedians to create content.  

Friday Night Dinner    

Channel 4 commissioned this program, it has two producers; Popper Pictures and Big Talk Productions. Channel 4 is payed for by advertisements. The target audience for this program is older than Bad Education's and id say it was 25-40 seeing as the actors are likely to be better known in this age gap. It is also aimed at Jewish people as the program is set around a tradition of coming together on a Friday night to have dinner. for the younger viewers they are likely to know Simon Bird from the inbetweeners, a popular comedy about a group of teen boys in college. For those who are middle aged they're more likely to know Tasmin Greig from a variety of comedy sitcoms like greenwing. The program was on after the watershed, at 9 pm, because of the use of language. For example the continual joke of the sons calling one another 'pissface'.