tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37916241.post5428170842240338971..comments2023-09-01T01:29:15.314-06:00Comments on zigzigger: 30 Rock, My Boys, and the New Sit-Commznhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12336592183292185884noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37916241.post-10665559946158930102008-09-22T05:38:00.000-06:002008-09-22T05:38:00.000-06:00This is what I think: 30 rockThis is what I think: <A HREF="http://mostpopularinusa.blogspot.com/2008/09/30-rock.html" REL="nofollow">30 rock</A>Chushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13669218468698857210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37916241.post-71442613824588103582006-12-28T22:26:00.000-06:002006-12-28T22:26:00.000-06:00Excellent meditation on the sitcom, mzn! I have be...Excellent meditation on the sitcom, mzn! I have been wondering lately about why I don't like sitcoms anymore... I haven't been able to bring myself to watch 30 Rock or Studio 60. <br /><br />But I do think that there are a number of great funny shows of the past few years: of course, "Chappelle's Show," "Reno 911," "Ali G." <br /><br />There are a few shows that I used to find brilliant that maybe I would like watching again: "Bernie Mac" was at one point very funny, and racially very edgy (I have heard the same about the "Boondocks" cartoon show)and "Malcom in the Middle" and "King of the Hill" are more sophisticated and witty than most give them credit for being.<br /><br />I have a particular pet theory about why sitcoms suck nowadays. For me, sitcoms are fundamentally a working class form, deriving from the broad ethnic comedy traditions of immigrant entertainers. As such they are best as class-critical projects: comedies of manners that send up the idiocy of the bourgeois family and the capitalist workplace. It seems to me that Popular Fronters like Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges, and Billy Wilder are really the patron saints of the sitcom. "Seinfeld" for all its "about-nothing"-ness was relentless in its fealty to this principle. To me, "Friends" was only ever convincingly funny when it drew comedic material from the most old-fashined sources: Joey's Italian-American, Ross and Rachel's Jewish heritage, and Phoebe's dumb-blonde routine. The Gen X-y stuff always seemed bad to me.<br /><br />Similarly, "Curb" and Reno "911," and "Ali G" are all faithful to the socialist comedy tradition: Curb portrays a utopian fantasy of wealth and leisure constantly destroyed by the impossibility of relating to others; "Reno 911" mercilessly underlines the stupidity of police power; and "Ali G" brings the demons of fundamentalist intolerance and tribal hatreds, supposedly exorcised by capitalism triumphant, back into view. <br /><br />I think that many of the writers and creators of bad sitcoms are bad to the degree that they are remote from this populist-critical tradition. I can only imagine, on the basis of what the current crop of SNL writers seems to think is funny, that we are now at a moment when many of the 22-30 year olds who do a lof of TV writing, have really bad senses of humor made worse by growing up in a general atmosphere of toxic cultural conservatism and smug entitlement among ruling-class ivy leaguers.the sad billionairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12413202274741351825noreply@blogger.com