As the streets shine with that winter glow of Christmas decorations, as every morning I wake and rush to the window to see if it has snowed, as I watch TV and listen to the radio where people try to sell me presents for the holidays, I realize that every year it's the same thing.
We'll get the same Christmas Specials in Sitcoms, the same feel-good moment at the end where the whole family is together. And next year, it'll be the same thing, so will the year after that,... etc...
All this makes me think about monotony and regularity. These shows I watch and then comment on are all pretty much the same. Sure, the structure, the characters and the jokes change to some extent, but in the end, they are all the same. Because that is how Sitcoms are defined as I said many times :
BEGINNING = ENDING.
Sometimes, maybe I'm the only one, I try to make my life a little bit more of a Sitcom or at least try to see my everyday life as if it were a Sitcom. I wake up, the show starts and while I'm showering and eating breakfast the opening titles play (maybe something by Black Sabbath). When I go to bed in the evening, the show ends right at the moment when I fall asleep. During the day, things have nothing to do with a sitcom episode, like not at all. Yet, my problems and everyday issues may be the same as the ones in certain shows. So what does this emulation of normal life imply in a sitcom show ?
Well, the key word is Emulation. Emulation is a type of Imitation and you could discuss the difference between both words, but I won't. The fact is that I don't want to watch something absolutely real. I don't want to see what I see everyday. When I read a book, I fly away in the virtual world the writer has produced. When I'm watching a Sitcom, the Emulation, the Illusion that is shown is not real even if you really want it to be. That's why "believing" in the Illusion is useless. If you watch a show while believing that all you see could really be really really real, well, you're missing the point of the show. Just like watching a play : You get two hours of people going through hundreds of different emotions and feelings ; That's just not possible. Do you go through all those feelings in two hours ? Of course not !
When you accept the idea that what you are seing is impossible, you actually get more out of a show or a play or a book than if you think it's all possible. The distance you create between your reality and the show's reality shifts your state of mind from passive to active : You are making sense WITH the show.
A show always has an Anchor Point for reality and then builds up from there. If the show is completely absurd, you have one (or several) element that insures the trip between reality and virtuality permitting you to understand the show. However, if the show is very very realistic, then there is an absurd component to "triangulate" the reality-virtuality shift. In that way, very realistic shows can, more often than absurd ones, be less funny because they seek realistic humour while an absurd show can crack jokes about anything.
But what of monotony and regularity, you might say ? Well, in many shows, the creators find a balance that works an overuse it. And then other shows and other creators copy that setup and overuse it as well. So in the end, we have plenty of shows that are actually the same show recycled dozens of times. Very rarely do we get a show that gives a whole new approach to the definition of Sitcoms.
Since there is only one rule (BEGINNING = ENDING), you'd think that there would be thousands of different ideas for shows, but actually, no. If we look at Ancient Greek Tragedy, that has thousands of rules, just taking Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, we get completely different perceptions of the same story. For example, the character ELECTRA has a complete make-over from one author to the other and don't even get me started on O'Neil's Mourning Becomes Electra.
Is this what we are looking for in our modern day TV ? Do we want the same thing over and over again ? We are still producing Sophocles plays 2500 years later, will we still have reruns of our shows in 2500 years ? I don't know ; I don't think so.
Maybe this is an irrelevant issue, maybe this post is way too long. I've been listening to many different versions of The Carol of The Bells and the music always gives that feeling of "deja-vu" prompting me to write this post about monotony and regularity.
Thank you,
TRJ
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