June 10th, 2010 / 5:01 pm
Film

If You Will Permit a Thought on TV

Throughout the nineties and for the first half of the past decade, there were two dominant strains of sitcom: the blue-collar/white-collar family sitcom (Roseanne, Everybody Loves Raymond, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Frasier, etc.), and the five-or-so-friends-hanging-out-in-a-city sitcom (Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers, etc.). The former culminated and withered with the end of Everybody Loves Raymond–now most often reiterated ironically by The Simpsons (which was far ahead of its time in that respect) and Family Guy–while the latter still persists in a way, only disguised or retooled as the workplace sitcom (30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Party Down), a formula which began in part with Murphy Brown and, in its current mode, with Scrubs and the British Office.

Why this paradigm, and why now? The reasons appear innumerable, and are precisely why these shows are so sparse and, until they disappear entirely, will remain an endangered trend. Roseanne, which arguably perfected the family sitcom dynamic, permitted one to escape into the escape of the Conners, offering a sort of “metaescapism” which no show since has been able to replicate. In Seinfeld, the merit of the characters was also their curse; we watched a family–a family without sharing, stripped of the execrable and redundant “family lesson” moments of the family sitcom–a family of children mishandle the responsibilities of adults. Seinfeld let the children inside of us laugh at the adults we’d so complacently become, and vice versa.

But the workplace sitcom shoves a mirror into the ass of our day-to-day, into the moments at which, whatever we do, we cannot relax, and finds some light there where ressentiment would find its home. It aestheticizes, twists and binds, an oppressive socio-economic reality; instead of fleeing from the bare life, from “mere life,” from what must be done, the workplace sitcom wants to transform it, not save us from bare life but deliver us to it in all the plenitude of its possibility. Not save us from danger but save us in the time of danger: the 9-5, or whatever you’d like. This is a welcome inversion of the reality show formula, which stupidifies and numbs us to whatever measure of the “good life” we’ve acquired.

So what do we do with this new form of sitcom? It’s a unique moment in television history that should not be written off; if reality television is self-consciously stupid programming throwing off the mask of high culture which the Food Network still condescendingly dons, then the workplace sitcom–equipped with the omission of commercials made possible by internet TV–is television not only embracing but reshaping its potential as a medium, as an aesthetic weapon: not an escape from one’s life, but an escape back into it.

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32 Comments

  1. mark leidner

      there should be more armed forces / terrorism sitcoms

  2. jereme

      corporate society is immoral by nature. it is perfect for this type of humor.

      making a veggie tales out of corporate ideology would be more humorous to me.

  3. brian

      not a new moment. its a recycle.

      You might look a little further back than Murphy Brown.

      Cheers, Taxi, MASH – those are three of the biggest workplace sitcoms to ever make an audience.

  4. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      MTM

  5. Alec Niedenthal

      Right, yeah, it all began with Mary Tyler Moore of course, but I’m trying to focus on the contemporary iteration of the workplace sitcom and even the workplace sitcom in general as a phenomenon, and not necessarily as a chronology. But there are traces in all of these shows of Cheers, MASH, etc., definitely.

  6. jereme

      so you really believe television was created for spiritual escape?

  7. raj

      i feel like there is a distinction to be made maybe, between corporate workplace sitcoms and government workplace sitcoms. parks and recreations, which fits the 2nd category, is really about the work insofar as it exhibits moral potential. the possibilities which spring from this quality are not merely acknowledged by the main character; rather, they are pursued semi-fanatically.

      of the workplace sitcoms listed above, it is i think unique in this respect. the other shows portray the efforts of characters to maintain their humanity and seek fulfillment as goals in contention w/ the performance of their employed roles– p+r meanwhile presents the workplace as construct that is able to promote accomplishing these tasks.

  8. jereme

      interesting raj. yeah i agree. i have never seen parks & recreation.

      i haven’t watched television in a few years. so i’m a little out of touch.

      i get what you are saying though.

      i think government work is more like socialism which does have a sense of morality.

      the corporation structure is similar to religion but without the worry of morality.

      it is purely about pleasing the systematists.

  9. raj

      if you are in the u.s. there are some episodes available on hulu

      i don’t know if your not watching tv is part of your moral program, my apologies if it is

      as tv goes, it’s good

  10. mark leidner

      there should be more armed forces / terrorism sitcoms

  11. jereme

      corporate society is immoral by nature. it is perfect for this type of humor.

      making a veggie tales out of corporate ideology would be more humorous to me.

  12. alan

      They haven’t permitted a thought on TV since Cosmos went off the air.

  13. brian

      not a new moment. its a recycle.

      You might look a little further back than Murphy Brown.

      Cheers, Taxi, MASH – those are three of the biggest workplace sitcoms to ever make an audience.

  14. Alec Niedenthal

      What?

  15. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      MTM

  16. Alec Niedenthal

      Right, yeah, it all began with Mary Tyler Moore of course, but I’m trying to focus on the contemporary iteration of the workplace sitcom and even the workplace sitcom in general as a phenomenon, and not necessarily as a chronology. But there are traces in all of these shows of Cheers, MASH, etc., definitely.

  17. uhhhhh

      did you see that one with jon glaser where he’s in witness protection? sort of works.

  18. jereme

      so you really believe television was created for spiritual escape?

  19. raj

      i feel like there is a distinction to be made maybe, between corporate workplace sitcoms and government workplace sitcoms. parks and recreations, which fits the 2nd category, is really about the work insofar as it exhibits moral potential. the possibilities which spring from this quality are not merely acknowledged by the main character; rather, they are pursued semi-fanatically.

      of the workplace sitcoms listed above, it is i think unique in this respect. the other shows portray the efforts of characters to maintain their humanity and seek fulfillment as goals in contention w/ the performance of their employed roles– p+r meanwhile presents the workplace as construct that is able to promote accomplishing these tasks.

  20. Carl W.

      Your post is nonsense. As usual.

  21. jereme

      interesting raj. yeah i agree. i have never seen parks & recreation.

      i haven’t watched television in a few years. so i’m a little out of touch.

      i get what you are saying though.

      i think government work is more like socialism which does have a sense of morality.

      the corporation structure is similar to religion but without the worry of morality.

      it is purely about pleasing the systematists.

  22. raj

      if you are in the u.s. there are some episodes available on hulu

      i don’t know if your not watching tv is part of your moral program, my apologies if it is

      as tv goes, it’s good

  23. alan

      They haven’t permitted a thought on TV since Cosmos went off the air.

  24. Alec Niedenthal

      What?

  25. uhhhhh

      did you see that one with jon glaser where he’s in witness protection? sort of works.

  26. Carl W.

      Your post is nonsense. As usual.

  27. damon

      see: the A-Team

  28. Alec Niedenthal

      Yeah, Parks and Rec is pretty fantastic. And the entire cast is adorable.

  29. damon

      see: the A-Team

  30. Michael

      Another thing to point out is that the sitcom’s borders have been turned inside out – 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Glee are all about self-referential surface.

  31. Alec Niedenthal

      Yeah, Parks and Rec is pretty fantastic. And the entire cast is adorable.

  32. Michael

      Another thing to point out is that the sitcom’s borders have been turned inside out – 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Glee are all about self-referential surface.