Quinn Miller (left) engages students in interpreting sitcoms as cultural commentary: what can they tell us about class tensions, gender roles, sexual norms, racial stereotypes and other provocative topics?
Ellen is having a bad hair moment. So goes the plot line from an episode of The Ellen Show, the 2002 sitcom starring comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres.
The episode, entitled “Vanity Hair,” centers around Ellen feeling compelled to get a new hairstyle because she’s going to be featured in Vanity Fair magazine.
Her first attempt at a makeover results in a “big hair” disaster. So she finds another stylist—not realizing he is actually a pet groomer. He gives her a ’do that might look great on a Lhasa Apso while also inadvertently making Ellen look kind of hip, in an artfully messy (maybe even lesbian) sort of way.
Silly, yes. Entertaining, to be sure. But there’s much more going on here than an amusing plot line, says Miller, a new assistant professor of English and media studies.
Miller included this episode as part of a course this spring called U.S. Sitcom History, TV Criticism and Consumer Culture. In this course, he has engaged students in interpreting sitcoms as cultural commentary: what can they tell us about class tensions, gender roles, sexual norms, racial stereotypes and other provocative topics?
Ellen’s obsession with her appearance, for instance, can be seen as a satirization of our consumer obsession with fashion. And then there’s the shaggy-dog haircut itself, which does not conform to social norms about femininity. What does this outcome say about what a woman should look like? Is this an acceptable look for a lesbian but not a heterosexual woman? Why or why not? Who and what defines how a person of a particular gender or sexual orientation should look?
Miller also includes sitcoms such as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air to examine issues of class.
The Beverly Hillbillies is predicated on a culture clash across class lines—namely, what happens when a family of presumably ignorant rural folk strikes it rich and moves to posh Beverly Hills.
Fresh Prince has a similar set-up, with the main character, Will, uprooted from a rough urban setting to live with relatives in yet another swanky Los Angeles neighborhood: Bel Air. Race further complicates the picture: Will and his relatives are all African American, and Will, played by Will Smith, is the streetwise interloper who mocks and critiques the behavior of those around him, as they aspire for even greater upward mobility.
In one episode, for example, he suggests to his cousin, who hosts a television show, that she might have better ratings if she made more of an effort to reach her “brothers and sisters.” At first, she thinks he means her actual siblings, but once she catches on, she proudly shows him her attempt to reach this audience: an African-themed fashion show—with a white model.
Another show Miller uses is All-American Girl, a short-lived mid-90s sitcom starring comedian Margaret Cho; she plays the rebellious daughter of a Korean American family. The sitcom plays off the conflict between two modes of assimilation—the mainstreamed family with traditional values versus the subversive daughter who studies French and hangs out with her mosh-pit-diving friends at her favorite club, Skank.
All of these examples can be seen as low comedy, says Miller, and sitcom writing is widely reviled. “But it’s not just bad writing,” he said. “These sitcoms can illuminate how complex identity is.”
And it’s not just the writing that deserves close attention. There’s also the costuming, the blocking of scenes and even the timing of edits.
Take this tiny moment in an episode of All-American Girl: a friend of Margaret’s reveals that she’s been spying on both men and women through a two-way dressing room mirror in a store. But her mention of the woman is delivered as a throwaway line, and she then turns and exits. The camera cuts to the other characters, who do not react but continue with their conversation.
In this scene, the writing, blocking and editing all combine “to allow in something that might otherwise be too risqué,” Miller said, namely the suggestion of bisexuality.
Plus, it’s significant that a secondary character carries the theme of complicated sexual identity. “Minor characters are really important to building themes,” Miller said. They often illustrate nonconformity and thereby help illuminate “the cultural politics of U.S. television programming.”
-Lisa Raleigh
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