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Masculinity In Sitcoms

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A situation comedy provides a parody narrative routine of normal characters that bring laughter to the audience (Feasey, 2008). In fact, in a study done by Nielsen Scarborough Research in 2013, approximately 52% of viewers of American TV programs are those who enjoyed watching a situation comedy shows. Sitcoms placed in second place only lost by 6% to movies in the first place. This study shows how sitcom is a popular category among other genres of TV series in America. Providing the viewers with an enchanting story of a portrayal of life struggles that are wrapped up with a touch of humor makes it enjoyable and fun for the audience because they could relate to it. A sitcom entitled ‘Friends’ is one of the examples of how popular this genre …show more content…

However, what if the humor in sitcoms is used to counter the purpose of “mock-macho” humor? There has been no research that talks about how humor can be a tool to actually show masculinity traits in a character. Therefore, this paper aims to look at this possibility for humor’s purposes. It is important to know that humor on a sitcom can serve several purposes rather than only to elevate the joke in the show, because understanding these purposes can make the audience learn about the character better and what kind of social stigma they represent in the show. This paper analyses the character Chandler Bing, who is famous as one of the strongest pillar of humor of the sitcom ‘Friends’. Through his humor, I expect to see how he is trying to cover up his masculinity issues and at the same time showing his masculinity to people. With the concept of Freudian defense mechanism that explains how an individual uses several types of self-defense regarding issues they face, his purpose of using humor could be analyzed further. This paper uses character analysis through the concept of defense mechanism by Freud. This paper tries to answer on how does the character Chandler Bing from the sitcom ‘Friends’ reverse the purpose of the “mock-macho” humor to serve as his defense mechanism to reaffirms his

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