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Sitcom Stereotypes

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The sitcom is a type of television series, consisting a number of programmes in which episodes share the same situations and characters, but are separate from the others in the series in term of their plot lines. Two characteristics of sitcoms are stereotype and circular narrative.

Stereotypes are used in sitcoms to familiarise the audience with characters right from the beginning. This helps us know what to expect from them, eg the stereotype ditzy blonde is used in 'Friends' to play Phoebe a weird/dizzy hippy. The stereotype 'senior jock' is used in 'The Middle' to play Axl, a ladies' man who is 'dumb'. The stereotype 'nerd' is used in 'The Big Bang Theory' to play Sheldon, Leonard, Raj and Howard.

Stereotypes are used in sitcoms to help the audience to understand that a conflict will occur between different characters because of a clash in stereotypes, eg, in 'The Middle', a conflict occurs between Frankie (mother) and the next door neighbour, Rita Glosner. We could see that a conflict would arise between these two as Frankie's stereotype is a typical mother who is loving and caring and gives in to guilt, whereas Rita is a 'hillbilly' who is rude and ruthless. The contrasting stereotypes helped the audience to understand why a conflict was occurring between them. …show more content…

Eg, in 'The Big Bang Theory' we can predict that Sheldon will make a comment about his superior smartness and the story line will have aspects of science within it as he is classified a nerd. This makes sitcoms more relaxing for the audience watching as they don't have to fully concentrate on the episode to understand what is happening as they are familiar with the stereotype. Stereotypes are also useful for people who have never watched the sitcom before as viewers don't need much background to understand the stereotype which helps them understand the sitcom as

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