From the early radio sitcoms to the 21st century, this book examines the American situation comedy as a contemporary morality play, considering how comic devices operate as the vehicles for potentially subversive and radical discourses to take place within a traditionally conservative form. Adopting a structuralist approach to the constitution of comic events, it pays particular attention to how comic agendas legitimize, reflect and endorse certain models of American citizenship and lifestyle, and how the sitcom seeks to "educate" through addressing moral and political dilemmas, progressive notions of parenting, the reformation of the family and the "playing out" of democratic principles.
- ISBN10 082644931X
- ISBN13 9780826449313
- Publish Date 31 August 2003
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 11 November 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
- Format Paperback
- Language English