The question of why we laugh (or don't laugh) has intrigued scholars since antiquity. This book contributes to that debate by exploring how we evaluate screen comedy. What kinds of criteria do we use to judge films and TV shows that are meant to be funny? And what might that have to do with our social and cultural backgrounds, or with wider cultural ideas about film, TV, comedy, quality and entertainment? The book examines these questions through a study of audience responses posted to online facilities such as Twitter, Facebook, review sites, blogs and message boards. Bore’s analysis of these responses considers a broad range of issues, including how audiences perceive the idea of "national" comedy; what they think of female comedians; how they evaluate romcoms, sitcoms and web comedy; what they think is acceptable to joke about; what comedy fans get excited about; how fans interact with star comedians; and what comedy viewers really despise. The book demonstrates some of the ways in which we can adapt theories of humour and comedy to examine the practices of contemporary screen audiences, while offering new insights into how they negotiate the opportunities and constrictions of different online facilities to share their views and experiences.
1. Introduction
2. Comedy and comedian fandom: Parks and Recreation on Tumblr
3. Women in Hollywood comedy: P/reviewing Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters
4. National and transnational comedy: Lilyhammer on NRK and Netflix
5. Black web comedy: Brothers With No Game on YouTube
6. Sitcom audiences and genre developments: Everybody Hates Chris, Miranda and Gavin & Stacey
7. Reviewing romcom: (500) Days of Summer on IMDb
8. Comedy and transgression: Pinning Amy Schumer
9. Unintentional comedy and comic failure: Tommy Wiseau fandom on reddit
Biography
Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Theory in the School of Media at Birmingham City University, UK.
Screen Comedy and Online Audiences is boldly, brilliantly diverse, offering up a multi-text exploration of how different modalities, hybrids and subgenres of screen comedy are valued (or not) by an equally diverse range of audiences. Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore also adopts a multi-sited approach, deftly analysing responses and reviews across the likes of amazon.com, Facebook, imdb, Pinterest, reddit, Tumblr, Twitter and YouTube. Brimming with insight, this book shows how indispensable fan/audience studies can be for understanding comedy’s cultural politics and affective resonances.—Professor Matt Hills, University of Huddersfield
At last! A detailed, evidence-based study of the major gap in the study of media and comedy; audiences. Offering a convincing argument for the specificity of comedy as a mode of popular media, this book artfully explores audience responses to a range of humorous media on TV, in film, and online. With chapters on gender, fandom, romcom, offence and comic failure, Bore’s analysis pinpoints the importance of finding out what people do with comedy. As such, it impressively forges an important new direction in the study of media and humour.—Dr. Brett Mills, University of East Anglia
