Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis: On the Couch with Lucy, Basil, and Kimmie

by D.T. Klika

Overview

Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis puts the sitcom character on the analyst's couch and closely examines the characters of Basil Fawlty, Lucy Ricardo and Kim from Australia's Kath & Kim, in order to reveal the essential elements that must exist in a sitcom before even the first joke is written. Original in its approach, D.T. Klika uncovers major findings about the sitcom as well as human behavior and relationships that we find 'arresting' and even “familial”.

By offering a new way of reading the sitcom using psychoanalytic theory, this book can be used as a basis for engaging in critical discourses as well as textual analysis of programs. Psychoanalytic theory enables a reading of character motivations and relationships, in turn elucidating the power struggle that exists between characters in this form of comedy. Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis shines a light on what is at play in the sitcom that makes us laugh, and why we love the characters we do, only to discover that this form of comedy is more complex than we first thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501354908
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/25/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

D.T. Klika is Senior Lecturer in TV and Film Production at Middlesex University, UK. Klika has worked as a writer, producer, script advisor and written three sitcom pilots, one of which came fourth in the 2015 London Film Awards; another was awarded third place at the 2016 Cannes Screenplay Contest for best TV Comedy Pilot and has been produced as a research project for a book on writing and producing the fifteen minute TV Sitcom teaser pilot.

Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION: (re)Reading the sitcom.
0.1 – What is the sitcom?
0.2 – The psychology of the character.
0.3 – Using Psychoanalysis
0.4 – An overview: finding sitcom's subversive side.
CHAPTER ONE: It begins with the (key) character.
1.1 – Narcissism and the comic character.
1.2 – The comic character's struggle.
1.3 – Post-Freud and the comic.
1.4 – The character trapped in the gaze.
1.5 – Narcissus and Echo as comic characters.
1.6 – The key character as master of their world?
CHAPTER TWO: The perpetual (power) struggle of sitcom relationships.
2.1 – Fear and behaviour.
2.2 – Fear and desire.
2.3 – Fear and power.
2.4 – The key character's struggle for a cohesive 'self.'
CHAPTER THREE: Echoing the key character.
3.1 – The key character and their echo.
3.2 – Echo comic characters.
3.3– Group Shows: the echo that lies within.
3.4 – A return to the myth of Narcissus and Echo and its psychoanalytic roots.
3.5 – Echo and Narcissus: two sides of the psyche?
CHAPTER FOUR: The tension of the (closed) narrative.
4.1 – The key character and the narrative.
4.2 – Tension through the 'diegetic reality' of the narrative.
CHAPTER FIVE: Premise, performance and the discursive frame.
5.1 – Tension in the premise.
5.2 – The key character's 'frame.'
CONCLUSION: Sitcom: a (comic) site of struggle.
APPENDIX: Theory in Practice
Putting it on the page.
A.1 – To (re)Cap: questions from the chapters.
A.2 – (re)Reading the sitcom.
A.3 – (re)Developing the sitcom
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PROGRAMOGRAPHY
INDEX

Editorial Reviews

The complexities of the supposedly simple matter of comedy are rigorously and thoughtfully unpicked in this book, which offers a psychoanalytical framework that is both innovative and illuminating. By focussing on character, Klika's book develops fruitful frameworks for thinking about how comedy works in terms of narrative, genre and performance. As such, it represents a significant intervention in thinking about humour, television and the sitcom.” —Brett Mills, Senior Lecturer in Television Studies, University of East Anglia, UK

“This lively and engaging book, written from the perspective of a scriptwriter, brings a broad range of psychoanalytic theory to the understanding of our most cherished television characters and beloved incidents of recent and not so recent sit-coms from the UK, US and Australia. Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis provides an excellent treatment of the specificity of this comic form: it is original in its theoretical endeavour, incisive in its analyses, and compelling in its descriptions. The study is simultaneously comprehensive in scope and provocative in its demand for a deeper reflection on the attraction of the form and the nature of our investment in it.” —Dr Lisa Trahair, School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales, Australia

From the Publisher