A Show About A Show Making a Show About Nothing

My favorite story arc over the long life of Seinfeld remains the season-long tale of Jerry and George pitching a sitcom based on their own lives to NBC. Watch this clip for one of my favorite moments, where Jerry explains to the actress playing Elaine Benes why she cannot date his butler. The show is a show about nothing, and is based on their own lives as fictional characters, which is meta or self-referential in that George and Jerry are based on real-life creators of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who wrote the show for NBC themselves! This kind of meta-humor from the 1990s is quite entertaining and provides hilarious commentary on how the show's writers perceived their own project whilst working for NBC. One must wonder how this likely impacted sitcoms in future years embrace of metafiction and, in some cases, breaking the fourth wall. Watch season 4 of the show to see this brilliant season-long story arc play out. By the way, this is definitely my favorite season of the show, alongside season 5.

Why I Love Community

While constructing a Youtube playlist of my favorite Community moments, largely to aid my procrastination efforts during my last exams of my undergraduate career, I have come to the realization that NBC's Community is the best sitcom on television, although Louie is brilliant, and occasionally, Archer. My love for the show was rekindled while watching the weak fourth season in order to distract myself from studying for pointless exams. Though season 4 was disappointing, without Dan Harmon's oversight and excellent writers who quit the show when Harmon was booted, it featured occasional moments of brilliant comedy that surpassed the rather lame attempts by the two replacements for Harmon to "mainstream" Community while trying to remain loyal to the spirit of Harmon through spoofs and wacky, fantasty episodes. I have written about season 4 of the show here. Anyway, here are some reasons I love this show and pray for six seasons and a movie!

As an undergraduate freshman discovering Community from friends discussing it in my presence, I related to the show's first season as a first-year in college. Though I did not attend a community college, the general college/higher education experience provided an outlet for me to relate to something on television, one of my parents coming up in this world. The first time I actually watched Community, it was over the Winter break after the first semester of freshman year, and, while hanging out with some friends who were fans of the show, began to devour episodes on Hulu. Thank God for Hulu, whose users voted Community the best program on television a few years ago. I am not sure what initially struck me about the show in its comparatively tame first season (I say 'tame' in comparison to the adventures, escapades, meta-humour, and extravagant spoofs and parodies in seasons 2 and 3), but perhaps just a shared experience as college students united us. The characters are likeable and interesting (well, excluding Chevy Chase's Pierce, a racist, sexist, homophobic old man who only exists in the show because NBC wanted a big name to attract viewers), and, deliberately 'diverse' for the purposes of being "politically correct" while mocking their own internal diversity of the study group through the well-intentioned, awkward liberal racism of Dean Craig Pelton. The socially awkward Abed, assumed to have asperger's according to Jeff and Britta, reminded me of a friend of mine while also speaking to my own personality and lack of obeisance to social cues. Like Abed, I too often find it difficult to communicate with people, live through obsessive hobbies and habits, and, often face ignorant and racist assumptions. Though the actor who plays Abed is clearly Indian, his character is a half-Palestinian, half-Polish American Muslim whose actual Palestinian heritage or thoughts on America's "War on Islam" or the Israel-Palestine conflict remain hidden, perhaps to reflect mainstream network television sitcoms' tendency to avoid addressing politically 'controversial' issues.

As someone often assumed to be "Indian" or "Muslim" (as if Muslim is a race and not a religion), as well as being socially awkward (unfortunately not as popular culture savvy as Abed, who devours infinitely more television, film, and genres than I ever could), I have been recognized as an "Abed" by a friend who also loves Community. In addition to Abed and the rest of the study group, Jeff, Brita, Pierce, Shirley, the adorable Annie, and Donald Glover's Troy, and the hilarious pansexual Dean with a Dalmatian fetish (and many other fetishes and an unhealthy obsession with the handsome Jeff Winger), the world of Greendale Community College is enticing. Throughout the show's run, the campus oscillates between a world of fantasy and rather down to earth episodes focusing on more mundane material, all the while relating to the universal experiences of college students groaning and moaning over exams, procrastinating on campus with friends, discovering who they are and how they fit into this crazy thing called life, and, last but not least, becoming a family. Every sitcom is always centered on this basic nuclear unit, the family, including my other favorite program, Futurama, which uses the crew and workforce of the Professor's shipping company to establish a 'family' around a lovable group of misfits! Indeed, Community was aptly titled by Harmon, since this show is ultimately about community, friendship, and solidarity, which can take place in or outside of a college campus. Thus, Community related to my experiences as a student, socializing on campus, the search for self and self-realization, and my own idiosyncrasies and child-like worldview, encapsulated in the behavior of Troy and Abed. As the past four years of my life flowed by, I "grew up" with Community's cast as parallel experiences in the undergraduate 'experience,' eagerly awaiting each subsequent season of the program. May you live long and prosper to six seasons and a movie!

My other reason for loving Community relates to my other favorite television show, Futurama, which is essentially one long series of animated spoofs, parodies, and numerous examples of intertextuality, something Matt Groening and writers for both Futurama and The Simpsons (a show I actually grew up with, watching from my elementary school years until the end of my secondary schooling) infuse into the series for comedic effect, plots, allusions, and for establishing their fictional worlds. Moreover, Futurama, as a sci-fi parody world, often created entire episodes based on Star Trek or Star Wars and a plethora of other elements of science fiction, film, television, literature, and references beyond the world of sci-fi. Similarly, Dan Harmon's comedic vision and tenure as head of Community also relied on similar methods for sitcom success, loading up episodes with references to popular culture, film, other television shows, incorporating meta-styled humour and lines, often through Abed, who became a voice for the show's writers and Harmon at times, as well as doing spoofs of sitcom tropes and archetypes, such as bottle episodes, clip shows, and using Abed as a filter to break the fourth wall by making fun of Community itself as a sitcom. That, my friend, is genius! Perhaps it drove additional viewers away from the show in seasons 2 and 3, especially as both season premieres clearly established the direction of the show into fantastical escapades, soaring parody, and mind-boggling metafiction and dense allusions to other great television shows, such as The Wire and Breaking Bad (there's absolutely no way that the Dean's beard in season 3 is not an homage to Walter White's bad-ass beard in Breaking Bad).

This style of multi-layered meta humor, intertextuality with other elements of popular culture, ranging from Pulp Fiction to Doctor Who, spoofs of sitcom writing, and numerous parody episodes reflect the influence of previous classics in American television, such as Futurama and The Simpsons, besides the obvious Arrested Development (the influence of AD is prominent in the conspiracy theory episode of the second season wherein Annie and Dean Pelton endeavor to teach Jeff a lesson about faking a class for credits but in reality ends with numerous conspiracy crossovers and hijinks over who shot you and who teaches who a lesson). Perhaps for many viewers, this style of humor veered to far toward individual creative excess of Harmon, who was clearly indulging himself in seasons 2 and 3 of the show with episodes of clay-mation, videogames, fake clip shows (Fun Fact: the infamous "Gravity" video of Annie and Jeff is actually a parody of a fan-made video from youtube!). Nevertheless, the show has developed a cult following, largely because of the "Harmon touch" with these rather complex, densely layered allusions, intertextuality, and meta-humor, perhaps following in the path established by Arrested Development, another classic show cancelled before its time. We know some writers of Community worked on AD or were influenced by it, so following in the predecessor's footsteps through high DVD sales, a visible, cult following, and the spread of the fandom base to mainstream audiences could lead to Community's recognition as one of the greatest American sitcoms of all time.

The show does not feature the annoying traditional laugh track, explores intellectually-engaging plot developments and clever, meta-parody, and in the process, weaves the lives of a diverse cast into a real community. Therefore, Community not only challenges viewers to rethink comedy and television, but also retains elements of traditional sitcoms' focus on family, friendship and love. It's the type of college most students would love, where the Dean is close to students, lines are crossed in terms of professionalism and personal relationships, teachers and students mingle, and talented actors are given space for improvisation to further develop their characters. Undeniably, the presence of Chevy Chase's character often weakens the cohesion of the group and the show's overall strength, but even Pierce occasionally has glimpses of brilliance and plays a large role in the show's family structure, since even old, racist grandfathers or crazy uncles have a role at the study room table. It's a powerful, enlightening show that at its zenith, approaches the alleged "hysterical realism" of Zadie Smith's enchanting White Teeth: a combination of insightful, deep thoughts on the realities of life and social commentary with a deliberately overly contrived world of extreme reality-bending. Perhaps undermined by the use of "hipster racism" through Pierce's character and a few duds in the indulgences of Harmon in season 3 of Community (I am not even going to bother to include season 4, which, minus Harmon, is sub-par in comparison), Community remains one of the more racially-integrated network comedies with meaningful television moments of the promise of American democracy, integration, and, finally, comedy and acting as artistic endeavors. The cast relate to each other superbly, and the Troy-Abed friendship is adorably hilarious, as well as the blurring of fact and fiction in the innocent, naive Annie versus the sexually exuberant Alison Brie. God, I love this show (but you just have to ignore Chevy Chase most of the time and Senor Chang, except in season 1, where he was in a position of authority that was believable and amusing, versus the rest of his character's existence as a social freak struggling to join the study group). Oh, and the cross dressing pansexual Dean is always hilarious, coming on to Jeff periodically as well as his obvious pan-attractions, love for costumes, and the show's mockery of him perhaps veering toward negative, slightly offensive views of the Dean's sexuality. Oh, did I mention the lovable misfits who populate the world of Greendale? The lovable douche bag Starburns, whose name is Alex, has a great line in the first episode of season 2: "Come On, I know you and Britta did it. Isn’t the whole reason you got together with those people because you wanted to bang the blonde. Now I hear you frenched the brunette. What more could you have gotten out of that group?"

The show's numerous allusions to Cougar Town (including a scene in the latter where Abed appears in the background, sitting at a table, and the brilliant episode of season 2, "Critical Film Studies") and Doctor Who have also aroused my curiosity and fascination with perhaps later discoveries of additional television gems. The blending of fiction and reality also occurred in the intersection of social media, in this case, Twitter accounts for the fictional characters in Community's study group. This show transcends the already blurry division between fact and fiction, surpasses the limits of the sitcom medium, and has led to one of the best, in my opinion, fan communities. Ultimately, I love Community for imparting with viewers the important message that the border between fact and fiction is not nearly as clear-cut as many would like us to believe. Like all great art and fiction, Community reminds us that social realities are shaped by fiction, from our archetypal mythology and literary trends (which have carried over into television) to the very ideas, theories, and stories constructed over the last several thousand years that have given meaning to categories of social identity, function, and, in the end, contributes as much as "so-called reality" towards constructing humanity's relations with itself and the world around us. Through it all, Community carries over to the non-animated, real-time format, elements of the genius of Futurama with significant boosts of metafiction and an interesting college experience pertaining to finding community. As Abed would say, "Cool. Cool, cool, cool."

Thoughts on Season 4 of Community

The following contains some of my thoughts on the latest season of NBC's Community, which I am glad to see on the air, even without the comedic genius of Dan Harmon, the show's creator. I shall divide my thoughts on the season into separate categories, the "Good" and the "Bad."

Good:
Episode 6 where Troy and Annie working together as detectives is cute and hilarious, mainly Troy for contradicting every single thing Annie says and does. Surprisingly, Pierce (Chevy Chase) actually made me laugh with his character's ridiculous bigotry in the form of blackface and yellowface hand-puppets. In addition, I think my favorite episode of the season is the Freaky Friday parody where Troy and Abed switch bodies and Abed (or Troy, if you will) has to break up with Britta, which was relieving to me since the whole Troy-Britta relationship thing seemed too awkward and messed with the fengshui of the group, particularly the Abed-Troy relationship. Moreover, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that to see Jeff and Annie progress is most fans' dream, or perhaps even Abed and Annie. Regardless, I think it's nice for the show to respect the rules of sitcoms as laid down by Fry in Futurama: at the end of the show nothing really changes because audiences fear change and feel stupid when unexpected things occur. Indeed, Dean was on point throughout the episode and the rest of the season with his crossdressing antics and obsessive love for Jeff, even moving into the neighboring apartment to be closer to Jeff when the latter graduates! On the Freaky Friday episode he excessively states Jeff was "inside of him" because he pretended they could switch bodies, too, as Troy and Abed did when lights were flickered and they danced around a held DVD copy of Freaky Friday, which was priceless. Did I mention that on the Halloween episode Troy and Abed went as Calvin and Hobbes?!!! That said, this season, though far from the zenith of Community, was appreciable in value. Some episodes lacked the necessary jokes but Abed largely saved the show, as well as Annie, Jeff, Troy and the Dean. In fact, I love the Dean, his sexual obsession and love for Jeff was always a highlight as well as his costumes and cross-dressing.

In addition, Pierce's role was limited and the group socializes more and more without his character. I assume the feuds between Harmon and Chase carried over into this season despite the former's absence, so the writers gradually wrote him out of the show progressively until he graduates at the end of the season with Jeff. And did I mention the parody of the classic sitcom trope of two dates simultaneously? Abed was forced into attending two dances at the same time, same gym in Greendale with dates suggested from Shirley and Annie but eventually foolishly being too much of an Abed to realize the coat-check girl who was helping him keep up the masquerade was the one he should be dating. Oh, and "Intro to Knots" was hilarious with the group tying up their history professor at Jeff's Christmas party mainly for the ludicrousness of the whole episode, especially Abed enjoying real-life as if it were a film, per usual.

Bad:
Chang and Pierce were mostly annoying characters and the Chang sub-plot of working with the dean of City College against Greendale was obvious and a waste of time for the most part. It seemed like the writers were trying to keep Chang's character around for some of the crazy hijinks that he performed under Harmon's reign, although I personally never liked Chang's character except for the first season where he taught our heroes Spanish. When Chang had power in the classroom he could actually be funny, such as when he called Shirley and Troy sucio, or dirty. Also, the laughs were definitely down and even the "out-there" or more meta and fantastical elements of the old Community did not survive the transition to the "new" Community. Without Harmon's artistic vision and control, the show has tried more and more to become a "normal" sitcom in the hopes of increasing its mainstream audience yet in the process, loses too much of the wackiness of the world first crafted by Harmon.

I was also disappointed by the lack of enough airtime for Pierce's half-brother, played by Giancarlo Esposito. However, if the payoff is less Pierce, then I will accept it. A few of the episodes did not work very well nor were they the most humorous, such as the puppet episode, which was only interesting in their secret-sharing. Likewise, episodes such as "Alternative History of the German Invasion" was just plain uninteresting and not the most amusing, whereas "Advanced Documentary Filmmaking" tread on old-ground in a feeble attempt to follow in the footsteps of Harmon's Community without his guidance to ensure artistic continuity and integrity. Thus, some episodes in the season paled in comparison to older seasons, particularly when the show's producers endeavored to do a similarly themed episode from the past but fell a little short. It's just too different now, and even the characters seem a little different in NBC's pitch for mainstream success. When will networks learn to cherish and support the artistry of their original sitcoms instead of selling out for bucks in this cruel, heartless world?

My final thoughts on the season finale and the entirety of the season's run:
I actually liked it, though it wasn't anywhere near the heights of former season finales, though they tried to bring in paintball fights again. I caught the obvious Matrix allusions but I felt like there was another sci-fi/popular culture reference I missed throughout the season. I think I only liked it because of my great affection for the show's characters and the potential changes that will be introduced in season 5 now that Jeff is not a Greendale student. By the way, I like how, as Fry explains in Futurama, everything reverts back to the way it was with Troy and Britta breaking up. I felt that was awkward and just didn't go along well for most of the season, although I would've liked to see some progress between Jeff and Annie (everyone's favorite will they/won't they? couple in the series). As usual, Chang was largely annoying and not very funny as well as suffering from a seemingly pointless sideplot whereas Pierce was largely ignorable and the show's writers seem to be deliberately excluding him more and more from the show, perhaps to prepare for his complete absence in season 5? I read somewhere that Harmon may return in some capacity in the next season so getting rid of Pierce would be better for the show since Chase's relationship with Harmon in real life is so poor. Perhaps that's why the writers had him graduate at the last minute too, since that could then explain his absence in season 5. But I thought the season finale would have been better off as a serious farewell or perhaps a two-part finale with more development of an actual paintball fight across campus or just more displays of emotional bonds between Jeff and Annie, which, obviously, were alluded to in dark/evil Annie's statements regarding sex with evil Jeff. Oh well, though far from perfect, I still love the show and truly pray for six seasons and a movie.

Problems with 30 Rock and White Sitcoms

 
NBC's 30 Rock is always hailed as one of the best shows on the air. However, I don't get it. It's just another semi-clever, overwhelmingly white sitcom show that features a coon in the form of Tracy Morgan. I enjoyed the first season, but it seems to get progressively worse, as most shows do, with age. However, looking back, I still don't see the appeal? It's sort of meta and makes fun of NBC, which is great, but Community does that in a far more appealing and ingenious way. Moreover, seeing Cornel West appear on the show in a recent season and offer advice to Tracy Morgan, the Sambo, on how to improve himself by finding black role models, forced me to admit that the sitcom, like many American shows dominated by white writers and staff, is about reinforcing negative stereotypes of people of color to fit into a white racial frame that seeks to ignore the shifting demographics of New York City and the United States. For me, the problem with shows like 30 Rock, which seems to subvert and make fun of racial stereotypes, nevertheless reinforces them in a white frame or racial context. Tracy Morgan, playing the coon for white audiences, does not subvert centuries of stereotypes of black inferiority, but only serves to further them while the well-meaning white liberals, such as Liz Lemon, have to deal with the buffoons.

These white sitcoms use race and blackness in a way that, although perhaps meant to poke fun at racism, use black history and culture to fuel comedy for audiences that do not, by and large, have enough background information or context to look past the stereotypes. Now, I will admit, the first season of the show had its moments, particularly Tracy Morgan playing Thomas Jefferson, but other moments, such as Toofer, the "two for one" whose blackness is presumed to be the reason he's hired and because he went to Harvard, presumably because of his race. He is used in such a way that demeans affirmative action and restorative, redistributive economic and employment strategies. In addition, Toofer is mocked for not being "black" enough and fictive history is employed by the show's writers to suggest that Toofer's ancestors fought for the Confederates during the Civil War, further implying his lack of "proper" blackness. Never mind the fact that virtually no blacks served the Confederates, the myth persists because revisionist white supremacists want to downplay slavery immoral and dehumanizing character. Even if the show's writers knew this, most audiences won't catch on and will continue believing that some blacks fought for the Confederates Toofer's improper blackness is contrasted with Tracy Morgan, who plays what is essentially a child and foolish Other who can be bent and turned to whatever silly being the writers want him to be. The latter, representing 'real' black people or black culture, is a bumbling fool who serves common stereotypes of black inferiority and innate childishness that white folks have constructed about Africa and people of African descent for centuries.

In addition to the virtual coonery of Tracy Morgan, instances of blackface and the continued portrayal of a very white world reveals 30 Rock's Eurocentric premise and goals. The show depicts a lily-white world of normative whiteness for the show's mostly white audiences. Like Friends and numerous other allegedly great shows, the tokenism and perpetuation of stereotypical images of people of color continues unabated. Indeed, Jon Hamm appeared in blackface on 30 Rock, and Tracy Morgan remains a consistent minstrel show for white America. I usually have more tolerance and acceptance for the kind of racist drivel shown in popular culture, especially because I'm not very invested in most of it. However, it remains sickening that this disgusting culture will be maintained through popular culture consumed by whites and people of color in the US and around the world.  If the show included black talent behind the writers' desks and starring in the show, with intelligent commentary on the state of race relations, like Dave Chappelle succeeded in doing (although he felt whites were laughing at him and not the stereotypes he believed he was subverting), then I would likely be more accepting. Divorced from a socio-historical context, 30 Rock and other sitcoms just come off as hideous tokenism, exoticism, and appalling practices such as blackface that fuel ignorance, xenophobia, and racism. Indeed, many white audiences, including a white friend of mine, came away from Toofer's character as not being a 'real' black person and believing in the myth of black soldiers fighting for the slaveholders, Confederates.

This is not to say that black folks, for instance, do not sometimes hold each other up by these foolish concepts of being "black enough," or that it cannot be amusing (Carleton Banks played this role quite well), but in a blindingly white context, for audiences that are mostly white, the unique context and historical experiences of African Americans are not fully included. We live in a society that continues to dehumanize Africa and African Americans, as simpletons, slaves, savages, never contributing anything to humanity, and a perpetual underclass. Since most whites, or even people of color, do not want to believe they are racist, they will never admit it. However, the ways in which African American history, culture, and contributions are continually cast aside or neglected by Eurocentrism, prevalent in sitcoms such as 30 Rock, does a disservice to black America. Whenever I see a clip of the show with Tracy Morgan or any other thing about black America, I feel deep disgust, since, once again, people who look like me are hypersexualized, dehumanized, and portrayed as unfit, inferior people.