As far as production style goes, I feel that Community is a little more like a typical situation comedy. 30 Rock is very similar, however, it is a bit more cinematic to me. Although it is supposed to be a behind the scenes sort of show, the characters in the show have a bit more of a movie character feel to them. As compared to Community which portrays the characters as much more casual and down to Earth. Some of the camera angles in 30 Rock feel a bit more movie-like to me compared to the much more straight forward Community approach.
The intertextuality in 30 Rock tends to be towards a broader audience than Community. Community mainly focuses on current intertextuality. Jokes and references based on events that a younger generation can easily pick up on and relate to. In 30 Rock, there is a larger range and timeline to the different types of intertextuality. Some of the references are from a long time ago and based off of a historical event an older audience could interpret. There are also more modern references but most seem to be over more political issues.
I will focus on the comedy itself in both shows for my third discussion piece. Community proves again that it leans more towards younger audiences through its humor. The humor tends to be a healthy mixture of cleverness and slapstick. It often starts out with little situations that occur in real life (especially with college students) and then blows the situations way out of proportion in a comedic and entertaining manner. 30 Rock, on the other hand, tends to focus a little more on clever humor over slapstick from what I’ve seen. The humor tends to be a little more dry in my opinion. I don’t mean this in a bad way, I know tons of people who love dry humor and even I prefer it at times, but I find myself leaning towards Community’s approach to comedy a little more often.
Good catch on the generational value of each show`s jokes. I think 30 Rock is a little more current than you give it credit for. I understood just as many jokes on the show and it actually turned out to be my favorite. As for comedy, I think that the `spaceship` episode is a perfect example of Community`s balance of slapstick and tongue in cheek humor.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you said 30 Rock focused on broader audiences than Community did. The audiences of Community are more familiar with the school life so the culture-references can easy to be understood. The things that happen in Community can attract more young audiences. On the other hand, 30 Rock has more story lines happens together so the pop-culture references are about different characters in their life. That's why 30 Rock has more audiences.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with the idea that 30 Rock's characters are more cinematic vs. Community's characters that are casual. Very well put. I also liked what you said about the humor tending to be a little more dry on 30 Rock. I had a hard time distinguishing what it was that felt different between the two, I'm not exactly a comedy connoisseur, so this was insightful.
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