A Show About Nothing
In the artcle, “Is Seinfeld the Best Comedy Ever?”, author Jay McInerney agrees with Seinfeld the best comedy on television. Seinfeld is a real life show. The behaviors of Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine, the failed communication, and the everyday embassassment represent “nothingness” but a peculiar everyday life. These “nothingnesses” happen to all of us, but when it is put on TV, people will laugh at these. Besides, the author appreciates the fact that Seinfeld is a New York story but it is filmed in Los Angeles. “The lumpy texture of life in the city, the random looniness of the street, the idioms and speech inflections of Manhattan, and the claustrophobia of New York apartment living” in the show fascinates the New Yorker as it is so real and funny. Seinfeld takes those little nothings and combines them to create something realistic. Nothingness and reality give the author the reasons to believe that it is the best comedy ever.
When people consider Seinfeld as a “show about nothing”. It could be humorous that “nothingness” can provide such an interesting topic for the comedies of life. In life people care about details and worry about trouble, the little nothings made are soon forgotten. Thus, these “nothingnesses” are actually fragments of out real life. Seinfeld gathers the nothingness into a show, and it spreads out the idea that everything in the show that actually happens all around us. For example, losing the car in a parking garage, working for an eccentric boss and coping with the trials and tribulations of dating, it is common for a lot of people. And these realities come into the nothingness of Seinfeld.
In Seinfeld, the fabulous four characters George, Kramer, Elaine and Jerry share the nothingnesses which life have granted them. George cannot attract thr girl because of his limitiations as a short, bald, fat man. Kramer struggles with the fact that he has not achieved anything in his life yet.. Elaine worries her hold on to a good boyfriend and a good job for long. And Jerry, living with his nothing friends, as well as his own LEX Luthurs which seem to always abstract his plans to find his own Lois Lane and live the life of Superman. The four were cramped in small apartments of New York and live a life of nothingness.
Besides, even the settings in Seinfeld for great adventures appear muchlike nothing.
The word sitcom is short for Situation Comedy. A good sitcom story idea places the star (or supporting character) into a situation in need of a resolution, which will cause the character to respond in unexpected, exaggerated, and hugely sidesplitting ways (Rannow, pg. 13). A comedy now days are different from how they were in the 1960's and 1970's though. Today directors use sexual content and foul language to make people laugh and do not usually have a purpose or point to get across to the audience with each show. In earlier comedy, such as The Brady Bunch, Director Jack Arnold tried have a lesson learned in each episode while still maintaining a sense of humor, minus the foul language and sexual content. Although the show is not extremely funny to most people it is still a classic show that deserves to be remembered.
In The Andy Griffith Show and in Greek and Roman Comedy the viewer or reader, whichever the case may be, will notice the dominating fatherly male character, the male character who is always confused, the person who is in need of help or looking for answers, and the female who is needed for the male. The sitcoms of today are similar to some of the Greek and Roman comedies of the past. The reader or viewer may also notice that there are many differences between the two. The most dominating differences are the changes, which have taken place in society. The people of today are encountering some of the same situations, but the outcomes and solutions have changed. The roles of women and men have changed, and because of the changes the presentation of comedy to the public has been forced to change.
The Secret of Seinfeld’s Humor: The significance of the Insignificant, an article written by Jorge Gracia briefly outlines what the author believes to be the origin of the humour with which the popular television show Seinfeld achieved such broad based success. A show that embraced the ordinary of everyday life, while atypically avoiding the mainstay of violence and sex of most of today’s popular visual media and culture. Gracia (19??) begins his article by posing the question “how, can a show that deals with ordinary, everyday occurrences have such wide appeal”? This is a very general question that could be analysed in any number of ways. The author however, suggest one possible answer. That a show such as Seinfeld is effective because its humour is based upon the dramatic tradition of the comedy and tragedy.
Seinfeld’s catch was that it was “a show about nothing.” But the only real truth in that statement was that it was a show about nothing in particular; it was a situation comedy without a specific situation. What made the show unique and revolutionary was that it focused on the lives of four adults who were anything but what television and society itself had taught us to expect adults to be. Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer resembled more closely four children who never grew up, or never learned what it meant to be an adult. By the age of 40, none of them had spouses, children, or serious careers (I say ‘serious’ because Jerry did have a career, but it was very non-traditional—he was a standup comedian). Yet it can’t be said that they were unfulfilled or less happy in their situations.
For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary
The consequences for the old world were the introduction to a new trade through the Ottoman Empire in new foods and massive amounts of gold and silver. Food exports in east declined were controlled by the Ottoman. The Atlantic states became Europe’s economic and political powerhouse. Europe’s new crops from the new world included corn, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes. From these new crops, the improvement on food supply had Europeans population grow around the 1500’s and did so for the next three hundred years.
The effect of music on the brain is a very interesting topic because it deals with the reaction of our body as a human being to waves produced by music. In the past, researchers believe on the Mozart effect which had and have a huge place in this specific topic. Then, the present shows us another benefits and roles that music plays in our brain without our acknowledgement. Last, the future which is unpredictable advices us to trust this music and further, to trust the entire world of art.
Modern Family is an accumulation of genres, but it is rare in today’s society that we find a television show based on one genre. In order to discuss the aesthetics of a TV show, we can use semantic elements to distinguish what genre the show is displaying. According to Smith, “a film or television program’s genre does not guarantee that you will like the product, but genre can help you match the program’s overall tone with your current preference. When you feel like watching a sitcom, you can use that category to help you find an appropriate viewing choice” (53). It is easy for the audience to identify what the show is about. The title of the show gives the audience a little bit of the idea, and once the audience is introduced to the characters and different plots, the audience finds itself identifying with the show. Modern Family fits the description of a comedic family sitcom. “For audiences, genre acts as a label that allows them to recognize how this particular film/television program is likely to operate. In addition, genres are useful to critics for grouping media together in ways that provide insight” (Smith 59). The audience can identify the genre of Modern Family by the cast. The story line of the show, shows that the overbearing mother is trying to keep her kids young forever and the father who is pretty much careless and clueless who have two daughters, one dumb and pretty and one who is a brainiac, and the son
Southgate, Darby E. and Vincent J. Roscigno. “The Impact of Music on Childhood and Adolescent Achievement”. Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 90, March 2009. Ohio State University. Web. 22 May 2013.
Plasticity change between people who learn music and people who does not. Researchers compared people who play music like a professional, people who practice music like a hobby and the non-musical people. They found that the two first categories of people have high volume of gray matter of their brain. The non-musical people have low volume of gray matter of their brain.
The Mozart Effect, a study done to show the effect of music education on middle school children, led the way to more followup research on this subject. The procedure included thirty-six college student’s split up into three groups. Each group
Schlaug, Gottfried, Andrea Norton, Kate Overy, and Ellen Winner. Effects of Music Training on the Child’s Brain. The Musician's Brain. New York Academy Of Sciences, 2005. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. .
Music and the Brain. (n.d.). Music and the Brain. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://tdlc.ucsd.edu/research/highlights/rh-music-and-brain-2011.html
Cooper, Belle. " How Music Affects and Benefits Your Brain."lifehacker.come. N.p., 11 22 2013. Web. 3
Weinberger, Norman M. “Music and the Brain.” Scientific American Special Edition 16.3 (2006): 36-43. Health Source- Consumer Edition. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.