"Cheers" - A Semiotic Analysis by Berger
In Arthur Asa Berger’s essay, he conducts a semiotic analysis of the comedy television show "Cheers." In his analysis of the show he points out many characteristics that refer to semiotics. Even though one could not agree with all of his findings, many of them are reasonable. One discrepancy someone might have with his ideas is that he applies his analysis to simply one episode rather than the entire series. Berger could have been able to conduct a more thorough examination if he used the whole series as a basis for his semiotic analysis. There are many examples Berger uses to explain his point.
One such example Berger uses is the instance about the signs. He states that there is more than one significant meaning of the word “cheers.'...
In the end, Norma comes back to Jimmy because the person she lives with is too serious. In “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore,” Victor and Adrian talk about the basketball stars on the reservation, hoping that someone on the reservation can resist alcohol and develop his or her basketball skills to be a successful ballplayer. The function of Alexie’s humor shifts throughout his stories. In “A Drug Called Tradition,” Alexie’s humor effectively accomplishes one of his goals by obliging readers to reconsider their concepts, while his humor helps his characters improve their situations in “The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor.” In “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore,” humor mitigates the characters’ pain and despair.
o An example is “business is business.” The 1st business invokes denotes the transaction under discussion and the 2nd invokes the connotations of the word.
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.
Today, comedy news shows are becoming more and more popular, and in so, becoming a new source of information – which may, or may not, be a good thing. Most comedians twist the truth in order to connect to people and make them laugh, and some “use logic to make painful things make sense” (O’Hara 108) according to Mary O’Hara’s article “A Serious Business: What Can Comedy Do?” Satirical comedy acts as a relief mechanism in that it comforts people that may be wary about a certain subject, especially in the realm of politics. Similarly, Peter McGraw and Joel Warner talk about how comedy can act as a coping mechanism, but they also add that “activists all over the world have been using comedy as a form of political protest” (McGraw & Warner 147).
Symbolism is one of the main categories in the figurative language utilized by the author that made strong impacts on reader by forcing them to contemplate
James, Henry. "Symbolism." in American Writers Classics. Ed. Jay Parini. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. 332-334. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
Legendary author and humorist Mark Twain once wrote, “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” This quote encapsulates the importance of using comedy as a tool to reflect society. Comedy is much more than creating laughter, for it is a way to strip serious issues of their pretense and unabashedly remark upon the problems that face America. Authors Mary M. Dalton and Laura R. Linder, impart this notion in their book, The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed, as they explore important subjects including gender and sexual orientation in television comedy. Furthermore, these topics frequently play a large role in the American sitcom, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. This show, also referred to as Always Sunny, revolves around five main characters known as “the gang”, who run a bar together. The creators of the show, who also play three of the main characters, have referred to Always Sunny as a darker version of Seinfeld, in the sense that the protagonists are written as
To appeal to their reader’s logic, Arno and Davis use the elements of diction, structure, and examples, and to increase their credibility they use examples and
In the book The Other Side, the author uses tone, symbolism, and audience. She uses them in different ways throughout the story. This essay will be analyzing here use of tone, symbolism, and audience.
Searle, J. R. (1979) Expression and Meaning: Essays in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comedy differs in the mood it approaches and addresses life. It presents situations which deal with common ground of man’s social experience rather than limits of his behaviour – it is not life in the tragic mode, lived at the difficult and perilous limits of the human condition.
Often in great works of literature, symbols are incorporated to add depth. These symbols make it more interesting to the reader by making connections from one idea to another. Herman Melville depicts a great number of characters and symbols in his 19th century novel Moby Dick. Melville uses symbols to develop plot, characters, and to give the reader a deeper interpretation of the novel. (Tucker) The author successfully uses the symbols of brotherhood, monomania, isolation, religion, and duality to make his book more interesting to its readers.
The cover of this magazine can be analyzed using different theories, including the semiotics of symbolic theory, Performance as Political Action idea and postmodern theories within cultural studies. The first theory used to analyze this magazine is the semiotic theory, developed by C.S. Peirce. This theory is used to find the meaning in signs and claims it is all in the meaning of the signs used.
Semiotic situations are interpreting signs or texts and then trying to make sense of it all
Detweiller, Eric. ““I was Just Doing a Little Joke There”: Irony and the Paradoxes of the Sitcom The Office” Journal of Popular Culture 45.4 (2012): 727-748. Web. 15 January. 2014.