Community and Postmodernity

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Genre: SitcomCreated by: Dan Harmon6 seasons110 episodesCountry of origin: USDistributor: Sony Pictures Television

Community Genre:

CastThis is the cast list for the sitcom ‘Community.’

Plot of CommunityJeff Winger finds out that his degree has been revoked and is forced to go back to school at Greendale Community College. He sets up a study group and invites a fellow student in order to score points with her. To his surprise, she wasn’t the only one to show up for help with Spanish from the “board-certified tutor” he proclaims himself to be. Although his knowledge of the language is far from good, the members continue to meet and end up learning lots about themselves and each other.

Harmon based the program on his own experiences attending a community college. Each episode was written in accordance with Harmon’s “story circle” template, a methodology designed to create a structured storyline. Harmon was the series’ showrunner for its first three seasons was fired prior to the fourth. Then he was re-hired for the show’s fifth broadcast season, after which was cancelled by NBC. Yahoo! Screen commissioned a sixth season, which premiered on March 17th 2015 and concluded on June 2nd with the series finale.

This is postmodern as it’s self referential as Harmon based the plot on his own life experiences.

Relationship between TV and postmodernity

The relationship between TV shows and postmodernity is that they can use intertextual references to reference other TV shows which are iconic, modernising the view from the audience. The idea of this is that the audience will automatically recognise the reference and relate it back to what they already know. An example of this is community, and the paintball episode. Programmes such as community highlight this massively, constantly throughout all of their episodes. Especially within this show they highlight a lot of their intertextuality, bringing in other references from previous films such as die hard. Community do this a lot by including several iconic objects from the actual film of die hard, which the viewers would be very familiar to at an instant view of the presentation of the location, and the way the scene is carried out. This includes things such as the slow motion paintball scene and being very over dramatic, including pastiche as they are imitating the film. It allows the audience to become highly familiar with the programme and how they can make their own interpretation of the show, and what they can involve to make it more entertaining for the audience. It is clearly signifying the direct link to star wars and how it can be altered to tailor for the audience of community. This differs the audience to what they are used to, and therefore offering them more than the ‘normal’.

Postmodern TV ConventionsSome typical conventions of the show are the way that the camera is used, characters included, narrative arcs, the set, mise en scene, sound and dialogue. The set of the clip which I am looking at is in a professional area, in a office where you would stereotypically think of it being a grown ups environment, moving onto the more mature life. This is highly ironic as the audience is presented with characters who are the complete opposite as to what the would be expected. The professional environment has been altered when introducing characters as they are presented in a more causal approach as a pose to the professional look you would expect. The man with supposedly the most power, is being represented as being immature as his behaviour reflects his childhood. As the image below highlights, the big plastic gun is imitating the scene from die, but it also giving an ironic parody affect as it suggests that the and is incapable of holding/being in charge of a proper gun, as his actions reflect why. The shot of the man standing up is looking up to him, suggesting we should not forget the fact he is at a higher status/power, ignoring the fact he carries childlike characteristics. The mimicking sounds and dialogue of fake gun sounds and slow motion also is metaphorical for the level of maturity, and the noises once someone has been hit, suggests the pain which has actually been felt.

Postmodern TV ConventionsThe levels of which the characters are at also highlights significantly the levels of authority of the characters. The layout of the scene, is also very childlike, in the way that it is set out. The sofa has been turned upside down in order to shield them from the paintballs, reminding the audience to a time back in their lives when they used to do that. The audience is constantly being referenced of the die hard movie, where it is imitating the seriousness of the clip and how it can be altered to fit the humour and modern day expectations of audiences of episodes such as community. At this point, the audience has a brief understanding of the characters, and the fact that the two who are shielding themselves, are together as a couple. It gives the metaphorical view that they are trying to hide their relationship from others, which highlights some similarities as to what children do.

How is Community Post ModernMany TV shows appear to be postmodern in different ways. The one key feature of postmodern tv is that shows can use Intertextual references to reference other TV shows which are iconic. The idea of this is that the audience will automatically recognise the reference and relate it back to what they already know. An aspect of the reference is that the audience would be expected to have a good understanding of the reasoning behind the Intertextual reference. An example of this is the paintballing episode in Community. Programmes such as community highlight this constantly throughout all of their episodes. Especially within this show they highlight a lot of their intertextuality, bringing in other references from previous films such as die hard. Community do this a lot by including several iconic objects from the actual film of die hard, which the viewers would be very familiar to at an instant view of the presentation of the location, and the way the scene is carried out. This includes things such as the slow motion paintballing scene and being very over dramatic, including pastiche as they are imitating the film. It allows the audience to become highly familiar with the programme and how they can make their own interpretation of the show, and what they can involve to make it more entertaining for the audience. It is clearly signifying the direct link to star wars and how it can be altered to tailor for the audience of community. This differs the audience to what they are used to, and therefore offering them more than the ‘normal’.

How is Community Post Modern

- Spanish study group who don’t study spanish- Each character relate but have different backgrounds. - Pastiche themed episodes e.g. Western/Sci-fi- Meta narratives, replacing family with the study group. Father figure

as the person in need of care, the lead couple who never get together, the overachiever is the drug-addict drop out, the loner as someone comfortable with both his eccentricity and solitude and the single mother whose children are just the periphery.