Teaching TV Sitcom

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by James Baker

British Film Institute

Due/Published August 2003, 80 pages, paper

ISBN 0851709753

This comprehensive guide provides an introduction to teaching this popular topic, with practical and helpful advice on classroom approaches and accessible reference to key critical and theoretical writing. Using examples from TV sitcoms in Britain and the US, this guide explores sitcom conventions, types of sitcom and issues such as representation of gender.

Series: Teaching Film and Media Studies

Contents include:

 Introduction: assessment contexts and schemes of work;
Background: The origins of sitcom in the UK and US; alternative comedies; forms and conventions; producers and audiences; changes in the role of sitcom; types; analyzing sitcom.
Case studies: sitcom families; sitcom and gender; sitcom and realism