Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore - Screen Comedy and Online Audiences

The question of why we laugh (or dont laugh) has intrigued scholars since antiquity. This book contributes to that debate by exploring how we evaluate screen comedy. What kinds of criteria do we use to judge films and TV shows that are meant to be funny? And what might that have to do with our social and cultural backgrounds, or with wider cultural ideas about film, TV, comedy, quality and entertainment? The book examines these questions through a study of audience responses posted to online facilities such as Twitter, Facebook, review sites, blogs and message boards. Bores analysis of these responses considers a broad range of issues, including how audiences perceive the idea of national comedy; what they think of female comedians; how they evaluate romcoms, sitcoms and web comedy; what they think is acceptable to joke about; what comedy fans get excited about; how fans interact with comedians; and what comedy viewers really despise. The book demonstrates some of the ways in which we can adapt theories of humour and comedy to examine the practices of contemporary screen audiences, while offering new insights into how they negotiate the opportunities and constrictions of different online facilities to share their views and experiences.

Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore is Senior Lecturer in the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research at Birmingham City University, UK.

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First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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2017 Taylor & Francis

The right of Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bore, Inger-Lise Kalviknes, author.
Title: Screen comedy and online audiences / by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge research in cultural and media studies |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016059205
Subjects: LCSH: Comedy filmsHistory and criticism. | Television comediesHistory and criticism. | Motion picture audiencesSocial aspects. | Television viewersSocial aspects. |
Online social networksSocial aspects.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.C55 B67 2017 | DDC 791.43/617dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059205

ISBN: 978-1-138-78066-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77057-4 (ebk)

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I would like to thank the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research for supporting my development of this project. In particular, I appreciate the advice and help I got from Simon Coach Barber, Hazel Collie, Gemma Commane, Rajinder Dudrah, Anne Grfer, Sue Heseltine, Jon Hickman, Paul Long, John Mercer and Nick Webber. Shout out to my School of Media roomies, who provide a steady supply of laughs and coffee. Outside of Birmingham City University, I would like to thank my extended academic network. Matt Hills offered great advice, as always, and many others kindly shared their work with me. I am grateful for my family and friends, who have offered cheerleading and healthy distractions in equal measure. Finally, thank you to the Internet users who generously agreed to let me include their words in this book and to my editors, Felisa Salvago-Keyes and Christina Kowalski, for their patience and guidance.

This book is dedicated to Marc, Axel and Kasper (despite its sad lack of choo choo trains).

Our attempts at understanding humour can be traced back as far as Plato, but we still dont know exactly what it is that makes something seem funny, rather than just strange or foolish. I think this sense of mystery is what attracts me to this field. I am fascinated by the different permutations of comedy across cinema, TV and other screens, by our different tastes in comedy and by the ability of comedy to delight, disgust and fall flat. As Billig (2005) notes, Any attempt to find the objectively laughable the holy grail of comedy that will guarantee to unleash the biological mechanism of laughter will be doomed to failure (186). I am also intrigued by how audiences talk about comedy, how they express their feelings of amusement, affection, excitement or disappointment, and how they argue about whats funny and what isnt. Finally, I am interested in what we can learn by exploring how ideas of humour and comedy circulate in and across different cultures. The cultures I am focusing on in this book are online cultures, digital worlds situated on social media like message boards, review sites, blogs and social networks. Through such media, audience members around the world can participate in the ongoing debate about what it is that makes us laugh.