The television series Community and Sitcom : A case study aimed at the genre of contemporary American Sitcom television series

Abstract: This thesis is asking whether the television series Community (2009-) can be defined as a Sitcom, combined with a look at how other genres that generally are considered to be non-comic are incorporated in the series and how those are identifiable as well as whether or not they compromise Community’s possible label as a Sitcom. In seeking to define this show’s place in its own genre I found that whilst Community does not follow the archetypal technical conventions of Sitcom, it still does follow some of its setups, tropes and ideas. It does not suffice as a classical Sitcom, but it does lean on some of the genres conventions and has not yet passed over the line where it would be part of a completely different genre. Instead I state that the series fits the term New Comedy, as devised by Antonio Savorelli, not a genre but a term representing the heightened use of metatextuality on four levels in Comedy. Thus Community suffices as a part of an evolved version of the Sitcom genre.