This is my favorite episode of all the television shows I’ve seen [if you haven’t seen it, STOP! SPOILER ALERT!!] and I need to examine why I feel uncomfortable about it. It’s not psychoanalysis, it’s a cultural discourse analysis. The main subject I see addressed is “faking the other”: passing as straight, passing as handicapped, and passing as staff. What I find intriguing is how the show portrays resistance and how the degrees of resistance are used for comedic effect. The woman seems outside all of the rolls. Is it just for the sake of a consistent straight-man? Comedy comes in threes (I’ve heard) and she is the antithesis of each. So is this a technically comedically harmonious piece? I don’t mean to initiate a discussion of comedy (please don’t discuss what makes something funny) but I’d like to contextualize and correlate some signifieds to some signifiers and identify the codes of propriety. Please help. Go: Gay, Cripple, Staff.
And what’s the subtext of fame/connectedness/knowingness?
I will have this episode for viewing tomorrow in the office, perhaps otherwise; the 'nets permitting.
I'm PRETTY sure this is available on Netflix for instant viewing as well.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I watched this with you and it is terribly funny, but terrible. The person who is faking to be on staff is a mere counterpart to the other two, which are more loaded with significance. The gay man playing straight was done well, although the environment in which the whole comedy is set is rife with gay stereotypes. The gay playing straight man does address these at the end, which takes some of the offense away, I think. The guy pretending to be handicapped is, to me, the worst of the bunch. There is no redemption in the end for his behavior. I mean, he has to ride to Manchester in the bus full of gay men, but really doesn't pay for his farce... is that what makes it bad? We have a sympathy for the handicapped that we don't have for other sections of humanity. Is this appropriate? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it also feels a bit weird because it's a reminder of just how easy it is to be "mis-categorized"? Especially in the case of Roy - He says he's handicapped, and suddenly everyone's conception of who he is changes drastically. But, because we know the "real" Roy, it's much clearer to us how crazy their reactions are?
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