{"title":"Awkwardness sells, but who’s buying? How students navigate awkward TV comedy series","authors":"Iván Kirschbaum, Pauwke Berkers","doi":"10.1177/17496020231211485","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study examines how students engage with awkwardness in television comedies. The article contributes to studies of awkwardness, its configuration in popular culture, and audiences’ response to awkward-comic texts. Our findings show typical sequences and resources for producing awkward scenes. Participants tend to evaluate awkward scenes in terms of ‘realism’, i.e., whether they could relate the scene to their personal lives and/or imagine themselves in that situation. Furthermore, awkward sequences and feelings of awkwardness from the characters increases the evaluation of scenes as realistic. Finally, in line with Kotsko’s (2010) characterisation of awkwardness as a social feeling, awkwardness spreads from the television screen when participants perceive if the character is feeling awkward or imagine themselves feeling awkward in that situation.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Television","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231211485","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"FILM, RADIO, TELEVISION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study examines how students engage with awkwardness in television comedies. The article contributes to studies of awkwardness, its configuration in popular culture, and audiences’ response to awkward-comic texts. Our findings show typical sequences and resources for producing awkward scenes. Participants tend to evaluate awkward scenes in terms of ‘realism’, i.e., whether they could relate the scene to their personal lives and/or imagine themselves in that situation. Furthermore, awkward sequences and feelings of awkwardness from the characters increases the evaluation of scenes as realistic. Finally, in line with Kotsko’s (2010) characterisation of awkwardness as a social feeling, awkwardness spreads from the television screen when participants perceive if the character is feeling awkward or imagine themselves feeling awkward in that situation.
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Television publishes articles that draw together divergent disciplines and different ways of thinking, to promote and advance television as a distinct academic discipline. It welcomes contributions on any aspect of television—production studies and institutional histories, audience and reception studies, theoretical approaches, conceptual paradigms and pedagogical questions. It continues to invite analyses of the compositional principles and aesthetics of texts, as well as contextual matters relating to both contemporary and past productions. CST also features book reviews, dossiers and debates. The journal is scholarly but accessible, dedicated to generating new knowledge and fostering a dynamic intellectual platform for television studies.