Are Stereotypes in Sitcoms Killing Comedy?

Sitcoms are some of the best forms of media that allows families, friends, and people of many backgrounds to sit together, enjoy, laugh, and watch tv. However, the lack of originality in the main characters is almost too predictable. It is easy to find comfort in the funny characters, who just miss the point, or are too goofy for their own good, but the same archetypes are being represented and almost copied off of each other. The same few stereotypes of characters are seen far too often in sitcoms, and some of the characters seem lazy and like writers are just checking off stereotypes for each show.

For example, Friends is a widely loved and well written show, but their character Joey Tribanni plays the dumb, pretty, and stupidly funny friend that is seen in so many shows. Joey gets simple math problems wrong, makes errors in judgment, and misses points that are far too obvious. The exact same archetype is seen in Cheers, with Woody Harrelson’s character Woody Boyd, who is kind, charming, and just not sharp enough to get the jokes of the bar regulars. In Parks and Rec, Andy, played by Chris Pratt, is a silly, kind, and dumb character who lacks common sense in most meanings of that word. Although those characters all are charming, dumb, but mostly lack common sense there is a slightly different variation of the just incredibly dumb character, like Kevin played Brian Baumgartner in The Office. He lacks more than just common sense, and is almost too dumb to even laugh at, at times.

The dumb, charming, loyal friend is not the only stereotype, there is also the crazy smart and intelligent character, who often lacks social skills. There is also the token non white friend who only has one defining quality, which is a misrepresentation of society and the people they are representing, the apron clad traditional wife (seen in old shows). There has been a movement to more diverse and nuanced characters, which allows shows to have so much more creativity. This also leads to lack of repetition of in show content as well. These false stereotypes are not only unoriginal and used plot lines, but lead to a misrepresentation of different groups of people based on stereotypes from tv.