2 Broke Girls - OR - Laugh Tracks and The Decline of Primetime Comedy
“Let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that” Chuck Lorre “doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he is doing”[1]. He may have gotten away with it in Two and a Half Men, and I’ll admit that I guiltily enjoy The Big Bang Theory, but How did 2 Broke Girls, (the biggest piece of crap to come across a television screen since the Golgothan attacked Jay and Silent Bob in Dogma) ever get a 2nd season? This is a mystery I hope to solve. If I hadn’t been in a Nielsen family and didn’t understand how TV ratings work, I would assume 90% of the Televisions tuned into 2 Broke Girls were in waiting rooms, airports and the bedrooms of the twelve year old boys who apparently wrote the script. Everything from the title, which uses the number 2 instead of writing the out word (maybe that just bothers me personally), to the actors shouting every line at each other in whatever tone has been permanently assigned to their one dimensional characters, to the rampant and excessive use of a laugh track, which Chuck Lorre employs in all of his shows to manipulate the audience into thinking mediocre “jokes” are legitimately funny. So many TV shows committing all these offenses, yet still managing to be successful cause me to feel like dark days are ahead of us and it will be a long time until we get another Seinfeld or Arrested Development on network television.
This clip, which is under two minutes in duration, uses the laugh track 16 times! That is a “joke” every SEVEN seconds. I’m disturbed to learn that this show has won three awards including “People’s Choice Awards favorite new TV comedy 2012” and been nominated for 20 more[2]. I don’t know how to feel about this. I know that these awards should be taken with a grain of salt but shouldn’t someone making those nominations have stood up and said “ummm. excuse me?”. Regardless of the power that producers and networks have over these kind of awards, the fact that 2 Broke Girls remains on the air is nothing short of an indictment of the american public education system, or at least of the average american’s ability or willingness to evaluate media.
In much the same way that many people worry and theorize about how profanity and violence in movies, television, and video games can cause people to become aggressive and violent (a theory I personally disagree with, probably due to some cognitive dissonance). I believe that consuming dumb (for lack of a better word) media will lower our intelligence.
What theories could shed some light on why people watch 2 Broke Girls and give insight on what effects it may have on our society?
- The elaboration likelihood model gives us two ways in which viewers are manipulated into laughing at what passes for jokes in 2 Broke Girls.
- “When the motivation or ability to process a message is low, then the receiver is likely to take a “cognitive shortcut” to process the message by making a quick decision about the message based on a peripheral cue”[3] (laugh track). The motivation to process the dialogue when watching 2 Broke Girls is likely very low. We watch comedies to relax, however without the laugh track, it is doubtful that many of the jokes would even register as jokes in our minds.
- There is a lot of power that comes with having attractive actors. It gives them credibility and again, we are less likely to evaluate them critically.In much the same way one might laugh at a bad joke while flirting, without even realizing it, audiences may be subconsciously accepting the show simply because the main characters are played by two attractive women , Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs. How much could this really matter though? Would the show be successful with less attractive actors? We don’t have access to the alternate universe where 2 Broke Girls was cast differently we can’t know for sure, What we can do is examine a similar situation in a similar show. In season 8 of The Big Bang Theory Kaley Cuoco, the actor who plays Penny, much to the chagrin of the majority of the audience[4], cut her hair very short. Everyone who I have personally talked to about this (3 women 5 men) has felt the same way. This seemingly minor change genuinely lessened people’s enjoyment of The Big Bang Theory.
- I often hear that other countries view people in the U.S. as rude, lazy, self centered etc… That is not surprising when we export media where those traits are not only apparent but essentially glorified. Actually living in the U.S. of course cultivates a much more positive view of our society but I can’t help but wonder if low quality television like 2 Broke Girls plays a part in why we are seen negatively. Charles H. Cooley’s theory on communication and the effects of mass media lead me to believe that they could.
I encourage anyone reading this to never watch an episode of 2 Broke Girls. If you were not convinced of the shows awfulness by the two minute clip above, try and see if you can make it through a whole episode now that you are aware of the laugh track, put yourself inside the show as a bystander or a supporting character, how do you feel about what is going on? Close your eyes and imagine the dialogue coming from less attractive actors, is the plot still engaging? Decide for yourself if it deserves a primetime spot on a major network. My hope is that you will agree with me that no, it doesn’t. I do apologize to anyone who previously enjoyed the show in blissful ignorance. I would be happy to recommend several great shows to take its place in your now better-without-2 Broke Girls life.
[1]-Rubio, Marco ; ABC News Republican Presidential Debate, New Hampshire, Saint Anselm College Institute of Politics, Auditorium, Stage, 3rd podium from the left , Feb/06/2016 , Approximately 8:30 pm, 8:32 pm, 8:34 pm, and 9:21 pm Local Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqshYG4qvT4&list=RDtyqNES_G8yk&index=12
[2]-IMDB- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1845307/awards?ref_=tt_ql_op_1
[3]-Sullivan , Media Audiences, 2013 , Page 42
[4]- https://www.yahoo.com/tv/bp/big-bang-theory-premiere-penny-s-new-haircut-043839796.html
