Masculinity in the British TV Sitcom

This edited collection offers the first authoritative study of masculinity in the British situation comedy. The volume uses a distinctively intersectional approach combining a concern with the format of the television situation comedy (with its typical narrative conceits and characterisations, including stereotyping) combined with a focus on the specifics of male representation. This also allows for a consideration of other areas of identity representation such as class, sexuality, and ethnicity.

The British situation comedy has been a fruitful area for writers and actors to explore male characterisation with recurrent themes such as failure, an inability to make meaningful relationships, or issues coming to terms with changing attitudes to gender and the social position of men. Theoretical analysis of comedic strategies is combined with an awareness of how the television sitcom has been in conversation with the wider culture of Britain, giving expression to anxieties and conflicts sometimes too painful to address in any other way. Consequently, the seismic changes in male identity over a sixty year period are reflected in characters struggling to come to terms with a new landscape of identity.

The authors come from a variety of academic backgrounds with well-established authors sitting alongside new voices. A significant period of development in the situation comedy is mapped, with both classic, popular series and more esoteric entries. The volume should find wide interest within academia (media and cultural studies, gender studies) and the wider public as the British situation comedy continues to attract much attention both in the UK and internationally.