Arrested Development and Philosophy_ They've Made a Huge Mistake - Kristopher G. Phillips [95]
Mary Douglas, a British anthropologist, writes about what makes jokes funny on a universal level. People all over the world create comedy based on the situations and societies in which they live; jokes follow patterns of social deconstruction. Douglas writes, “. . . a joke is seen and allowed when it offers a symbolic pattern of a social pattern occurring at the same time.”14 By contradicting the existing social hierarchy, a joke disrupts our expectations and lets us see things in a different light. The Bluths are built entirely as a reflection of current society; George Sr. sells bananas not for a profit, but to hide in-case-of-emergency-cash in the banana stand itself. The dominant social structure, in Douglas’ words, is challenged by an alternative one: our view of the legitimate small business is undermined by its being used to conceal embezzlement. When Lucille “baited the balcony” in the episode “Queen for a Day,” the form being played on is that of the societal elite. Lucille epitomizes the respected matriarch, but her manipulation shows there is not “an ounce of mother’s milk” in her body. By subverting the expectations of our society, the show’s jokes “destroy hierarchy and order.”15 The joke is obviously, and almost always, on Gob, but it’s also on all of us. In many ways, comedy emerges from the depiction of the contradictions within the social order, undermining our sense of necessity and value. After all, who hasn’t had the civics teacher?
Since the style of Arrested Development is spontaneous itself, the jokes have a more natural feel than those on other shows. The show begins and the audience knows, from the quips and upbeat tone of the theme, that the show is a comedy. The players are introduced, the plot is set, and the stage opens to jokes continued from previous episodes and seasons. With contradictory moments or early references come flashbacks, showing Lucille saying that she dislikes Gob, or Tobias saying that he and Lindsay had some good times (Footage Not Found). Sometimes these shots date to before the show was created, giving the show a continuous and realistic feel. In this way the show ignores normal filters and levels of control. Arrested Development allows each episode to live as a bubble within the whole, outside of the expected consciousness. Douglas writes, following an idea first articulated by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), “The pleasure of a joke lies in a kind of economy. At all times we are expending energy in monitoring our subconscious so as to ensure that our conscious perceptions come through a filtering control. The joke, because it breaks down the control, gives the monitoring system a holiday.”16 By giving up our conscious perceptions of reality to the television, we are freeing ourselves from control. We are accepting humor as a reflection of society.
The narrator also builds this subconscious bubble, exposing the characters’s lies and deceptive behavior to show how they contradict their self-presentation. The narrator, then, provides a literal voice of reason, through which the viewer is shown the contradictions within each character and how societal expectations are reversed. If Gob wasn’t shown as a social form in the environment based in television, he would appear as nothing more than a selfish jerk. With narration, he is comedic, a man who matches the attempted sincerity of his brother and the perceived charity of his sister. Since the show is set in documentary style, this element is crafted without the laugh track or obvious pauses of the average sitcom. Thus, as even its form contradicts the standard sitcom format and sense of comedy, Arrested Development creates a wider range of comic material—playing not only off