Feeding Off His Emotions

I love sitcoms. I don't really have that many shows that I watch regularly, but I've always enjoyed the idea of sitcoms as a mindless escape from reality.

I started wondering if there was something deeper to my appreciation when I set out to write an episode of Scrubs with my writing partner for the normal circuit of teleplay competitions in film festivals. After a lot of thinking about what draws me, in particular, to that format, I realized that it was something incredibly basic about me and about situation comedies.

People are allowed to be themselves.

I've always wanted to live inside a sitcom. I don't imagine I'm the first person. A world of witty comebacks, pranks lovingly pulled on best friends, side characters flowing seamlessly or meaninglessly in and out of life. And I did live in a world like for a time in college - the same close group of friends always spending time with each other, always a battle of wits and clever conversation, pranks were always appreciated, life was full of those subplots that make it interesting,

But behind all the character types and hilarious one-liners, the thing that stood out to me was that people are accepted for being themselves no matter what. This causes fights from time to time, but it's nothing that can't be solved with a little honest humility and the remembrance that friendship is strong and matters.

The stereotypes fulfilled in these shows are always allowed to exist at their pinnacle. I'll take Friends, for example, because it is such a shining example of these stereotypes:

The crazy person (Phoebe) is always allowed to be quirky and odd. They accept her as she is, and everyone loves her. She does really random stuff, and the most anyone ever does is shrug their shoulders and snap off a clever joke.

The nerd (Ross) is allowed to be as nerdy as possible without repercussions except the light jabbing of friends' jokes. He's made fun of for being a nerd, but not brutally - and he's never excluded from hanging out because of it.

The handsome idiot (Joey) is patted on the head for saying dumb things, but a group of college educated - one being a PhD - people continues to hang out with him and help him out.

The sarcastic asshole (Chandler) exists solely to put other people down because he has low self esteem. He does this continually, even annoyingly so, and everyone treats what would otherwise be a psychological cry for help as fodder for an interesting lifestyle. He gets to hang out with his friends despite constantly making fun of them.

The spoiled rich girl (Rachel) has no real depth to her. She isn't the brightest person, but she's attractive and can sometimes hold a conversation. She shows good qualities like compassion, but for the most part hangs out despite being neurotic and worrying more about outfits than character.

The psycho (Monica) is overtly crazy. She is a clean freak, a control freak and still hasn't gotten over self-esteem issues stemming from being overweight in high school. She is frequently over-dramatic which would threaten the balance of any good friendships, yet she still hangs strong.

Essentially, sitcoms are a group of insane people who choose to deal with each other's neuroses because they love each other. They display an intense friendship based on love rather than, necessarily, common interest or clique. They have a love that defies everything.

I feel like this mimics real life in a certain way - albeit more cheerfully. We are all insane in one way or another, but we don't always embrace each other for it. We don't always support each other because of how taxing it might be. Sitcoms, on the other hand, show us that it might not actually be taxing at all to deal with someone's insanity because you love them. And loving them means accepting them for how they are. And when you truly love a person, you don't really think about the tax they place on your life.

The time you spent consoling them after the break up? The hours on the phone listening to them talk crazy about their boss being out to get them? The entire tub of frosting you ate during the Great Frosting Race of 05? It's all time well spent. It's all incredible moments that should be locked in your memory or in celluloid for home viewers to see every week - same time, same channel.

I love sitcoms because I know I'm just an insane person looking to be loved.