Month: May 2021

For my flow analysis assignment, I wrote about the planned flow of the CW network– in regards to the show All American specifically. Before you open your mouth to say I am obsessed with this show, I want you to understand that this is not just an ordinary show. It is a show created and handcrafted by God himself. It addresses important issues in this society while also breaking down the stereotype of different groups. Without promoting the show too much, I just want to give a small post appreciation to the writers and producers of the show–as well as the beautiful actors.

Nevertheless, I was able to zone my attention on the way that the network caters not only to the demographics of the network but also to the particular storyline when it comes to the commercials they presented. I analyzed 2 episodes of the show but in this post, I will only focus on only one episode. Through this analysis, I learned a lot about how a network can structure its ad choices in order to connect with the show. Moreover, I will talk about how the advertisements in episode nine go hand and hand with the memorable moments in that episode. Here is an overview of my flow notes:

Keys moments in Season 3 episode 9

All American – Season 3: Episode 9 : Testify

About 42 minutes each episode 

Commercials Before Start of the show

• Charmin (toilet tissue)

One of the most memorable scenes from episode 9 is when Olivia gets in a car accident with Spencer. This scene was the perfect segway for the insurance ads that came back to back. I realized that the targeted audience of this network is young adults– who usually have the highest rates for car insurance. This is a very smart way to advertise after we see it happen in the show because our minds will already be in a place where we feel for the characters. So, it is easy to feed off of that emotion and sell us an insurance brand that we can not forget about.

Next, it was the random advertisement about Strayer University that sealed the deal for me. Before the commercial break, Coup talks about wanting to drop out of school while her mom is convincing her that she is making a wrong choice. The ad about the university speaks to the scene in which they are trying to show us that signing up for school is the right choice. This observation further supports my claim that the content of the show is working together with the flow. Overall, it was interesting seeing how the CW brand coincides with the organized flow to cater to the demographics they reach, which is something that I can not unsee now after studying it.

After reading Mittell’s “A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory”, which emphasizes the negotiation between specificity and generality with genre studies, I wanted to know how this concept would be applied to Community, one of my favorite TV shows. Community is often categorized as a sitcom (or at least a satire of one) and follows the main character, Jeff Winger, a lawyer who is disbarred for faking his undergraduate degree and must enroll in a “community college” in order to resume his career. He is surrounded by a motley crew of students, who fit into various narrative archetypes, ranging from the tense perfectionist to the arrogant athlete.

Despite being referred to by popular media outlets as a sitcom and/or comedy, the show incorporates various non-comedic genres, structuring the narrative around tropes and conventions from TV, movies, and pop culture in general. There is so much going on within Community that placing the show under the label of a singular genre would be an overgeneralization. In order to apply media genres to the show, I decided to follow Mittell’s idea of narrowing the analysis to focus on a “specific aspect of a genre’s definition, meaning, history, or cultural value”, which avoids the “problems of overgeneralization that have been typical of more traditional genre studies, as well as acknowledge that genres are too multifaceted and broad to be understood in their totality”(70). In particular, I think a significant component of genre analysis within Community is its use of cinematic language and cultural references. Not only is Community about the semiotics of the sitcom and the tropes of almost every single genre, but it touches on the shared culture that the audience brings to the show.

Since it would be challenging to pick up every single allusion to literature and pop culture, every viewer is able to find their own path through the series. Each episode is a unique riddle, which allows the audience to find personal significance in the content. By engaging the audience through various cultural references, Community reifies sitcom conventions and connects them to the lives of viewers themselves.