QuestionGuy
Why do you think sitcoms always portray middle class families living in nice, luxurious suburban houses, yet the parents are always portrayed to work shitty jobs and be poor/broke?
Why do you think sitcoms always portray middle class families living in nice, luxurious suburban houses, yet the parents are always portrayed to work shitty jobs and be poor/broke?
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Because they want to appeal to both blue-collar audiences and the middle class while also not making anyone look pretentious
Because a trailer-home set would be too small to film in.
*Malcolm In The Middle had entered the chat.*
It’s not meant to be realistic. That’s why I always like Malcom in the Middle, because the joke is that a family with 5 kids and crummy jobs is poor as shit
Those jobs made enough money to buy people a nice house in the past, when sitcoms first became popular. I guess the trope stuck around, despite the increase in the cost of houses.
I need an example…
Because if you work one of those jobs and live in a house like that you are broke. You’re house-poor
To perpetrate the lie that hard work can get you into the middle class
People have mortgages
If you’re talking specifically about sit coms then must audiences will watch programmes and casts they either aspire to, can laugh at or both. They can dream about having that lifestyle while being entertained. It’s also a great platform for product placement.
Writers of the era wanted to portray a fictional living standard for the audience, not the actual situation.
trust funds
I like this question but I think you’re missing a bit. Most families in film are actually produced with a minimalistic view of living—in terms of what is in their house, what they wear, etc. There are exceptions, especially recently, like Knives Out, and even Locke and Key. In those homes they are full of junk, which is in a certain sense more true to middle class, even if they emphasize the bloated size of their homes. Point being, minimalism is a poor way to indicate middle class. It appears high class even when it is not. Shows take advantage of this because they need to spend less on props.
If you want to get even more philosophical, video games do the same thing. You can enter a house and all you will find is a can of beans. Very minimalistic. It’s cheap production.