Comment by oneeyedpigeon
1 day ago
I find more modern American humour much easier to relate to, probably because it has veered more in this direction. A show like Always Sunny seems incredibly British-compatible because it's about terrible people getting their comeuppance, yet still being sympathetic despite their failings.
To go full British, you need characters like David Brent, who aren't sympathetic. They have no redeeming heartfelt goodbye. No-one is sad when they're gone, life moves on.
I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I suspect a new viewer coming to watch the latest series of IASIP would not see them as sympathetic. That's quite different to The Office (US), where a new viewer skipping to later seasons would not have the same opinions as a new viewer watching season 1, where Scott was much closer to a Brent type character, before he was redeemed and made more pitiable than awful over the seasons.
A more recent show to compare would be the UK vs the USA version of Ghosts. I like both shows but it is interesting how in the USA version all the main Ghosts are basically good people while the UK Ghosts have more serious flaws. And in the UK version, money is a constant problem while in the USA version it isn't nearly as big of a problem.
I'm not sure it's generally true that funny English characters aren't sympathetic.
You're right, there are plenty of sympathetic ones too, but it's the unsympathetic ones that really don't do so well to a US audience. There's a reason that The Office (US) hard pivoted Michael Scott after season 1.
Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) is both hilarious and sympathetic so there's that.
> I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I'd say they're charismatic and funny, but irredeemably bad people. It was refreshing that the show didn't shy away from that; in lots of comedies, the characters are basically psychopathic if taken literally, yet we're still supposed to like them and to see them as having hearts of gold if they make the occasional nice gesture. Always Sunny just leaned hard into portraying them as terrible people who were only 'likable' in the shallow sense needed to make the show fun to watch rather than an ordeal.
But I think the creators eventually lost sight of that -- I remember the big serious episode they did with Mac's dance, and I just find it baffling because in order to buy into the emotion we were evidently supposed to feel, we needed to take the characters seriously. And as soon as we take the characters seriously we are (or should be) overwhelmingly aware that we're watching people who have proven over the previous umpteen years to be irredeemable sociopaths, which kind of takes the edge off the heartwarming pride story.
I only watched the first few seasons of IASIP, but I don’t remember them being sympathetic characters at all. The whole concept, and what made it funny, I thought, is that they really are all terrible people who just drag each other down.
Yeah, the conceit of Seinfeld was that the characters were crappy, but you liked them because they were funny. But they didn't actually lean into that as hard as, say, the finale would suggest. All of the characters have something sympathetic that you can like about them, even if you can buy the thesis that they are unsympathetic broadly.
The genius of IASIP is to just lean all the way into this trope. The characters are never sympathetic and never redeem themselves. It's almost an experiment in whether you can make people feel sympathetic toward awful (but entertaining) characters just through long familiarity with them. (Yes.)
It would be disturbing to find out people sympathize with the IASIP characters.
They were more human and relatable in the very early seasons. It was just a bunch of people dicking around trying to run a bar (for the most part).
As time went on, they become more and more awful.
I'd say it has a pretty decent parallel with Breaking Bad. In season 1 almost anyone can relate to and cheers for Walter. By the last season, you hate him and are happy he dies.
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Yeah this does seem right. Maybe as our own empire has been collapsing, our culture has been edging toward the brits'.
No, nationalism and patriotism started to be embarrassing to the educated classes in the US after the USSR collapsed. We had "won", and slavish obedience and loyalty are really not consistent with the values of liberalism and democracy, and empire is quite uncomfortable if you believe in human rights and self-determination, etc. Our society has been changing because it's running into the contradictions of a culture designed to foster the unity necessary to win wars and dominate the world and an idealism that says all humanity is equal and freedom and self-determination are inherently good.
I don't think "patriotism" and "slavish obedience and loyalty" are the same thing.
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