Over the past few decades there has been an enormous amount of research done into how the media affects us. If you search the internet, or even (Shock! Gasp!) go trawling through the many volumes in your nearest library, you can find a wealth of information about what the television, films and video games we consume are doing to our brains.
These effects range from the somewhat amusing – for example The Tetris Effect, or Tetris Syndrome – coined by A. Earling in an article he wrote for the Philadelphia City Paper, when people devote a large amount of time and attention to a particular activity to the point of it overshadowing their thoughts, mental images, and dreams, to the rather worrying as told by Contessa Schexnayder in brianworldmagazine.com "In a study published in 2006 in the Journal of Communication…by Jeremy Osborne researchers found that college students who frequently watch romantic-themed shows/films are more likely… to believe that their partners should know their innermost feelings and that their wedding day will be the happiest day of their life." to the genuinely damaging; In a 2007 article by A.J. Schweitzer and Michael J Saks, ‘The CSI Effect: Popular Fiction About Forensic Science…’ it states: "…the CSI Effect…the television program and its spin-offs, which wildly exaggerate and glorify forensic science, affect the public, and in turn affect [criminal] trials either by (a) burdening the prosecution by creating greater expectations about forensic science than can be delivered or (b) burdening the defence by creating exaggerated faith in the capabilities and reliability of the forensic sciences."
This can all be wrapped up in a lovely little concept called ‘Media Priming’. It’s the idea that everything we see, read and hear affects us on a cognitive level and influences our behaviour and emotions far more than we realise. Now, as a writer I am keenly aware of this and I think it’s important that the media at least tries to present good role models to viewers so as to affect them positively. However, what I really enjoy writing is comedy, which poses a little bit of a problem when it comes to role models.
It brings up the question: can happy, healthy, functional, sane people be funny? And the trouble is: I don’t think they can.
The simple truth of the matter is that happy, healthy, functional, sane people don’t get into the kind of wonderfully ridiculous and hilarious situations that miserable, ailing, flawed, off the rails people do. The only time good role models can be funny is when they’re juxtaposed with bad ones (A la Tim and Daisy in 'Spaced' – and even then, they’re a bit odd). An yet it remains that the people we really laugh at are the Basil Faultys, The Blackadders, the Arnold Rimmers, the Bernard Blacks, and the Geraldine Grangers.
There is, however, one saving grace. As opposed to American comedies, where the characters are portrayed as normal people who have normal lives, British comedies portray their characters as extreme caricatures in bizarre and almost impossible situations. You’ll laugh at Basil Fawlty, but it would never cross your mind to behave like him – in fact, you would never think it possible to meet someone who was really like that at all (although you occasionally do run into them).
Perhaps the way of giving people solid, positive messages about how they can relate to the world around them, is not having your characters be a shining beacon of everything good, but instead, a terrible warning of all things that lead to embarrassment, discomfort and unhappiness. Perhaps bad role models – and I mean REALLY bad role models – teach people just as much about the world as good ones.
Emily Snee (pictured) is a stand up comedian and writer. You can follow her on Twitter HERE and visit her website HERE.
