Analysis of 2 texts

Text 1: Friends
Text 2 Hope and Faith

The functions of both these texts are that they provide the audiences with entertainment.

The first text is Friends. This is a sitcom as is Hope and Faith however they the lifestyle they live in are different to each other. The narrative for Hope and Faith is family life and what they get up to however, for Friends; the main focus is on friendship amongst a group of friends. This will attract similar audiences as they like to see images of happiness, in particular it will attract a mainstream audience and the certain of group of preferred target audience will be as aspirers according to the psychographic profiling. This is because they will want to aspire to the characters and the life they live in as everyone likes happiness.

Some of the characters will attract different audiences such as hope and faith will attract family/teenager audience whereas Friends will attract a more working class audience and teenagers. This is because the teenagers will be able to identify with the characters such as in hope and faith. This sitcom will also appeal to audiences who aspire to characters. An example is Rachel who is pretty and has a good job at Ralph Lauren, a successful designer institution appealing to teenagers to want to become like her character.

The similarity for these two sitcoms is that they have used the stereotype of the blond ‘bimbo’. An example is when Rachel sister is introduced, who was represented as a bimbo; a stereotype. This was then used in hope and faith, faith being represented as the blond bimbo. The reason this stereotype is reinforced is because it creates identification with the audience. The audience like seeing these stereotype and they also create humour to keep the audiences entertained. This makes the two sitcoms successful apart from them being another American sitcom.

Both texts also reinforce stereotypes of women. Hope is represented as a housewife, a role they were labelled as before the first wave feminism. Feminism is when fought for equality. In addition, another stereotype is reinforced with Monica. She is represented as the super clean freak that is very tidy and like things perfect and new. This is a stereotype of woman cleaning. The males are also stereotyped such as Ross having a job as a palaeontologist. Having stereotypes help the audience identify with the sitcom and don’t feel alienated. It also helps them understand as they are presented on a daily basis, audiences feel comfortable with what is being shown even though it is mediated. There is also a himbo; male version of the bimbo however he is not blond challenging the blond hair colour stereotype.

The genre of both the sitcoms is a comedy. Comedies attract a mainstream audience because they feel entertained and the visceral pleasures such as laughter are provided. The sitcoms provide escapist entertainment, which is part of the uses and gratifications theory. This is because the spectators are given the sitcom that is different to the soaps and other programmes because it follows a narrative and both these sitcoms have key locations that make it recognisable and part of the sitcom that when they hear it, the audience can automatically identify the sitcom as Hope and Faith or Friends. An example is the café at central perk in Friends or Hope’s house in Hope and Faith.

In addition, Friends challenges patriarchy because there are equal number of friends in the group with three females and three males reflecting equality in the society between males and females. On the other hand, Hope and Faith is different. This sitcom reinforces patriarchy because the husband is working and bringing in the money whereas the mother is the housewife. This means that they are still living in a patriarchal society where women are subordinate to men.

In conclusion, these two films both has similarities and differences and attract different audiences however the genre is the same for both the genres.