Exam Practice

Question 4b
Compare the audience pleasures offered by two comedy programmes. Give examples from the programmes.

In the comedy programmes The Inbetweeners and QI, different audience pleasures are portrayed including entertainment, escapism and informing. Each programme has a different target audience to suit the context and language used.

The Inbetweeners is aimed at teenage and young adult males as they are likely to relate to the situations. Each of the four main characters have different personalities which make them individual and a male who is watching would be able to compare himself or a friend to either Neil, Simon, Will or Jay. Females would also watch this programme to see what the male gender thinks and acts like. In one episode Simon says 'He's 40, his life is practically over.' Which shows how the teenagers think that the older generation are so different and cannot relate to their situations. The audience feel superior to most of the characters as they all have flaws which is used for entertainment. The character Will is portrayed as the guy who tries hard but fails with socialising which is shown when he brings a game of monopoly on a camping trip. Neil is the generally stupid character who is unaware of what is happening around him. Simon is portrayed as the hopeless romantic, for a girl named Carly who shows little interest in him and Jay portrays braggadocio with his constant lies about his sexual relations with a number of girls. The audience can relate to their failures at socialising with the rest of the characters.

The programme QI is a quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry which is targeted at an older audience. QI is able to inform the audience as well as entertain. The purpose of the show is for the panel to answer with a common myth which in fact is proven wrong. The audience may feel inferior to Stephen Fry as he is portrayed as very intelligent. However he is accepting to any answers and does not make the panel members feel small. Although Stephen Fry make the audience feel inferior, Alan Davies who is the permenant panel member is always getting the questions incorrect. His wrong answers may make the audience feel superior when they know the correct answers. As the programme is a quiz show the audience are always thinking of what the answer may be and this makes them an active audience rather then the passive audience watching Inbetweeners. The people who watch QI would want to discover new facts and information to educate themselves.