TV on the...TV

In his lecture on TV, Colin Tait discussed TV as a self-reflexive and post modern medium. The post modern aspect of TV goes hand in hand with it’s self-reflexivity. Post modernity (in reference to television) is how often TV realizes what it’s doing when it references other current events or forms of media. Self-reflexivity is simply when TV is on TV. Often the family or group of people in any given TV show has at least some encounter with television. For instance, Tait gave the example of The Simpsons opening sequence, which is basically this family all trying to get home in time to turn on the TV. Now I’m not an avid Simpsons viewer, but one show that I do watch regularly is Community. Community is an NBC sitcom about a group of students at a community college. It is also often delightfully tongue in cheek. In addition to being a semi-realistic comedy about life at community college, it is also a perfect example of post modern TV and it’s self-reflexivity. In every episode, there is some reference to another show, form of media, or even it’s own plot and character development. One of my favorite characters, Abed, is a perfect example of post modern TV. Abed is an aspiring film student and he views his whole life as a movie. Which comes across to the audience as beautifully ironic, because we are watching his life as a TV show. Often he’ll say things like, “This is the part of the show where the principal busts down the door and yells ‘What are y’all doing?!’” The scene that he describes then proceeds to play out just as he describes. Scenes like this, examples of TV’s post modern aspects and it’s self-reflexivity, are one of the things that I still find entertainment in. I love being in on the joke and this is one way TV allows us to do just that.