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"He's Everything You're Not . . ."1 A SemiologicalAnalYsis of Cheers Arthur AsaBetger T Is it symbolicthat DianeChnmbers, one of theoriginal leads in thesit- com Cheer,s,has blond hair? why doesCarla the waitresshaae a temperand by the nameNorm? These kid aroundso frankly aboutsex? what is signit'ied Bergersets out to answ-erin his are justa 7ew"o7 tne questions that Arthur Asa semiologicalaialysis of oneof themost popular situation comedies of all time. Takingiis criticil poiition the structuralistsFerdinand Saussure and "reads'"from llmbirto Eco,Berger the text o/Cheers throughthe l-ens of sem.iotics' For Berger,this riading is a processof decodinga text and of interpretingthe signsyitems it contaiis.He'defines a sign as a unit madeup of a soundimage oid ,"rorrrpt---or, in the terminologyof thestructuralists, of a signifierand a signified." 'Brrg* is carefulto point out that thesign is not na1nal; in otherwords, blondhair means sometiting to us not becnusethere is a naturalconnection be- "meaning," tweenblond hair and itssi-catted but becauseof thecultural and it with. Therules establishinga re- historicalaalues that we haae inaested for " lationshipbetween the signifier and thesignified, then, are called codes,"and thesecodes tells us whal signsmean. When this type of semioticstudy is ap' subtexts,or concealedmeanings, 'comepliedto a situationcomedy, some interesting to tight. For exampli,the bnr itselfmay signtfu more- than iusj^a building thecharacters can buy atcohoi. lts geographical location (Bostod and in which "classier" its interior decoratingsuggrti that it is than a collegeor zootking classbar. For Berger,"botii1tnese signiJiers giae the Cheers bar a meaningbe- yond itsdictionary definition. Nof only doeiBeiger proaide a criticalapparatus-semiotics-withwhich "read" to Cireers,but hi alsoproaides a modelfor readingand interpreting "texts"you comeacross in yourdaily liaes. For example, you mighteasily ap- numberof signifuing sys.tems in com- 'm"ercialsply thesisame critical methods to the,ost on teleaisionand in theadaertisements in magazines,Iooking at signs' ,'binary codes,and oppositions"in thoseeaeryday pop-cultural artifucts to de- "texts" terminethe meanings those impart.
semioloSy (or semiotics or structuralism) The basic question that "texl"- asks of a television program or film or advertisement--or any is this:How do p"opt",itta"rstand what's going on?How do peoplede- rive meaning frbm a text? How do they know how to interpret facial ex- pressions,bJdy movements,clothes the characterswear, kinds of shots' ih" ,."n"ry, correctly?How is meaning generatedand conveyed? a
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A hint comes from ]onathan Culler, who writes in Structuralist Poetics:
Thenotion that linguisticsmight be usefulin studyingother cultural phenomena is based on two fundamental insights: first, that social and cultural phenomena are not simply material objects or events but ob- jects and events with meaning, and hence signs; and second, that they do not have essences but are defined by a network of relations.l Meaning, Culler tells us, stems from considering phenomena as signs and from looking at the relationships among these signs. These two notions are at the heart of the semiologicalenterprise. In this semi- "Cheers,"2 ological analysis of the pilot episode of we will be consider- ing the text as a collection or system of signs.We will define signs in the Saussureanmanner as a combination of a sound and an image (signi- fier) and a concept or understanding (signified). The problem of meaning arises from the fact that the relation be- tween the signifier and the signified is arbitrary and conventional, so signs can mean anything. And, as Umberto Eco points out, they can lie. A signifier (suchas a gesture)can mean different things to different peo- ple, depending upon their socialclass, cultural level, location, and other factors.since the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary, we must discover the codesthat explain the signs,that help us interpret the signifiers. In additioru we must look for important relationships (other than that of signifier and signified) found in texts that help us under- stand cultural phenomena. Here again Saussureis useful. He writes inhis Coursein GeneralLin- "[C]oncepts guistics, arepurely differential and defined not by their pos- itive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms of the system.Their most precisecharacteristic is in being what the others are not."3 Nothing means anything in itself, and everything (as far as con- ceptsare concerned)is dependent on relationships.The most important relationship is that of polar orbinary opposition; binary oppositions are the fundamental way in which the human mind finds meaning. This no- tion has been adapted by Claude L6vi-straussainto a meansof looking at texts such as myths and Greek tragedies-and, by extension here, "Cheers." In essencewe searchfor the hidden set of oppositions that in-
I JonathanCuller, structuralist Poetics:structuralism, Linguistics and thestudu of Literature (lthaca,NY: Comell Un.iversityPress, 1975),4. 2 "Cheers" The first episodeof aired on September30, 1982,on NBC and was 30 minutes in length.The cast was shelleyLong as DianeChambers, Ted Danson as sam Malone,Rhea perl- man as Carla Tortelli, John Retzenberg as Cliff, George Wendt as Norm, and Nicholas Colosanteas Coach. 3 Ferdinandde Sarssure, Course in GeneralLinguisflcs (New york: McGraw-Hill, 1966),1.77. a ' Claude L6vi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology\Gafien City, Ny: Doubleday, 1967). Brncnn . "IIE's EvtnvrrrINc You'nr Nor. ' "' 231'
form a text and thus generatemeaning. This meaning is not necessarily recognized by peoplE but is there nevertheless,and can be elicited by the semiologist.
Signs "Cheers," The title of the series, tells us something. It suggestshap- piness, good spirits (in this case literally as well as figuratively)' and "Cheers" io-pur"rlotrrhii. is a toast we make when drinking with oth- "rr, ,o there is in elementof conviviality and sociability involved. In this series,which takesplace in a bar named Cheers,we thus find ourselves with expectations ibout what might transpire' We expect something pleasant . . . and we are not disappointed'
Boston
The bar itself is a sign system.It is not drab or shabby,like a work- ing-classbar, nor is it a i'ancy,trendy bar. It seemsto be a neighborhood middle-class people. The bar and the row of bai tnat caters mainly to "barness." liquor bottles are primary signifiers of what might be called ena tne bar is in Boston, which gives it a certain flavor and gives us certain understandings becauseof the way Boston is perceived.Boston has an identity due, In part, to its being on the east coast and closely identified wit:h English culture, the revolutionary period,--and Har- vard University. BJstonians are perceived as somewhat effete and a bit snobbish-though this is reserved for upper-class, aristocratic (Protestant)types and certainly not for the Irish working-class types one iinds there. The fact that this ieries takes place in Boston, I would sug- gest,prepares us for all kinds of characters-eccentrics, snobs,weirdos' con artists.
Blondness
one of the most important signs in the text is the color of Diane hair. she's a blond, and blondnessis a sign of considerable Chambers,s "gentlemen richness and meaning. America is a country where prefer blonds,,,and blond iair coloring is the most popular color sold. But what doesblondness signifY? For some women 6lond hair color is a means of escaping (or at- tempting to escape)their ethnic identity, or, in some cases,their age' It is used to cover gray hair. But there are other aspectsthat aremuch more a
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important. Someof theseare pointed out by CharlesWinick in his book TheNew People:
[F]or a substantial number of women, the attraction of blondeness is less an opportunity to have more fun than the communication of a withdrawal of emotion, a lack of passion. One reason for Marilvn Monrr.re's enormous popularity was that she was less a tempestuols temptress than, a non-threatening child. The innocence conveyed by blonde hair is also suggested by the 70 percent of baby dolls whose hair is blonde. D. H. Lawrence pointed out that blonde women in American nov- els are often cool and unobtainable, while the dark woman represenrs passion. Fictional blondes also tend to be vindictive and frigid.s This innocence of the blond is appealing to men because blonds, not being experienced, could not be very judgmental about men's sexual performances-if, that is, things ever get to that stage. Thus, when Sum- "ch7ld," ner calls Diane a there is more significance to the term than we might imagine. The book that Diane attempts to read and her numerous allusions 11 to and quotations from great literary figures are signs of her (and Sum- "proper" ner's) status as intellectuals. And the lack of a response (awe, respect) by Sam and his friends is an indication of their status as nonin- tellectuals. They are more interested in the Boston Patriots than in lohn Donne, in linebackers than in literature.
Names
Let us move on to something a bit more speculative-an examina- t2 tion of the names of the characters to see whether we can find anything of interest and significance. Another name for Diane (Diana) in mythol- ogy is Artemis, a virgin huntress associated with the moon. Thus she is well named, for her basic role in the series is that of an object of sexual " desire, a chlld" / woman who becomes embroiled in a battle of the sexes with the hero, sam Malone. (I will not comment on the fact that her last name, Chambers, suggests a room-especially a bedroom, my dictio- nary tells me.) Sam's name does not tell us much, though we might make some- "alone" thing of the fact that we can find an in Malone and it is his sta- tus as a male with no ties that facilitates the battle with Diane. Carla "tort," Tortelli is another matter; in her name we find which is a de- scription of her argumentative personality. She is an injured party (her husband left her with four children) and bitter about it. Even sumner "on Sloane's name is interesting, for he is, in effect, loan,, to Diane from
s charles winic! The New People: Desuualizntion in American Life (New york: pegasus, 196g) 169 ,
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his ex-wife Barbara. She takes him back when the time is appropriate' Norm, the fat beer drinker, is a perfect everyman figure and well named; the he is a representation of the rypical American bar patron, drinking "Coach" beverage of the common man' is a different matter; his name is used"ironically. He is not a guide and teacher but, instead, an absent- minded and somewhat daffy character who cannot remember his own name and is always confused. I cannot argue that the names of the characters were deliberately t4 chosen for their semiological significance, but it is interesting (and maybe more than purely coincidental) that the characters have the names they do. The writers of the series are educated and bring in many ,,elite names from culture," such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche6 (to show that Diane is an intellectual). It wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that there was some conscious thought about the names of the characters.
Codes
If the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary, we must have rules for interpreting things, and these rules are what we call codes. Codes tell us whit signs mean. What complicates matters, as I suggested earliet is that different groups and subgroups havg different codes in certain cases and there is, at times, code confusion between a creator or user of a sign and an interpreter or receiver of a sign. Thus we "aberrant have the problem of what Umberto Eco calls decoding." He "Towards writes in his essay a semiotic Inquiry into the Television Mes- "Codes sage": and subcodes are applied to the messagein the light of a geieral framework of cultural references, which constitutes the re- ieiver,s patrimony of knowledge; his ideological, ethical, religious standpoints, his psychological attitudes, his tastes, his value systems, etc.,,7Codes are ionnected to culture and social class to a great degree, "Cheers" "get" which means that people who watch may not always everything the writershave put into the show. Or some people, at least' in the same light, the characters themselves do not understand one 76 another all the time; this is a source of the humor in numerous cases.Let me suggest that humor, in general, is connected to code confusion and violation. The difference between what one expects (knowing the code) and what one gets (due to code confusion and violation) Senerates
5 Mentioned in later episodes "Towards Papers in 7 Umberto Eco, a Semiotic Inquiry into the Television Me ssage," Working Cultural Studies3 (Autumn 1972):115. 234 Trtnvrsron
laughter. We are dealing with a form of incongruity or perhaps, to be more accurate,an explanation of incongruity. The situation is very com- "Cheers" plicated, for we find the charactersin do not understand one "Cheers" another and the audienceof does not understand everything that goes on in the episode.Nevertheless, the audienceprobablygets a lot of the humor-or large enough audiencesdo-for the series to be successful. Let's consider the codesof "Cheers" in some detail. First, we know we arewatching a comedy and thus areprepared to laugh, to give every- thing a nonserious, humorous interpretation. Therefore we watch the program with certain expectationsthat color the way we interpret the events in the episode and relate to the characters.Since it is a comedy, we also expect to seeeccentric types who play off against one another; we are prepared for the zanies, weirdos, and others who are found in "types" comediesand who often represent rather than being three-di- mensionalcharacters. "Cheers" In this episode of much of the humor comesfrom misun- 18 derstandings and misinterpretations made by the various characters, "nonresponses." though there are also some Thesetwo forms of codevi- olation or aberrant decoding come from the different socialand cultural backgrounds of the characters.Diane and Sumner are highly educated, middle-classtypes, whereasthe rest of the charactersare working class and presumablyless educated. Thus, when Carla talks about putting her husband through school, "school" Diane assumes meansa university, not a television repair acad- emy. And when Coachtalks about "working six years on his novel," Di- ane asks,increduously, whether he's writing a novel. Shediscovers, in- stead,that he's reading one.Cultural and classdifferences are at the root of these misunderstandings. The same can be said of the scenewhere Diane has answered the phone and is talking to a woman with whom Sam has presumably spent the night. He doesn't want to talk to the woman and his mouth is full of food, so he tries to indicate to Diane that she should tell the woman he's gone for a haircut. Instead Diane says, "He's taking a mime class."She may be intelligent, but she doesn't have much common sense.The same thing can be said about Sumner, who leaveshis young fianc6 in order to retrieve a ring from his ex-wife. "nonresponse" We find a caseof in the scenewhere Sumner Sloane has just introduced himself and informed Sam that he is "professor of world literature at BostonUniversity." Instead of being awed, Sam says "validate" nothing; he refusesto Sumner,a responsethat university pro- fessorsand students to whom I have shown the program find hilarious. Sam's nonresponse is viewed as a proper one becauseSumner is so pompous and deserves,we feel, to be deflated. Sumner has violated the ,
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egalitarian code that is so important in American culture and has set himself up for his punishment. Below I list some codes and violations found in the episode so we 27 can seehow important this phenomenon is. Code Violation "mime" Common sense Diane and the scene Propriety Diane, as waitress, sits with patrons Egalitarianism Sam'snonresponse to Sumner's identification of himself Loyalty Sumner jilts Diane Law Kid tries to get a drink with false identification Self-awareness Coach doesn't know his own name Alcoholic owns a bar Logic "Cheers" Normalcy Eccentrictypes found in This list indicates the importance of code confusion and violation rn the text. In order for viewers to understand this text fully, they must be able to recognizethe violations of the codes,which meansthey must be able to interpret facial expressionsand other signs,understand motiva- tions, and uir"tt characters.That is, viewers must bring a great deal of knowledge to the text; and the more they know, the more they will un- ,,Cheers" derstand. must be seen as a figure to be interpreted against the ground of American culture and society; and culture, from our persiective, is a collection of codes and subcodes' When we watch ;'Cheers,"we are, semiologically speaking,decoding a text ' ' ' whether we know it or not.
Oppositions
Bipolar oppositions, we have learned, are a basic meansby which we find -"u.,irg; this is becausenothing has meaning in itself. It is the network of relationships that is crucial to the generation of meaning. What I have written deals with concepts,but it also may be used to un- derstand charactersin a text. Let's look at some oppositions between "Cheers": various charactersin Diane and Carla, SamMalone and Sum- ner Sloane,and Diane and Sam' Diane Carla Tall Short Blond Dark hair 236 TsrtvrsroN
Single (to be married) Was married (now single) Cool/reserved Hot/bitchy Middle class Working class WASP Ethnic Innocent Experienced (Schoolmarm) (Bargirl)
We can see that these two charactersare opposites in many im- portant respects. The same can be said for Sam Malone and Sumner Sloane.
Sam Malone Sumner Sloane Tall Short Young old Jock Egghead Modest Pompous Regular guy Goof Common sense Intelligence The world The academy Hires Diane Abandons Diane
Sumner's character is, in a sense, defined by how different he is from Sam. Diane has said, in an important line spoken to Sam, that Sumner "everything is you're not." And this is quite true. Sumner is an intellec- tual, but he lacks common sense and morality-he abandons Diane af- "mesmerized" ter being by his former wife, Barbara. He is a highly stereotyped figure: academics are conventionally seen as intelligent but unworldly, lacking common sense and often lacking decency. Sam has "goof no problem in immediately sizing Sumner up as a ." This polarity between the intelligent but impractical and unworldly scholar and the "wise" uneducated but naturally common man has deep roots in Amer- ican culture, and can be found in the early 1800sin our idealization of "nature's the various noblemen" we identified with. It is connected to ideas we had about ourselves and the way we contrasted ourselves with Europeans. In essence, we saw ourselves as innocent, wise, egalitarian, indi- vidualistic characters living in a classless society in a state of nature, and contrasted this with Europeans, whom we saw as guilt-ridden, trained conformists living in a hierarchically organized society domi- nated by institutions such as the church and nobility. Sam is shown as "regular a classic American guy" fig:ure, and Sumner is portrayed as a European-like character. The fact that he is a professor of world litera- ture suggests his lack of Americanness and that he has, somehow, been tainted. "HE'sEvtnvrurNcYou'nrNor..." Bgncnn . 237
Finally, let us move to the central opposition between characters in 27 this text and the opposition that is to be crucial in the series-the dif- ferences between Diane Chambers and Sam Malone. Diane Chambers Sam Malone Female Male Blond Dark hair Middle class Working class Education Common sense Vulnerable Worldly Beauty Beast(magnificent Pagan) Worker Boss Useless Handy "battle" One of the common themesin the seriesis to be the (of the sexes)between Sam and Diane. They are attracted to each other but refuseto admit it; they cannot fall in love and get married lest the series becomea "domestic comedy," so they spend their time flirting, becom- ing involved in ridiculous situations from which they extricate them- ,"1-rr"rwith great difficutty. That obviously is their fate.We do not know this when we seethe pilot, but we can presumethis will be the casefrom our knowledge of the genre and the logic of the situation. In addition to the oppositions that exist among characters,there is a central set of oppositions in the text that is worth considering. These oppositionsinvolve charactersbut havebroader implications' Youth Adulthood Kid who can't drink Grown-ups who can drink Young teaching assistant Old(er) professor Working Class Middle Class Workers, patrons Sumner Sloane,Diane Chambers The Future The Past The marriage Ex-baseballplayer Grad student Ex-wife of Sumner Con Artists Marks The kid Sam Sumner'sex-wife Sumner Inside Outside The bar The outside world Regulars Strangers,aliens The Beauty The Beast Diane Sam Theseoppositions are of central importance in the episode-and in "battle "the the whole s"ries. It is the of the sexes," battle of the classes," and a whole seriesof other confrontations that generatenot only dra- 238 TertvrsroN
matic interest and tensiory but also humor, because the possibilities for misunderstanding and misinterpretation, are enormous.
There is another kind of opposition worth mentioning here: that be- JI tween the main characters, who will appear in each episode, and the various characters, such as Sumner Sloane, who will be seen in only one episode. As we watch the series, we will get to know the main charac- "ground" ters, and the series will function as a kind of that will help us interpret what these characters do and understand them better. Th"y "status" will have a different than the characters who appear for an episode and then disappear. These characters will remain more stereo- typed and one-dimensional; we will understand them because they will "types," be with conventional signs and codes. With each episode the main characters, even though they may be stereotyped, will become more real because we will know more of their history. Thus the characters in a television program/series that lasts a long time become, so to speak, a part of us; their history merges with our lives. And the situations in which they become involved take on a sig- nificance for the regular viewer that they do not have for the casual viewer. This leads, I suggest, to an inevitable humanization and round- ing of the characters, especially in a medium like television, where fa- cial expressions and other signifying systems reveal character tellingly. "Cheers" It might be argued that regular viewers of a series like see more in a given episode than casual viewers do, though in the pilot episode I'm discussing, all viewers start on an equal footing. From a semiological perspective, stereotyping involves the use of conventional and easily understood signifiers and codes . . . and easily perceived oppositions. This instant decoding is necessary because tele- vision programs don't have a great deal of time to develop characters, and must rely on commonly understood attitudes about types of peo- ple and their motivations. Stereotyping may also be connected to the in- ability of some audiences to decode more complex characterizations.
Conclusion
"Cheers" A semiotic analysisof a text such as focuseson how mean- ing is generatedand conveyed, and thus on such matters as signs and codes,polar oppositions, and sequential structures.The text functions as a figure against the ground of culture, and the figure reflects(though not always in perfectly accurateways) the ground, just as the ground "Cheers" helps interpret the figure. A text such as is extremely complex and could yield a semiologicalanalysis of great length. The lighting, the pacing, the dialogue, the costuming, the blocking, the facial expressions "HE'sEvrnvmrNcYou'ntNor..." BnncEn . 239
of the characters,the music, the sound-all lend themselvesto semio- logical analysisbecause they all function as signs (and, in particular, sig- nifiers). "Cheers" I have offered a semiologicalquick study of in an attempt as to show how a semiological or semiotic analysis of this text might be done. There's plenty of room at the bar for others.