Ethan Thompson 63 ETHAN THOMPSON Comedy Verité? The Observational Documentary Meets the Televisual Sitcom bout halfway through the first season of the by audiences within the traditions of both television and FOX television show Arrested Development documentary forms. In his analysis of a number of recent the program’s narrative abruptly confronted British sitcoms, The Office in particular, Brett Mills has A its televisual style. As the Bluth family en- appropriately termed this televisual style “comedy verite.” ters a courtroom, the presiding judge announces that no The theoretical contexts of these two forms and the indus- cameras are allowed, and the doors are closed, blackening trial context of contemporary American television, with its the television screen and cutting off the unfettered ac- need for both product differentiation and standardization cess to the Bluths viewers have enjoyed all season. This of the production process, are both vital to understanding courtroom incident is the first—and only—timeArrested comedy verité as a mode that can be selectively employed Development overtly suggests there is an actual camera within more traditional styles or can even be embraced crew within the show’s diegesis that is responsible for the as a distinct alternative to the standard multicamera and documentary “look” of the show. No character addresses single-camera modes of production. Comedy verité seems the camera or complains about the presence of the crew capable of reinvigorating the sitcom format because it in his or her car and bedroom. The Bluth family may be fits the constraints of the material economy of television, gloriously aloof, but they are not so clueless as to fail to and as a mode of representation its observational style is recognize they are the subjects of a documentary or reality peculiarly suited to the tastes of contemporary audiences. television show. However, that is exactly what the program Indeed, as Jason Mittell recently argued in this journal, we looks like. The televisual style of Arrested Development, with have witnessed since the 1990s an unprecedented trend its handheld cameras, awkward pacing, and violations of toward narrative complexity in television storytelling that continuity rules, looks a lot more like a documentary than blurs distinctions between episodic and serial narratives, it does a traditional sitcom. Still, this reflexive moment that exhibits a heightened degree of self-consciousness, of the slamming courtroom doors is little more than a and that demands a higher intensity of viewer engagement convenient transition into the commercial break. When “focused both on diegetic pleasures and formal awareness” the show returns, the cameras will go on unacknowledged, (38). It is within this context that I believe comedy verité just as before. The observational style will continue to can best be understood not as a subgenre of television provide intimate access to the unfolding comic travails of comedy but as an emerging mode of production that is the Bluths, with all the visual and aural cues viewers of being adopted for its efficiency, visual complexity, and documentary and reality television programs have become semiotic clout. accustomed to. Perhaps the most important and obvious industrial Arrested Development is one of a growing number of trend in television over the last couple of decades has been television comedies that look different and are made the dwindling of the network audience, as viewers are differently from comedies in the past. This essay seeks increasingly split between choices of channels and other to situate this emerging televisual mode of production, media entertainment options. One way this has affected looking to the producers of the shows to see how they programming content is that original narrative program- conceptualize their work and explain the mode of produc- ming is now booming on cable, which was once primarily tion, as well as mapping out how that work might be read the province of reruns. Cable programs have been willing The Velvet Light Trap, Number 60, Fall 2007 ©2007 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 64 The Observational Documentary to take greater risks, particularly with comedy, since they have learned to decode as a privileged way of representing can appeal to a smaller audience and not abide by the same the “real.” (See John Corner for a compelling discussion decency guidelines as broadcast television. In response to of what he calls “post-documentary television.”) this, the networks are shifting toward a year-round calen- The two primary programs that will be discussed here dar of original programming. Scripted programs, which are the aforementioned Arrested Development and HBO’s are more expensive than nonscripted, have necessarily Curb Your Enthusiasm, which predates the FOX show and decreased in number as reality-based television programs has outlasted it as well. Both shows developed cult fol- pick up the programming slack. lowings and garnered critical raves, though neither is a hit On the cultural (and not economic) side of this equa- sitcom by traditional standards. Though Arrested Develop- tion, situation comedies have struggled to connect with ment won an Emmy for best comedy series its first season, audiences as they once did. Perhaps as a nostalgic response, it couldn’t connect with a large enough audience to sus- combined with an antipathy for the reality programs taking tain itself beyond three seasons, each with fewer episodes their place, there has been some public lamenting that the produced than the season before. Curb Your Enthusiasm has sitcom is dying a slow and painful death. An article in the chugged along on the demographic profile of its viewers New York Times explained: “The trend across all of network and their willingness to subscribe to HBO. Were these two television is sharply away from comedy as a staple of enter- programs the only ones in existence, comedy verité might tainment programming, pushed aside by an audience bored not warrant consideration as an emerging third mode of by a tired sitcom format, changing industry economics and producing narrative-based television comedy. They are the rise of reality shows” (Carter). At the same time, the not, however, and as an introduction to the aesthetic I of- aesthetic grammar of nonfiction TV is increasingly influ- fer a short sequence from the MTV series Jamie Kennedy’s encing scripted television. Nowhere is this more evident Blowin’ Up that illustrates the televisual grammar currently than in the emergence of sitcoms that have adopted the in use and also demonstrates how the mode is particularly visual codes—even the mode of production—of the ob- suited to programs whose content also blurs the distinction servational documentary. In the early 1960s the television between real and unreal. networks turned to producing documentaries as a strategy Blowin’ Up (2006) follows the exploits of comic actor to counter the bad publicity brought by the quiz show Jamie Kennedy and his friend Stu Stone as they labor to scandals and the “vast wasteland” critique of TV content. achieve their childhood dreams of becoming rap stars. As Michael Curtin has shown, documentary programs Most episodes consist of loosely scripted scenes of the were partially attempts to redeem the networks for lapses duo driving around Los Angeles and meeting up with in good taste—both ethical and aesthetic. If the content of celebrities in order to seek advice about what they need documentaries saved the reputations of the networks in the to do in order to make it big. These scenes are fit into the past, today their style breathes new life into the sitcom. A/B plot structure typical of a sitcom. Though structured This new mode makes both stylistic and semiotic refer- like an ordinary sitcom, the program is taped with digital ences to what Bill Nichols has described as the “obser- cameras, is shot on-location, and looks like a reality pro- vational mode” of documentary, including both cinema gram (that, or the type of documentary that might exist if verité and direct cinema. Echoing the substantial difference a legion of D. A. Pennebakers were unleashed to capture between those documentaries, there are significant differ- the early years of bands whose later exploits would be ences between the approaches of these shows, particularly documented in the expositional style, à la Behind the Mu- in preproduction, but they all take advantage of the op- sic). In the fourth episode of Blowin’ Up, Kennedy decides portunities for improvisation enabled by embracing the he needs to get a photograph in a tabloid in order to get observational documentary look and, with differing de- publicity and generate buzz for his upcoming album, which grees, its mode of production. Comedy verité has become the two have been hard at work on. Marveling at Kevin common enough, with enough self-described “handheld, Federline’s red-carpet reception and burgeoning rap career improvised comedies” that it is necessary to examine the after marrying Britney Spears, they decide Jamie needs mode of production to find what is indeed “handheld” to get photographed with a popular Hollywood starlet. and “improvised” and what is, through its televisual style, With the help of their photographer friend Giles they go referencing the observational documentary that audiences on a “celebrity safari.” Before long—after a false alarm Ethan Thompson 65 over a potential Spice Girl sighting—Giles shouts, “Mena the documentary aesthetic as televisual masquerade is a Suvari,” prompting bleeped-out expletives as they hastily M*A*S*H episode, “The Interview,” originally broadcast pull their H2 to the curb and Jamie runs to get his starlet. in 1976. Written by the show’s chief creator, Larry Gelbart, Handheld footage of Suvari walking out of a coffee shop is “The Interview” was his final episode to direct.