Friends and Seinfeld were the
most successful comedies on television because they appealed to wide audiences.
That may seem tautological: The fact that Big
Bang Theory has now surpassed them indicates a cultural shift in America.
The widespread acceptance of Big Bang Theory derives not just from the writing
and acting, but from a general interest and appreciation for science.
To some extent, this
is a measure of pretense. More people claim to watch PBS and listen to NPR than
actually do because it is expected as a sign of culture, learning, and social
standing—at least among some people. The ratings for BBT are more reliable than
that. It remains that very few of the millions who enjoy the humor freeze the
frames to read the white boards. True fans know that the erasable boards
contain physics equations that underscore passing elements of the dialog.
Sometimes they frame the running narrative. The show is funny and the
characters are compelling without it.
(For four seasons,
the show was supported by a scientific website, Big Blog Theory written by
their science advisor, UCLA’s David Saltzberg.
The final post, which footnoted “The Raiders Minimization” (Season
Seven, in fact), was November 10, 2013, here. David Salzberg interviewed by NPR here.)
It raises a deeper
question about the nature of comedy in particular, and fiction and literature more
generally. Friends was inclusive. It
had a large cast of ordinary people from several overlapping urban micro-cultures.
Seinfeld was point-of-view,
observational humor, with Jerry Seinfeld as our lens, even as we glanced aside
to share with George, Elaine, and Kramer.
We can identify
with the characters because we know them, perhaps all too well. When I first
brought BBT home from the library in 2009, Laurel could not watch even the
first episode. It was too embarrassing because it was too much like the people
she worked with at the University of Michigan. Personally, I just thought that
it was because she has so much in common with Sheldon. The fact is that
even those millions who do not see themselves in the characters – as with Friends and Seinfeld – know people like them, again, as with Friends and Seinfeld. The difference between then and now can be attributed to
a sociological “tech effect.”
BBT is just one of
many high-tech shows, such as the CSI franchise, N3MBERS, and Bones. Even NCIS
is as much about Abbey, Duckie, and their labs, as it is about the marriages
and marksmanship of Leroy Jethro Gibbs; and McGee graduated from MIT. The “tech effect” was the label given
to the so-called “CSI Effect” in complaints from prosecutors that jurors were
expecting sometimes ridiculous physical evidence, such as fingerprints lifted
from grass. (See “The CSI Effect” earlier on this blog here and “Junk Criminology as Pseudo-science”
here.) Researchers Barak, Kim, and Shelton found that less educated jurors wanted "scientific" evidence. Educated people just trusted the prosecutor, worrisome as that is.
That nonetheless may reflect
the wider “Flynn Effect” which posits that the general IQ is rising and that we
are measurably smarter than we were 100 years ago. That being as it may, it is
apparent to me that too many people still believe a lot of really stupid
claims. It may be a slippery slope from speculation to mythology, from Star Trek
to Star Wars, from Batman to Thor, from putting climate science and creation science in the same category.
A recent Pew
Research poll on basic science may be disappointing because only 78% of 3278 randomly chosen
Americans got 9 out of 12 right. You can take their quiz here. And read the
analysis here. However, as Wired writer Rhett Alain pointed out
about a different quiz (here), these instant investigations ask not about scientific thinking but about
the memorization of isolated facts. Alain was responding to a now-classic pop
quiz given by Prof. Jon Miller of Michigan State University back in 2008 (see
here and here ). One extension that Miller reported then was the fact that Americans tend to
score slightly higher than Japanese or Europeans.
PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
