Reality in Comedy

In an early episode of How I Met Your Mother they have a female character, Lily who is a kindergarten teacher living in an insanely small apartment in New York. Now this may be rational to her income vs. the city life, however they over dramatize it. Her pay can get her a tiny studio, but they show this apartment that has everything in her bedroom space, the bathtub and toilet are in her “kitchen”, her kitchen-sink is also the oven and dishwasher, her wall turns into a bed that can’t fold out all the way, and of course there has to be a raccoon that munches on the food in her apartment. This is hilarious, but for a working woman in the modern age, they still portray to the opposite extreme. Instead of having her in a nice apartment like in shows such as Friends, they try to be realistic, yet still have to put that comedic twist to make a fantasy element. If they let her live in a place that was too realistic, it may draw the audience to boredom. Later on in the show, Lily ends up getting a much better apartment with her fiancé even if they both don’t have luxurious jobs. She experiences that she has a shopping addiction. She emotionally shops, and puts herself in debt. This is another realistic element that they bring to her character. Many Americans are consuming crazy and they will spend their few extra bucks they have after paying bills on new shoes than saving it. While in our world, others go into debt for a good amount of time before getting back on their feet. The show reveals that she has support from her fiancé, and everything will work out…which it does. Therefore shows try to put average-life stories into plots, but they always balance it out with a fantasy element, to keep the viewer’s happy and not reflect one hundred percent on the audiences true personal problems.