From 'Living Single' to 'New Girl': Why The Apartment Comedy is Everyone's Forever Obsession!
Everyone is a nosy neighbor.
Yes, I'm talking to you.
There's a fixation on what happens behind closed doors. Nights are spent gossiping about other people's personal lives. Spending nights social media stalking someone down to their last family reunion (psh...hypothetically...) We want to know the things people don't talk about. It's human nature. We are desperate to know what goes on in other people's lives. Unfortunately, people don't share everything. They don't let us in on their most personal goings on. They don't let us be a fly on the wall for their make-ups, break-ups, fights, family dramas, exciting moments.
In comes the apartment comedy.
We as a society- nay, as a WORLD have been OBSESSED with the apartment comedy for years. Living Single, Friends, New Girl, and The Big Bang Theory all rank among the most popular television shows of all time. Why? They examine the one thing we are the most curious about: people. While television has adapted and changed the apartment comedy, while readjusting for the times, remains a televised constant because through it's gold standard tropes, characters, and tactics, it serves to quench our insatiable thirst for tea about other people's lives.
The most CRUCIAL tenant of the apartment comedy is that a group of friends must live in an apartment together. There can be a few friends that live in a different apartment. There can be two apartments. The lion share of the cast, however, must live in and locate around one apartment. For example, while the majority of the Friends cast does not live in Monica and Rachel's apartment, everyone spends the majority of their time there. Furthermore, having Chandler and Joey's apartment situated directly across the hall gives the viewer the energy that it's really just one giant apartment that all of them share. By establishing this insular space in which chaos ensues, the audience understands that we are seeing inside their personal lives. Where they sleep, what they wear when they sit at home, what they do to pass the time. It answers the question, "I wonder what's going on in there?" in a legal way (because breaking into someone's home to watch them live their life, no matter how innocently intended it may be, is in fact a crime. I'm looking at YOU Joe Goldberg!)
The apartment comedy is inherently, comfortably formulaic while consistently using those formulas to surprise and delight. There are the people in the friend group that will unquestionably end up dating OR are already dating. In New Girl, anyone with two eyes is immediately aware that Nick and Jess are going to get together at some point. In How I Met Your Mother, Lily and Marshall come in having been dating since the first day of college. And while I recognize that How I Met Your Mother may technically be on the cusp of apartment-comedy status, Marshall and Ted living together while Marshall dates Lily makes their house the homebase-meeting-ground required of an apartment comedy.
The tropes are not only situation based. The genre is filled with staple characters who, while they may differ from show to show, at their heart remain consistent. In Living Single, Kyle is the ladies man, Overton is the kind dummy, Khadija is the smart, competent one, and Synclair is the kind, ditsy one. In The Big Bang Theory, an apartment comedy that is vastly dissimilar to Living Single, these same character tropes are still very present. Howard is the ladies man, Penny is the kind dummy, Amy is the smart competent one, and Bernadette is the ditsy one.
In The Big Bang Theory, the majority of the friend group are incredibly brilliant scientists. In Living Single, they have a variety of professions including lawyer and magazine publisher. The shows are different but the tropes stay true. It is one of the fundamental footholds that keep people climbing onto the apartment comedy. By representing a variety of different tropes, it allows the audience member to find a character they most relate to, answering yet another of the mind's questions: what would I do if I were in that situation? The apartment comedy is the fictitious answer to this question. It allows us to assign ourselves and our friends arbitrary roles based on certain attributes. Therein we watch ourselves living these dream, scripted lives where people go on adventures, have fights, take risks all from the safety of our homes. Wanting to feel safe and secure is not a new feeling. It is something that the apartment comedy has been capitalizing on for years.
With this feeling of safety comes the most important aspect of the apartment comedy: the found family. These friends that live together and work together deeply love each other. They are entirely themselves. They fight like family. It illustrates and romanticizes the notion of the found family which, especially for the apartment comedy's typically younger-adult viewing demographic, is absolutely critical. The comedies hit their stride in a part of life for many that they are looking to set out into the real world, leaving the security of their families behind. Apartment comedies show those people that it will be okay. You will find the people out in the world you can absolutely be yourself around and build a reality and security from there.
What gets a person watching an apartment comedy is that they want to know about the lives of other people. What gets them to stay is that they see themselves there. These shows turn you from an outsider to an insider. They provide comfort, confidence, comedy, and, of course, love. I'm sure we will be seeing the apartment comedy for many years to come. (Who knows! Maybe in the future it will be a spaceship apartment comedy!)
