Analysis?

yardgames

Retired Administrator
I had an interesting discussion in class today about whether authors (or artists in general) intend for their work to be scrutinized once they're finished with it. Certainly some works have a lot of symbolism in them, but what about other works?

The book we are just finishing is The Great Gatsby for any of you Brits who may have studied American literature. The teacher said that we should participate in teh discussion more instead of sitting there looking at him with beady eyes. We just read about a scene where Mr. Gatsby was murdered. I ventured to ask how many ways we could say a man was murdered? I further asked whether F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author, really intended his work to be scrutinized in that way?

Maybe, I said, it was written to be an entertaining story, and he would like it treated that way. Suddenly I thought of my comments to appanah after his first analysis of Butterflies. How much do the writers actually expect Malcolm to be analysed?

My teacher suggested that it varies by artist, that some clearly intended for their work to be analysed and criticized. For example, he thought, sticking with The Great Gatsby, how could there not be some symbolism in the giant eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleberg watching from his billboard? Maybe he had just gone to the eye doctor and it was a random idea? I, of course, decided to agree with that. But then he went on to say that some authors probably don't intend for their work to be analysed; 90% of what you get from any artist's medium of expression is your opinion. You can form your opinion any way you like. Maybe it goes too in depth, but in many cases it works anyway.

How much do you think Malcolm was meant to be analysed? Is it just a cooky dysfunctional family on TV, or is it something a little bit more? Do the writers purposely capitalize on the primary theme running through the show, life is unfair, or is that just another cooky idea that makes the show funny?
 

admin

Retired Administrator
I don't personally agree with the amount of anaylising that goes into books such as Shakespeare, and other authors. But there is sometimes deeper things which you don't first notice.

Again with Malcolm in the Middle, really you should take things at face value, but sometimes re-watching you can see deeper funnier humour which you didn't originally see.

What you guys do with the ultra detailed analysising is problby very much over the top for a sitcom, as it simply wasn't written to contain much depth - its written to make people laugh.
 

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
I read lots of sci-fi books and Tom Clancy books. When I finnish it I will re-read it again later, after I read a few more, Then I say to myself, hey missed that part, I analize the book in anothr point of view almost. Then I notice differnt things agout it, maybe Mack Maloney, Tom Clancy, WilliamC. Dietz, or anyone else's books I read really expect the reader to read the book again and go a bit deeper in the book like I did a couple times. I haven't done it lately because I keep reading all these sci-fi I finish one I pick up another on 15 mins. later. Sometimes thinking deep isn't a bad thing.
 

tjpeople

Site Administrator
Staff member
I agree with david that people over analyse things- we had to do it for english litreature and it just became a joke after a while. how much can we read into one word. A nice one is to tie the idea of god into it some how :D:D
 

Emrysgirl

New member
Generally in sit-coms, especially in MitM (since the pace is so fast), things are meant be taken at face value. However, you're not over-analyzing by looking for a deeper meaning b/c you usually end up with ironies that are present in life itself and not just the sit-com (Does that make sense:confused:?). When you notice some less-than-obvious joke or oddity, you are usually noticing something strange about life, not about the creators of the sitcom. And sometimes its just a continuation of something we already expect from a character (such as Francis being an alcoholic but doing something about it all b4 21).
 

Wemboy

New member
I don't think that analysing things too much is neccessarily a problem, i mean we wouldn't be here discussing the show on the forums if we didn't feel like there was something more to the show than just watching it for twenty minutes then forgetting about it. Personally i like to watch episodes more than once, first just watching for sheer entertainment, and then rewatching which allows one to pick up on a few extra complexities that you might miss first time around.
Overall, despite having sat through some very dull english literature classes in my time (and some very interesting ones of course!), i've come to realise that analysing a text and trying to gain some greater meaning eventually allows one to gain greater enjoyment from the work because you understand it better. Even the most seemingly one dimensional books or poems are written within a wider context and realising this can be very enlightening.
I think the same thing is true for sitcoms, and when it's a show like MITM which is intelligently written there's plenty of extra depth that needs to be explored. The show says a great deal about childhood, growing up, parenthood, celebrating difference/tolerance, just life in general really. And by the time you get to series six, the characters clearly hve a good deal of psychological depth which is worth exploring. So i say keep up those posts appanah, yardgames and everyone else, because there's far more to lose by not analysing the show at all, that by over analysing it slightly.
 

arach

New member
I agree with you, Wemboy.
Sometimes analyzes can be overdone. Like when a simple joke is seperated into it's compounds just to put a deeper meaning into it. But most of the time the analyzes, especially such well done one's like appanahs, really let you think about scenes or situations in a different point of view. Sometimes I don't know why I didn't think of it first.
There are so many things in MitM that aren't obvious and have a deeper meaning. Just don't forget that this is a show about life, with all it's unfairness and irony, but also a show that entertains you. That makes things more difficult, because you have to make a clear separation (which isn't always obvious).

I really enjoy such analyzes, because it gives you more to talk about. So it's not just simple "liked it" or "didn't like it".
 

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
Wemboy and arach are right, and over-analizing sometimes turns a thing intended for comedy and enjoyment into something it was never intended to be. But under-analizing or not analizing at all leaves some questions not answered. Let's someone is speaking Russian to me, I don't know russian, if i don't analize his words then I don't know what he is saying to me. If I do know russian, thats nice, I don't have to write the word down and translate them later, I can know what he's saying and may take it over the top, like "nice day today, isn't it?" can be analized in a bad way by saying "what makes a day nice or bad?" or "is it a nice day for you or me?". I end my smart-person thinking stuff now.

appanah, your analysises are great, I look foward to them every week.
 

allison

New member
I also agree with Wemboy and I have to say that appanah´s analysises are pretty impressive. On the other hand I think it´s also true that producers probably really don´t think about these things that much when they make the episodes. But mitm surely goes more in depth than most other sitcoms. Someone mentioned the psychological depth of the characters. They´re not only simple characters who are supposed to be funny but everyone has an own personality. If you just watch one of the older episodes you´ll probably consider Dewey as a weirdo, Reese as a hardass bully who is pretty stupid etc. But if you take a closer look you´ll realize how wrong you are. E.g Reese is neither that stupid as he appears to be nor such a mean person. Francis may be a troublemaker, but he´s very loyal and just likes to undermine authority because he always wants to speak his mind. As we could see not even Ida is as evil as she appears. It´s so interesting how much you can find about the characters the longer you watch the show.
Of course there´s also a lot of subtle humour. The lack of laugh tracks is just a great idea.
I really loved the scene in "Lois´birthday" where Lois thought that none in her family cares about her, until Hal got into a fight with the clown because he had insulted her. It was such a great combination of humour and emotion. In other sitcoms this episode would probably have ended at the point where Hal and the boys appologized for their behaviour. Then they would have probably hugged or something (pretty cheesy and predictable)
But here the episode ended in fight and you could see how Lois finally realized that she means something to her family.
Maybe this scene was a little subtle because it wasn´t the apology that made Lois realize that, but the fact that they won´t let anybody insult her.

I think people tend to over-analyze books. I remember a german lesson where we talked about a text which was about a lonely boy who talked to a man. The boy sat on the ground whereas the old man stood in front of him. My teacher said the author wanted to show us by that that the boy is inferior to the old man. Maybe it´s just me, but I really think that THIS is just over-analyzed.
 
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Deleted member 1693

Guest
This thought kept recurring to me after our teacher forced us to look deeper into the movie "Saint Ralph", which was a truly obnoxious and cliche film about a boy who ran a marathon for his mom in a coma. She made us seperate the film into the Hero's Journey template (Joseph Campbell's). The people who pieced together this abomination couldn't have spent too much time on any of this. She gives us all of these seemingly noble meanings for amateur poems. She is the only reason why I despise some types of over-analysis.

The best part about 'Malcolm' is that it is both funny entertainment and deeper meanings. It encompasses many emotions that everyone has, but no one has cared to express. This causes it to rise above sitcoms like "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", for example...
 
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