By Nikolai Robinson
Food has its narrative role in almost any TV show you can think of, sometimes in the background (the Whites’ tense family dinners in “Breaking Bad”) or in the foreground (the Belchers’ restaurant in “Bob’s Burgers”). But more specifically, food is also an important recurring element in sitcoms (situational comedy television shows). Your average, run-of-the-mill sitcom is either going to focus on a dysfunctional family (“Arrested Development”, "Everybody Loves Raymond”, “Mom”), a bunch of young, mostly white friends (“Friends,” “How I Met Your Mother”, “The Big Bang Theory”) or a workplace (“The Office”, “Parks and Recreation”, “Scrubs”). They all have their comedic formula and character stereotypes, but they all also utilize food as a representation of communication between the characters.
Let’s first take a look at my personal favorite sitcom, “Everybody Loves Raymond” (1996-2005). This series features a dysfunctional family of Italian descent, centered around Raymond Barone. Ray has a passive-aggressive wife, three loud kids, a jealous and less-successful brother, a manipulative mother, and an abrasive father. Ray and his brother Robert also have two friends, Gianni and Andy. When it’s a particularly tense episode for the Barone family, the four of them can usually be found at Nemo’s Pizza, avoiding their personal problems, yet having to eventually address them in conversation. This acts as a sanctuary for the men of the show, which is confirmed by Ray’s overly defensive reaction when Debra suspects him of flirting with a waitress and then going to Nemo’s herself to confront the problem (in the first season’s “Look, Don’t Touch”).
Food has its narrative role in almost any TV show you can think of, sometimes in the background (the Whites’ tense family dinners in “Breaking Bad”) or in the foreground (the Belchers’ restaurant in “Bob’s Burgers”). But more specifically, food is also an important recurring element in sitcoms (situational comedy television shows). Your average, run-of-the-mill sitcom is either going to focus on a dysfunctional family (“Arrested Development”, "Everybody Loves Raymond”, “Mom”), a bunch of young, mostly white friends (“Friends,” “How I Met Your Mother”, “The Big Bang Theory”) or a workplace (“The Office”, “Parks and Recreation”, “Scrubs”). They all have their comedic formula and character stereotypes, but they all also utilize food as a representation of communication between the characters.
Let’s first take a look at my personal favorite sitcom, “Everybody Loves Raymond” (1996-2005). This series features a dysfunctional family of Italian descent, centered around Raymond Barone. Ray has a passive-aggressive wife, three loud kids, a jealous and less-successful brother, a manipulative mother, and an abrasive father. Ray and his brother Robert also have two friends, Gianni and Andy. When it’s a particularly tense episode for the Barone family, the four of them can usually be found at Nemo’s Pizza, avoiding their personal problems, yet having to eventually address them in conversation. This acts as a sanctuary for the men of the show, which is confirmed by Ray’s overly defensive reaction when Debra suspects him of flirting with a waitress and then going to Nemo’s herself to confront the problem (in the first season’s “Look, Don’t Touch”).
The “addressing-the-problem-over-food” scene, as exemplified in “Everybody Loves Raymond” is a sitcom staple, and is used in pretty much every sitcom that falls under the three types mentioned earlier. In “The Big Bang Theory,” there’s always a discussion over the Thai takeout food eaten on every Thursday, and in “Mom,” most of the scenes in which the whole cast is together is when they eat at a diner, addressing what problems they’re going through in that particular episode, and receiving good or bad advice from their girlfriends.
This is perhaps a sitcom cliché because the people we eat with are usually the ones we confide in. The act of communion has always been a very personal and intimate matter, even if we do it often and in public. We allow others to see what decisions we make about our health and flavor preferences, which are two very important and personal topics to everyone. That’s why we take a date out to dinner- we’re showing vulnerability. In theory, the same concept applies to when characters on sitcoms address whatever issue (serious or ridiculous) is the subject of the episode. This provides a realism to the human relationships in each series.
And then, for the longer-running sitcoms, there are always the episodes centered around food specifically- the turkey/fish fight between Ray’s wife and his mother from “Everybody Loves Raymond”, the “Parks and Recreation” episode in which local politician Leslie Knope addresses the ridiculous levels of obesity in her hometown of Pawnee, and the iconic Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld, in which all four leads develop a problematic relationship with the patron of a local soup stand.
This is perhaps a sitcom cliché because the people we eat with are usually the ones we confide in. The act of communion has always been a very personal and intimate matter, even if we do it often and in public. We allow others to see what decisions we make about our health and flavor preferences, which are two very important and personal topics to everyone. That’s why we take a date out to dinner- we’re showing vulnerability. In theory, the same concept applies to when characters on sitcoms address whatever issue (serious or ridiculous) is the subject of the episode. This provides a realism to the human relationships in each series.
And then, for the longer-running sitcoms, there are always the episodes centered around food specifically- the turkey/fish fight between Ray’s wife and his mother from “Everybody Loves Raymond”, the “Parks and Recreation” episode in which local politician Leslie Knope addresses the ridiculous levels of obesity in her hometown of Pawnee, and the iconic Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld, in which all four leads develop a problematic relationship with the patron of a local soup stand.