Nervous Laughter

Critically analyzing four decades of television situation comedies from The Honeymooners to The Bill Cosby Show, Hamamoto shows how the sitcom reflects, explains, legitimates, and challenges the society in which it is grounded, illumining the power of laughter both to reaffirm and to question existing social structures. . . . Hamamoto offers a well-researched and refreshingly lucid study, immensel...