Gavin and Stacey - Audience Positioning

Gavin and Stacey's main goal is to make the audience laugh and make them take the preferred reading of the text. Throughout the series ther are many many different ways Gavin and Stacey attempts to make the audience laugh such as one liners, humour through juxtaposition, humour through editing, running jokes, through characters and many more.  

 

One of the main ways in which Gavin and Stacey attempts to make us laugh is through the running jokes of Nessa's past lovers, Gwen's omelettes and Smithy's girlfriend. The main one form these is Smithy's girlfriend who is still in high school and only seventeen, or seventeen and a half in Smithy's eyes. These one liners are extremely unexpected and thrown in in areas where the audience would not expect, for example when Bryn asks for the maps after the wedding Smithy says "I gave them to Lucy she was colouring them in" this line is hysterical and ensures the audience will laugh out loud at Smithy's immaturity as he is surrounded by adults and people building families and lives.  

Another way the TV show attempts to make the audience laugh is through comedic characters. Possibly the funniest characters within the story are Pete and Dawn as they are so outrageous it is impossible to laugh at them. Their shamble of a marriage juxtaposes Pam and Mick perfectly and shows exactly what the audience to not want Gavin and Stacey to turn out like. Their back and forth bickering and spiteful comments about each other are specifically for comedic elements of the show and work perfectly within the narrative.  

It is clear that the audience of Gavin and Stacey took the preferred reading as it had millions of fans tuning in to watch new episodes every week showing the show was a success and did achieve its goal of appealing to an audience and generating laughs and brightening peoples days. This is shown by many reviews of how good the comedy was and the audience begging for more: "Being Welsh this is a typically stereotypical view of the way we live out life in Wales. But we don't mind being the butt of a joke every now and then. Particularly when the joke is as good as this." This shows that although this audience member knows the stereotypical view they have identified with the text and have enjoyed it regardless as it is light hearted showing that the text has achieved its goal of making people laugh.   

However like every media text there are always going to be people who either take the oppositional reading or negotiated reading. This is shown by: "I had to stop watching this after the 3rd episode of the first series, I was cringing throughout at the poor acting, unnecessary over enunciation of the welsh accent and all things welsh and the unrealistic scenes" This is a prime example of how some audience members do not take to the humour of the series and go against the intentions of the shows as it has been to heavily mediated.  

 

Overall Gavin and Stacey positions the audience to sympathise with characters, laugh at them and to simply enjoy the charming nature of Gavin and Stacey's love for each other as well as the love for their families and the love given back to them. Gavin and Stacey is a sitcom that can make the audience laugh until it hurts but also cry and be absolutely heartbroken at times.