Discuss in detail on how one programme uses audience pleasures. Give examples. (15 marks) - Bad Education

Bad Education is a sitcom with the same characters and setting in every episode this provides the audience with familiarities and makes them recognise the series. For example, in Bad Education the setting is of the school with the same classrooms and students - you will sometimes get one or two new characters but this is only to make it more exciting and unexpected however these characters do not last very long. Another feature that adds with familiarity is the behaviours of the characters for example, the main character, Alfie Wickers, has the same childish, immature behaviour which adds humour to the audience. Transgressive pleasures are used frequently throughout Bad Education to support the target audience as people at a younger age find this more relevant and relatable. One feature that is used is the sexualisation of the students by using the sexual stereotype to describe a character e.g. Chantelle. This student is used frequently for this function as she fits the stereotype nicely due to her clothing and looks. Within Bad Education there is a lot of repetition used in every episode such as the same immature crack jokes that come from each character, the humour used in this programme is sarcastic and racist but fits with the target audience so it makes the show funny e.g. students make comments about teachers appearance. The verbal comedy is the characters use of language, this helps the audience determine the relationships between the characters e.g. Alfie and the head teacher Fraser have banter between them which shows their form of friendship and how comfortable they are with each other, there is also the racist jokes to people of different ethnicities this pushes the boundaries of what is right and wrong, people are not used to hearing people make jokes of people due to their skin colour so this adds more humour to the programme as the BBC get away with it. The BBC are able to push the boundaries as this channel as no advertisements as its a public service broadcaster - this means they are not dependent on getting money from adverts they get it from the public.