Writing an examination answer

4. (b) Discuss in detail how one programme offers audience pleasures. Give examples from the
programme. [15]
This 4b question is about Audience Pleasures and what inspires audiences to watch TV Comedy. You need to focus on Bad Education. Remember this is also about textual analysis, so you must include examples. The examiners say this question is often rushed so make sure you have left enough time to answer it fully.


Here is an example answer from the exam board.

Extract from Candidate Script 1: Marks awarded and rationale: 10 marks
‘Benidorm’ is a sitcom which is a comedy which is set in the same location with the same characters. This allows the audience to build a relationship with each of the characters as they get to know them, plus the audience is also included in the storyline as they they get to see each episode unfold.
‘Benidorm’ offers us audience gratification because of the various stereotypes presented in the programme. One stereotype presented is the ‘chav’ stereotype, in which we see this in the Garvey family. This can be seen as they are a white British family on holiday in Spain with their own set of normal and values. We can also see the ‘chav’ stereotype come through in them due to the fact that their teenage daughter is pregnant, which is also another stereotype shown in the programme which is teenage pregnancies. This can be pleasurable to the audience as it enables the audience to
feel superior towards to the family allowing the audience to look down upon the characters.
Another stereotype presented is the “snob” stereotype in which we see two of the characters. We see this by the way they both look down upon the other characters, and how they make crude remarks about the IQ of the Garvey family. This can be seen in one episode in which Mrs Garvey was speaking to one of the snobby characters and the snobby character spoke to Mrs Garvey in a very patronising way, making Mrs Garvey look rather stupid. This offers the audience
gratification because of humorous it is to see certain characters being ridiculed. Plus, in some sense it establishes a relationship the snobby characters and the audience due to the audience being able to relate with the characters with them agreeing with.

COMMENTARY

This is a good example of an answer that fails to earn the textual analysis marks for the question as it fails to give detailed exemplification.

This answer shows understanding of audience pleasures by citing various pleasures, such as ‘building a relationship with the characters’, feeling superior to stereotyped characters, and humour. However, the answer suffers from the common fault of lacking detailed examples. This limits its mark to level 3 at best.

There is a reference to the nature of the family, but the section on stereotypes solely refers to characters and does not give examples of narrative events that express their characterisation. This reliance on characters is very typical of answers in this band. There is one more promising reference to one episode that featured a snobby incident, but this is too vague to count as detailed.