GENRE ANALYSIS

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air VS One Day at a Time

         

                                                                     

Genre analysis of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and One Day at a Time

Genre is a term of any category of literature or other arts or cultures that change over time as new genres are invented while genre criticism is a group, type, class or category that share important characteristics that differ from other groups.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-1996) and One Day at a Time (2017-2020) are both series comedy sitcom which The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was produced and created by Quincy Jones, Andy and Susan Borowitz for six seasons in six years while One Day at a Time was produced by Act III Productions together with the Sony Pictures Television was aired on Netflix from 2017 until 2019. There are three approaches that can be included in both drama series which is an aesthetic approach, ritual and ideological.

     The aesthetic approach that I can identify between both drama is first, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air the aesthetic is where the genre is hybrid which contains more than one genre. The genre of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is comedy, drama and family meanwhile in One Day at a Time the genre is about drama, life and family. Other than that, the aesthetic also can be defined and seen in both drama such as in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith consistently wore the vibrant color of outfits in a very formal and also sophisticated environment where the right outfit is essential and all of them was the perfect representation of what the kids used those outfit in those years. Meanwhile, in One Day at a Time series of season 1, most of them were used the same outfits such as school uniforms.

The other way of that approaches the genre which I can identify in between both dramas is about connection and community and not only that, it can also be related to the culture. The value of ritual is actually is the comical moments or their acts in daily activities. This series of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are focused on a street teenager from West Philadelphia who had been moved to Bel-Air mansion which showed his lifestyles is different from the lifestyle of his upper-class relatives. I can see that the connection and community of the first drama actually happened in Season 1 where Will Smith had a basketball game against Bel-Air Academy with his cousin, Carlton Banks. The One Day at a Time however shows and focuses on the life of a single Cuban-American mother who lived with her high school kids and her Cuban mother. This series shows a living culture of Latinos who had lived in Los Angeles and work as United States Army Nurse Corps veteran.

The ideology approaches are the main idea of the genre to create a story or drama. Both drama that I chose have the same genre which is sitcom, comedy and family life but both of them have a different cultures, values, and struggles. In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I can see that they live in an upper-class family which they have a stable economical status and worked so hard to afford everything such as fancy outfits. In the One Day at a Time, it is different and opposite from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where they live in a middle-class with a struggle of a single mom to support financial of her children and mother but never complained even though she had depression and anxiety.

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