Comedy vs. Drama in Television

Originally, I wanted to make this post about Nurse Jackie and how it is a very different kind of comedy. A darker kind of comedy. But I've trashed that blog post and I'm starting over. Instead, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on what television classifies comedy and drama, and the fine line between them.

In the 2010 Emmys award show, Edie Falco, who plays Jackie Peyton in Showtime's Nurse Jackie, said in her acceptance speech for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series, "Oh, this is just the most ridiculous thing that has ever, ever happened in the history of this lovely awards show. Thank you so much. I'm not funny." And quite frankly, she is correct. Her character is dead serious at all times. So why is the show considered a comedy? Let's take a moment to reflect some other shows.

Weeds and Breaking Bad are, on paper, extremely similar shows. Beg to differ? Pop quiz. Which show featured a child committing murder with the weapon of a baseball bat? Answer: Weeds. The show certainly does not lack the dramatic situations found in Breaking Bad. So what makes one a comedy and the other a drama? In reality, the only thing differentiating the two is a lighter tone obtained almost single-handedly through dialogue.

However, it goes both ways. Dramas can often be comedic. With every drama, you need the supporting characters that provide comedic relief. That's what makes Nurse Jackie on such a fine line. Jackie is dead serious at all times. She has no funny side. Meanwhile, plenty supporting characters like Zoey and Cooper deliver the comedic side. Even in shows with an extremely dark main character, like Dexter, the audience is still drawn to him. We are able to see past his behavior as a result of his moral ambiguity, and humor plays an important role in that conflict. His inner dialogue is often a satirical statement on human emotion. Even so, nobody would call Dexter a comedy.

I don't want to be misunderstood. Comedies with a serious touch, like Nurse Jackie and Weeds, aren't trivializing the main characters and their situations. In fact, these television shows are written with far more depth and complexity than the average comedy. Still, there seems to be a lot of gray area when it comes to categorizing the genre of shows. Maybe, just possibly, there really is no difference between comedy and drama. Or, maybe, I'm wrong.