A Comparative Study On Beijing-sitcom, Shanghai-sitcom And Their Cultural Backgrounds

Situation Comedies have experienced a distinguished development in such short ten years since it was introduced into China from other countries as a unique TV art style. In which, Beijing-representative I Love My Home, Idler Sister Ma and Shanghai-representative Old Uncle are most successful and typical examples in Beijing and Shanghai. These three highly-infective sitcoms have clear territorial characters and are widely welcomed all over the country. The following article would take these three sitcoms as examples to compare the cultural differences of the two cities, to show the importance and to unfold the key of their success, which is that they have found the proper sitcom style for Chinese spectators by making a perfect combination of comic dialogue and mime. Cultural backgrounds of Beijing and Shanghai have laid a solid foundation for the development of their sitcoms while the differences of cultures directly result in the diversity of their own sitcom styles. Due to the great success of the regional sitcoms and the failure of non-regional ones, we can see that Big Dialects and Territorial Cultures are the best support for Chinese sitcoms in Chinese TV market. Furthermore, different from U.S. sitcoms, regional specialties are the most remarkable feature of Chinese sitcoms.