Grace Elisabeth Lavery

Summary:"Closures surveys the seven-decade history of the American sitcom from the perspective of trans theory. With detailed close readings of shows from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Who's the Boss to Third Rock from the Sun, Friends, BoJack Horseman, The Office, and others, Grace E. Lavery highlights the centrality of the blended family narrative that situates the family as a perpetually incomplete project as well as the weakening of social ties as the sitcom evolves from a family setting to a friendship group to a workplace setting. The book's title refers to how episodic narrative closure in the serialized sitcom paradoxically requires a continual reopening of the stable family, disrupting the traditional finality of the comedic marriage plot. In this way, the sitcom character, operating in a situation of endless becoming, is rendered structurally trans"-- Provided by publisher