OCR GCSE Media Studies

Pleasures in Outnumbered

From Outnumbered, Series 5, Episodes 1 and 2

 

Identification with adult life

• Paying bills – zero pounds and zero zero pence

• Automated payment lines

• Static

• Pursuing your dream: Pete trying to be a writer

• Struggling to get the printer to work

 

Identification with (middle class) family life

(akin to observational comedy)

• Karen failing to make friends at school

• Jake and tattoos – mother thinking it to be ridiculous. Jake: “It’s just a tattoo, it’s not genocide.”

• Missing hamster – Karen’s concern verses everyone else’s pessimism/realism

• Children swearing

• Tension between mother’s approach (kind, diplomatic – "there are quite a few high notes...") and father’s approach (cynical – "...which you won’t hit.")

• The probelms of emailing teachers and other parents

• Being honest with your children regarding their intelligence (“Are you saying she’s brighter than us?” – when Jake and Ben want to know why Karen goes to a different school.)

• Public displays of affection (PDAs) in front of children and their friends

• Children slamming doors – Ben always slams doors – plus this becomes an ongoing joke. Pete: “What has that door ever done to you?”

• Having to be nice – mother trying to positive about Ben’s musical ambitions

• Other parents children being smarter; e.g. Karen's friend Esme

• Changing times. Pete: “In those days, your parents just left you alone.”

• Trying to eat dinner together as a family – one wants to watch Game of Thrones, one won’t come down from her room, Pete wants to print something off, Jake heads off to the toilet... Sue: “It’s like herding cats.” When they finally sit down, they’re soon all just on their phones.

• Parents teaching children to drive

  • Jake: “It’s no fun being a glorified taxi driver” (plus the irony of the statement.)

• Trying to encourage your children in new activities

• Children giving advice to the parents. Jake: “She [Karen] needs boundaries.” and “And you let her get away with that?”

• Worrying about whether they’re good parents or not: “We’re just kind of middling. Not bad.”

• Dysfunctional families: Karen: “I lost because I come from a family of losers” followed by Pete's "Thanks for that; I need to go and watch Pointless."

 

Current affairs / intertextuality

• Political correctness – children challenging father for being racist

• Russell Crow gag re you don’t have to be able to sing to be in a musical

• The suggestion of calling Chris Packham (from BBC's Springwatch) because of missing hamster

• “I’m Spartacus” (from the film Spartacus)

  • Plus a comment that Kirk Douglas (the star of Spartacus) was a proper men, like they had "back then".

• “That smells nice. Is it horse?” (The horse meat scandal)

• “No, it isn’t, Rumpole.” when other parent objects to Pete filming (reference to TV show Rumpole of the Bailey)

 

Transgressive pleasures

• "I suggest you employ a computer who isn’t on the autism spectrum"

• The occasional bit of toilet humour:

  • "You’d think at least one person would be on the toilet when Vesuvius erupted"

  • Ben mentions looking into a psychologist who thought people would be better off if they smeared their own feces over the wall

  • Penis envy (when Ben is interested in psychology)

• Pedophilia

  • "Did Jimmy Savile look like a pedophile?"

  • “I am not, I repeat, not a pedophile, although I am a gay, gypsy asylum seeker.”

 

Narrative Pleasures

• Ongoing sub plots

  • Ben in Spartacus

  • Karen’s difficulty in making friends

• Episode narratives

  • Getting static shocks throughout one episode

  • Karen’s swimming race

  • The difficulty of communicating using mobile phones when reception is poor

 

Familiarity

• Hugh Dennis: his familiar dry cynical humour (known by fans of such previous work as The Mary Whitehouse Experience and various Radio 4 productions such as the News Quiz)

• The familiarity with the characters now that the show is into its fifth series