1. The Comedic Side of Friendship in College By: Naim SejtanicCollege Friendship and how it is portrayed for comedicentertainment

2. The Three Movies / TV Shows Saved by the Bell: The College YearsA 90s sitcom focused around sixfriends and their life in college. Old SchoolA comedy film centered aroundthe making of a fraternity. Legally BlondeA film centered arounda Blonde enteringHarvard 3. How Friendship is portrayed in each of these Comedic Works The college setting alone makes for great entertainment,however all of these works (including the novelCommencement), portray friendship in college in a verysimilar manner. The main characters in each of these works are very differentin personality, yet are the best of friends. This opposites attract mentality helps boost the comedicentertainment value for each of the works. 4. Analyzing in Depth:Saved by the Bell: The College Years This series was a sequel to the well known sitcom Saved by theBell. It focuses around the friendships of 3 guys and 2 girls, all ofwhom are very different in terms of personality andbackgrounds. One prime example of this is Zach and Screech. Screech isportrayed as the loser of the group who never fits in withanything, while Zach is much more of an outgoing, ladies mantype, yet they are easily portrayed as best friends. Regardless of the arguments they have due to Screechsstupidity and their differing personalities, they are alwaysportrayed as reconciling and staying as best friends.Very different, yet best friends nonetheless 5. Analyzing in Depth:Saved by the Bell: The College Years The following video shows an example from the sitcom as to how ituses the friends differences for comedy (make sure to click on emptyspace below to start playing): Notice at the beginning how Screech is portrayed as the loser of thegroup, while at the end Slater is shown as the ladies man. Thesecontrasting personalities allows the characters of the show to play offone another and helps the comedy flow much smoother than if all of thefriends were the same as, lets say, Slater. 6. Analyzing in Depth: Legally Blonde This film portrays a nave, blonde student who entersHarvard. The student then ends up being surrounded by people withwho she has almost nothing in common with, once againleading to comedy. By the end of the movie, the blonde student, Elle, becomesbest friends with another student with whom she has almostnothing in common with. Once again, mainly for comedic entertainment, two otherwisevery contrasting characters butt heads in this film while theyotherwise may never so much as say a word to each other inreal life.Can you believe these two become best friends by the end? 7. Analyzing in Depth: Legally Blonde The following video shows an example of how comedy is used for howdifferent Elle is from her fellow Harvard classmates, including the one shebefriends at the end (once again simply click in the space below to startplaying video): As you can see, the movie uses the contrasting personalities as its sourcefor comedy, yet by the end of the movie it also portrays the two of them to bebest friends. 8. Analyzing in Depth:Old School This film portrays a bunch of old friends that end up starting afraternity together. Throughout the movie, very different people end up joining thefraternity, ranging from a very old man to an obese, black student.By the end of it, the fraternity members share a special brotherhoodand are best friends. Once again, the movie obviously uses the contrasting personalitiesas its source of entertainment, as the following clip shows (clickbelow again): 9. Conclusion:The portrayal of friendship in college-basedcomedies As evidenced by these three works, most college-basedcomedies have central friendships that are usually based oncontrasting personalities in order to better enhance theentertainment value of the piece. This is natural, as if the characters were to be very similarand have a lot in common with each other, the works wouldbe very boring to watch, at least in terms of comedic value. This theme of contrasting personalities is also evident in thework Commencement, which takes a much more realisticapproach to the friends contrasting personalities, while all ofthese comedic works take a much more extreme approach. This extreme approach is very unlikely to happen in real life,as most people tend to gravitate to those with whom theyhave a lot in common with, and usually isnt a very accurateportrayal of college life in America. 10. Works Cited To be added shortly