WandaVision: Why Sitcoms?

In the most recent episode of Marvel’s WandaVision, “We Interrupt This Program”, Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) returns to the MCU, coming to Westview to try to figure out what exactly is going on with the town, with Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), with the whole situation. As you might guess, he has a lot of questions and those are questions that viewers have, too. Among those questions is one that is of particular interest given the structure of the world Wanda has apparently created and the overall structure of the show itself: “why sitcoms?” It’s a question for fans since the very first episode and the answer may come down to what the sitcom format does as well as Wanda’s dealing with both trauma and grief.

Sitcoms are a staple of entertainment and have been for decades. The “situational comedy” format is one that existed even before television, with radio series taking on the “sitcom” structure before the first television series acknowledged as a sitcom debuted in the United Kingdom in 1946, Pinwright’s Progress, a ten-episode that was broadcast live from the BBC studios approximately every two weeks. In the United States, the first sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny, debuted in 1947 and ran for roughly 300 episodes with the series ending in 1950. It was in the 1950s that the format really took hold with shows such as I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and others.

Generally, sitcoms follow a familiar format. They follow some sort of family unit dealing with typical concerns of their time, frequently introducing some sort of issue or drama that can be easily solved in 30 minutes, providing laughs along the way. It’s a format that is fun, easy-to-watch, and often serves as a bit of a distraction from our own real-life concerns during that time. There is something powerful about even the fictional idea that anything can be made right in half an hour.

But even within that, sitcoms also serve as both cultural commentary and a window on the world as it is. If you stop and watch any sitcom from any era, it doesn’t take much scrutiny to notice the issues or drama the fuel the stories told often correspond to some of the less pleasant issues of the show’s day. A fantastic, relatively contemporary example of this is Roseanne which dealt with the Conner family and their struggle to simply get by with their limited income. Those struggles on their own would make for a grim watch, but by making it humorous, it’s a subversive way to deal with those issues and concerns in a way that feels safe and even comforting for viewers.

It’s that duality of sitcoms — the comfort and the idea that if you simply scratch the surface there are real issues underneath — that may be why Wanda’s Westview is a sitcom. Wanda is a character whose whole life has been touched by trauma and pain. Her parents were killed in front of her, she and her brother were forced to lie in terror as an unexploded Stark missile sat right in front of them and while they were rescued, they would later go on to be pawns of HYDRA, experimented on in ways that gave them superpowers but probably had some lasting trauma. Then, Wanda’s brother died, leaving her alone and when she’d finally found someone to love in Vision, he too was taken from her — and not returned in the Blip.

That is a lot of hurt and if you think of that hurt and grief as the “issue”, putting together a “perfect” life in a format where any issue can be easily solved in just half an hour not only would offer Wanda comfort but presents a way to deal with that pain as well. And, considering that Wanda’s trauma started very early in life, the fairly rigid structure of the sitcom format likely gives her a sense of control as well — something that even with her immense powers she on some level feels like she’s lacked her whole life.

However, because sitcoms aren’t real, both viewers and Wanda are seeing some cracks in that happy veneer. One of the things that’s interesting here is that as things become more and more “real” for Wanda, we see her simply “change the channel” as it were, shifting into a new setting, a new sitcom, a new era. It’s as though she’s fleeing from one tainted “show” to another, trying to in a sense outrun what lies beneath the laughter. The only catch is that, presumably, she will eventually run out of sitcoms and eras and will be left only with reality.

With five episodes remaining in WandaVision, we may learn that there’s an even deeper reason for the sitcom setting — this series has left everyone guessing so everything is still on the table, including the possibility that someone is pulling Wanda’s strings — but the idea that Wanda is using the sitcom structure to both deal with and run from her pain, is one that feels fitting. After all, we’ve all turned to television when things are bad to make things better even if only for thirty minutes at a time. Wanda’s just doing it on a very, very large scale.

The first four episodes of WandaVision are now streaming on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

What do you think? Is Wanda using sitcoms to both deal with and avoid her grief? Let us know in the comments or hit our writer up on Twitter @lifeinpolaroid to chat all things Scarlet Witch!

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