Love Thy Neighbour Analysis

Love thy Neighbour is a controversial 70's sitcom revolving around the fluctuating relationship between socialist white man Eddie Booth and black conservative Bill Reynolds. The directors played off the ethnic relationship as well as political and social differences. It grew into a cult following but its political incorrectness would be the death of it.

In the scene I watched, Bill has made a bet with Eddie that because he is black, he is treated as less of a person than a white man, due to Eddie's stubborn nature he agrees and paints his face and wears a garishly large black wig. The humour of this scene derives from the viewer understanding that this is not open racism but poking fun at the ideas of racism. It also stems from Eddies sheer ignorance.

The surroundings for this scene are obviously posh, upper class and in 70's culture, an only white based bar. The white walls and gold trimming adds to the overtly 'white' based nature. When eventually a character does enter he is a typical upper class, fat, monocled WASP. His accent and attire are stereotypical of the upper classes, and his ignorance is also laughed at, when comparing Eddie to a member of the 'Black Minstrels'.

The director has compromised the scene entirely of two shots and over the shoulder shots when Eddie and Bill are talking about Bill's past, the switch from one to the other with the incorporation of reaction shots for some of Eddie's lines. Bill knows that Eddie is not being racist but is just poorly informed of evolution. His ideas are misguided and based on movies and assumptions. For example, he believes that black people evolved from monkeys compared to white people evolving from Adam and Eve solely on the fact that 'there are no monkeys in the UK' and he has seen Adam and Eve 'on a Swedish movie'. This ignorance is once again laughed off by Bill, thus quelling the tension that would be felt in a normal situation. This awkwardness is another aspect of the comic relief.

When the portly posh man begins talking to Eddie and Bill the use of three shots and close ups of just the man are used to great effect, the three shot shows the man trying to impress Eddie. It also shows Eddie reeling away, trying to avoid the man’s advances, as well as Bill revelling in the situation, laughing at how involved Eddie has become. The canned laughter also helps diffuse the situation, without insulting the viewer; it can be used to cue viewers at home to laugh along.

The show tries to simplify the show by avoiding complicated transitions but has one obvious and comical use of a fade. After Joan reveals to Eddie that the colouring he used to paint his face was permanent the shot fades out with the trio of Bill, Barbie and Joan laughing at Eddie trying to clean his face in a sink without it working. This use of almost slapstick comedy is the final representative of a comedy drama, and is used as a universal way of getting a laugh