“Jerome at the BBC”: Subversion, caricature, and humanity in Three Men in a Boat

• Authors: Dalbir Singh Sehmby
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Through characters who openly express distress over imagined pains, “Jerome at the BBC” treats BBC’s Three Men in a Boat as a playful critique of heroic masculinity, or what the paper defines as confident cognisant agency. Airing in 1975, BBC’s adaptation is released after the media ascension of James Bond and in the heyday of tough Hollywood heroes, bold figures who refuse to complain about, let alone give in, to physical pain – unlike Jerome’s men. Jerome’s original and its BBC adaptation are layered comical texts. By channelling Jerome’s critique of the colonial, seafaring male into contemporary notions of the Hollywood-hero type, this paper examines the BBC film’s boisterous lack of masculine agency, the quiet parody of action sequences, and the gingerly movement towards a conclusion that does not bang, but whimpers. Moreover, the paper asserts that the humour also functions on a less grand level, by being an effective caricature of human behaviour – a healthy dose of cultural self-mockery. Furthermore, through revealing moments, by the telefilm’s end, the characters do not simply remain caricatures to be laughed at, but become identifiable and relatable human beings.

Keywords

EN

Three Men in a Boat; Jerome K. Jerome; BBC; Tom Stopard; Tim Curry; Michael Palin; Stephen Moore; Robinson Crusoe; Sherlock Holmes; James Bond

• Publisher: Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies
• Journal: The European Journal of Humour Research
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 2

Dates

published

2014

online

2014-10-02

Contributors

author

Dalbir Singh Sehmby

Identifiers

DOI

10.7592/EJHR2014.2.2.sehmby