“‘WandaVision,’ a sitcom sendup, was a pandemic parable, too”

Robert Thompson, Trustee Professor of television, radio and film and director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture in the Newhouse School, was quoted in the Associated Press story “‘WandaVision,’ a sitcom sendup, was a pandemic parable, too.” Thompson, an expert on pop culture and the television industry, says that people often find a sense of contentment in old sitcoms, as they bring about a feeling of “the aesthetic of the anesthetic.” By this Thompson means that shows like ‘WandaVision’ create a sense of normalcy by “presenting nonthreatening communities populated with nonthreatening characters doing nonthreatening things.”