Vituperation disparagement and debasement seem to have become part of the mainstream
discourse in contemporary US-American media culture. Zooming in on a distinct televisual comedy
genre Katja Schulze explores the formal principles media-specific realizations and the
cultural work of disparagement in contemporary female-led situation comedies. Subsequently
larger patterns of (gender-based) invective strategies and conventions that define the dynamism
of this comedic genre come into view. Her study outlines case studies of popular sitcoms like
Parks and Recreation Mike & Molly and the revival of hit-sitcom Roseanne thereby unearthing
how the shows are able to stage humor as mass-mediated deprecation - a signifying practice with
its own poetics and politics.