Are you a fan of TV series? And more particularly Friends, The Big Bang Theory or Brooklyn Nine-Nine? If what you prefer by mastering a series is to attach yourself to sometimes crazy characters who always find themselves in incongruous situations, you will enjoy discovering the very first television series of its kind: I Love Lucy. Little known in France but a true cult series in the United States, I Love Lucy totally created all the sitcoms you love today.
Why I Love Lucy?
Launched in 1951, I Love Lucy is not the first sitcom to be broadcast on television. However, it is the first sitcom that revolutionized the genre and established the serial codes that we know today in the sitcom. The very first sitcom was Mary Kay and Johnny broadcast live from 1947 on the American television channel DuMont. Indeed, at the genesis of sitcoms, the latter (contraction of "situation" and "comedy" in English) were comedies generally lasting 20 to 30 minutes, filmed in the studio in front of an audience and broadcast live on television. In addition, like the other flagship serial genre of the time, the soap opera, sitcoms came straight from another medium: radio. Indeed, the main actress of the series, Lucille Ball (Lucy Ricardo) began acting in a radio sitcom, with actor Richard Denning, broadcast on CBS: My Favorite Husband. One thing led to another, CBS proposed to the actress to adapt the story of the series to television. Lucille Ball saw in this proposal a unique opportunity and accepted on one condition: that her husband in real life, Desi Arnaz, join the series and play the role of her spouse in it. The arrangement was not simple and CBS was, at first, reluctant to the request of the actress. But what could be the reason for their reluctance? In fact, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball's husband, was a Cuban musician with a marked accent. As a result, the media put reservations about the reaction of the spectators to the actor. Perhaps the media anticipated a problem of identification with the character in a predominantly white American nation? Or, did he anticipate a feeling of anxiety on the part of the spectators in front of a new figure that he was not used to being represented on the screen? Only, in order to convince the CBS producers, the couple decided to create a show centered on their two characters and played it in several American cabarets. The great success and acclaim that the show met eventually convinced the media to finance and launch the series and the pilot episode on television. Subsequently, Lucille Ball and Desi Araz created their own production company in 1951: Desilu Productions to produce the continuation of the series. Their production company produced the first seasons of Star Trek and The Andy Griffith Show. 
Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions represents the consecration of the career of Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Araz. By creating their own production company, the two actors keep their artistic independence from their television series. For example, while CBS wanted the show to be recorded live in New York like most series at the time, the couple who wanted to enjoy the benefits of Hollywood moved in. This move was the premise of a technical and economic revolution in the creation of a sitcom. Indeed, supported by the creators of the series, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and the head writer and creator of the series, Jess Oppenheimer decided to abandon the kinescope to film the series in front of an audience using three cameras. Entire studios even had to be completely redesigned and renovated to fit this format because single-camera with pre-recorded laughter was the norm. In addition, the series will now be recorded on 35mm film usually reserved for cinema. The recording allowed the series to be broadcast throughout the United States as well as its rebroadcast. Conditions that were already met in the comedy Amos'n'Andy but without the recording in front of an audience that brought a real comic atmosphere. Finally, the couple worked with Karl Freund, a famous German film director and cinematographer, to manage the studio's lighting system. It was the latter who created the multi-camera system (three cameras that rotate simultaneously). A change that was a real revolution at the time becoming the norm of today's sitcoms thanks to the incredible success of the series! Thanks to all these innovations, the series perfectly combined the authenticity and spontaneity of the live performance by the incredible acting of Lucille Ball and the laughter of the audience present with the quality of the image due to the film recording.
What is the series about?
I Love Lucy depicts the adventures of Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), a colorful New York housewife inhabited by her dreams and eager to embark on an artistic career. Nevertheless, her husband (Desi Araz), a musician, like her actor, does not see things in the same way and repeatedly tries to calm his wife's fantasies. The couple lives in New York and lives a busy social life. Indeed, Lucy, with the help of her best friend, the naive Ethel Mertz, will continually try to defy her husband's ban in order to realize her dreams of a stage offering ever more incredible situations to the spectators. Beyond the humor, the success of the series lies mainly in the talent of its actors and its writing. The series, on its scale, is a testimony of the mores of the time, especially on marital relations, despite the exaggeration that emerges characteristic of sitcoms. As for the humor of the series, given the evolution of laughter through time and cultures, it may not be particularly effective for you. Lucy's classic pattern of performing an action exposes and explains her plan to the viewer and eventually fails and sees her plan go in all directions, repeats itself in almost every episode. Nevertheless, the playful tone of the series works. A few gags and sarcastic lines give dynamism to the latter and make her viewer have a good time. In short, I Love Lucy defined what the comic norms and codes of the sitcom are today : misunderstandings, gags that emerge from the conflicts between the protagonists, comedy repetition that come from the "secondary" characters… 
Stereotype conveyor or progressive series?
At first glance, the series has a rather simplistic scenario and recipe that will be repeated many times thereafter. The latter can be considered conservative and a conveyor of gender stereotypes: at the end of each episode, Lucy is lectured by her husband. There is no doubt that his place is supposed to be warm to take care of the home. Although it reproduces the socially constructed image of the woman who is happy and thriving in her role as a housewife, I Love Lucy nevertheless develops another discourse. Indeed, Lucy has aspirations for renewal and stage dreams. And to achieve this, she fights and challenges her husband throughout the series questioning despite everything the balance of power of their couple (even if finally, her husband always regains the ascendancy over her and thwarts her plans). She puts incredible energy into questioning her status as if to get out of the confinement that her home represents. In the series, the mythical neighbor couple of the series Ethel and Fred Mertz also represents another look at the representation of the fulfilled housewife. The husband and wife despise each other and when the first is jaded for years to have for wife a woman he misesteems, the second returns the favor and finds in his friendship with Lucy a way to escape his home and its constraints Finally, with no less than 180 episodes spread over 6 seasons from 1951 to 1957, I Love Lucy marked an entire American generation and totally renewed the genre of the sitcom in what we know today. New insights, new technical means to record and produce the series have defined a whole serial genre and a whole panel of cult television series of the XXI century.
