Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 90

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The Popular Culture Review

for the most part male bonding. The entrance of outsiders is therefore
usually a matter of great concern. If the intruders are female, they
have to cope with Sam's advances. If the intruders are male, they
are either suspected of being spies from "Gary’s Old Towne Tavern" or
are ostracized on very shaky grounds.
Bonding allows the major characters a prolonged adolescence,
which is stressed by names like "Sammy" and "Cliffy" and by the
nature of the tricks that are popular here. The protagonists work
together to ward off intruders and challengers and to protect the
environment that is necessary to act out their rituals. Intruders who
disturb the bar's routine and rituals are often used to show that the
world of "Cheers" is an ideal one, whereas the world outside is
corrupt and hypocritical: when Rebecca offers the bar's back room for
use by a book club, for example, the elderly women constituting this
dub turn out to be alcoholic sex maniacs.
All the employees and regulars of the bar are Caucasian. One
of the few Afro-American men ever to appear on the show is a nwil
carrier called in by Cliff to beat up another outsider who challenged
Cliff. This same man later loses his job after Cliff reports that he
tore out the perfume sample from one of his deliveries. Latinos and
Asian Americans are also absent from the world of "Cheers." It is true
that the show tries to transcend social boundaries by pointing out the
similarities and the uncomplicated interaction between characters
from different backgrounds. But the seenung cross-section of American
society presented in Cheers is thoroughly Caucasian. The bar's inner
circle of bonded characters is exclusive, especially because of rituals
that are only open to the initiated.
Exclusiveness and protection against outsiders seem also to be
concerns of the original bar in Boston after which Cheers has been
modeled. People magazine reported in November 1990 that the
original bar is losing its clientele of regulars, who used to range from
professors to office employees and construction workers, because the
bar has become the third most visited tourist attraction of Boston.
The similacrum is destroying the original.
University of Southern California

Josef Raab

^ I am using Cheers to refer to the television serial and "Cheers"
to refer to the bar in this television serial.