Category Archives: TV CULTURES

Lena Dunham’s Girls

Posted on by

0

Featuring on HBO, Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow’s American comedy-drama television series, Girls (2012), navigates the lives of a group quirky friends in their twenties, living in Brooklyn. The narrative is constructed around the protagonist, Hannah (Lena Dunham herself), who is an aspiring writer that has been cut off from the financial support of her parents. Dunham’s characters within the series have been developed in parallel to her own personal experiences and life. Themes of sex, racism, feminism, nudity and body image filter throughout the series in an ultimately realist aesthetic style. As a result of these themes, Girls has been described as an awkward and uncomfortable series to watch (Watson, Mitchell & Shaw eds. 2015, p3).

Being premiered on the American cable television network, HBO, immediately and effectively positions Girls as a high quality television series. When considering what constitutes quality television, it is integral to understand that as an audience, we have subjective perceptions and criteria for what we consider to be the best. Throughout history, quality television has been justified and associated through a cultural canon. The canon is made up of what is perceived as the highest quality television shows, decided by official critics. HBO creates a cultural canon ‘of modern television art and storytelling’ (Akass & McCabe n.d). The network has a reputation for airing consistent quality television that differs from other cable stations. It is defined by its art cinema and complex narrative texts. Most importantly, by Girls being aired on HBO, we see the show within the canon – as a successful series.

Despite being considered as part of the cultural canon and as quality television, reviews have ‘attacked its politics, lack of racial diversity, style, self-indulgence, lack of likeable characters, and complex representation of sex (Watson, Mitchell & Shaw eds. 2015, p3). The series challenges the typical approach that television takes when dealing with themes of sex. Sex in Girls isn’t dramatised, aesthetic, polished or romantic as usual. It has a realistic quality to it – it’s as raw as it gets.

A particularly awkward sex scene is played out in the first episode of the series where Hannah struggles her way through bad sex. We see her fumbling around, pulling her undies down and positioning her legs in preparation for sex. Unlike how sex is filmed in most television shows; in a way that presents sex as ‘a kind of sleek digital candy’, this scene is utterly uncomfortable to watch (Nussbaum 2012). The scene lacks romantic music, it is filmed in a cluttered old room with dull lighting and jarring close-up shots. This scene as well as further sex scenes throughout the series have contributed to the negative connotations associated with the series’ themes. It portrays the characters in a negative light, making them cringey and unlikeable for the audience to watch.

Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 2.06.27 am

Girls has been likened to Darren Stars’ HBO series, Sex and the City (2004), as it quite similarly depicts sex in a blunt and controversial manner. In contrast to Sex and the City, Girls reflects the lives of unsuccessful, somewhat petty and unlikeable women. Conversely, the characters portrayed in Sex and the City seem to have it all – they are lovable characters. Dunham was inspired by Sex and the City with the desire to fill in the gaps and themes that hadn’t previously been addressed (Goldberg 2012). Throughout the series, Dunham often references Sex and the City. Intertextual references are used within the first episode, such as a Sex and the City poster displayed on the wall of Shoshanna’s (Zosia Mamet) bedroom. In essence, both Sex and the City and Girls are HBO series which deal with themes of sex in a graphic and raw manner. They epitomise the differentiation of the HBO network as a brand to other cable networks in the way that they confrontingly deal with the theme of sex and present complex narratives.

Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 2.05.49 am

Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 2.03.21 am

With its unlikeable characters and undeniably uncomfortable sex scenes, Girls is a series that wouldn’t typically appeal to and engage an audience. It can be argued that it is the overall brand of HBO and its ability to position Girls within the cultural canon of quality television, that causes us to recognise the show as credible and a success. Being compared to Sex and the City, we see that both of these HBO series ultimately reflect sex in a confronting manner. As such, the depiction of sex is unlike other television networks representation and further emphasises the branding of HBO. We see that HBO lives up to its slogan- that it is ‘not TV’- it is a whole other ball game for television production that deals with complex narratives and controversial themes.

References:

Goldberg, L 2012, Lena Dunham Says HBO’s ‘Girls’ Isn’t ‘Sex and the City’, The Hollywood Reporter, viewed 15 October 2015, <http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tca-hbo-girls-lena-dunham-judd-apatow-281483>

Watson, E, Mitchell, M, & Shaw, ME (eds.) 2015, HBO’s Girls and the Awkward Politics of Gender, Race, and Privilege, Lexington Books, USA.

Nussbaum, E 2012, It’s Different for ‘Girls’, Proquest, viewed 10 October 2015, <http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/docview/941610197?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&accountid=13552>

TV Cultures – The New Audience and Fandom

Posted on by

0

There is a dramatic shift in the ways that audiences are interacting with television content. Traditionally, television was thought to be a mass communications medium. Sending messages through the television was seen to be direct and received by a passive audience.

With the emergence of technologies such as the Internet and Mobile Phones, audiences are fragmenting across different platforms. As a result, we are seeing an evolution of the traditional mass audience. Particularly, the separation of the audience across these multi-media platforms is building focussed areas of interest. Groups of television viewers are coming together to share and connect with the television content. Audiences are forming niche markets and subcultures as a result of their emotional connection to certain texts. As such, passionate fans of television series or genres are evolving. These fans are active viewers of television content, producers and manipulators of the text’s meaning (Jenkins 1992).

Television fandom refers to a group of fans that share the same feelings towards a series or genre, they create fan fiction, fan art and involve themselves in a social network based on shared interests of a text (Rohrs 2013). Television fans are perceived and often stereotyped as loyal, obsessive, dependent and intense in regards to their relationship with a text. A fandom brings the text into the outside world and into the lives of its fans. Many negative connotations surrounding fandoms occur as a result of their obsessive nature towards a text. Drawing upon Henry Jenkin’s notion of fandom in Textual Poachers (1992), Jonathan Gray demonstrates that fandom extends beyond the act of being a ‘mere fan’ of something, it is more of ‘a communal effort to form interpretive communities’ (2007).

Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (1966) is an integral example of a fandom text. The series developed a large fan base, known as ‘trekkies’, that formed a camaraderie and subculture surrounding the series (Harris 2014). Jenkins and Camille Bacon-Smith (1992) described the notion of fan interaction with a text as ‘fan production’ which refers to the ways in which fans create their own media texts, reinterpreting and adapting on a series in outside world – much like how the fan’s interacted with the Star Trek series (Sullivan 2012). ‘Trekkies’ created fan fiction, art and videos with their own interpretations of the series.  In Melbourne, the initial driving force of the Star Trek fandom was initiated by Aussiecon at the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention. Diane Marchant, the co-founder of the international U.S Welcommittee held a Star Trek programme where episodes and the blooper reel were shown to an audience. As such, this event united Star Trek fans and provided them with the opportunity to network (National Library of Australia (n.d.)).

These websites demonstrate Star Trek fandom through fan fiction and fan art:

Fan Fiction 

Fan Art 

There is a sense of emotion, passion and connection that fans feel when they become involved in a particular television series (Rohrs 2013). David Benioff and D.B Weiss’ Game of Thrones (2011) is a television series that has a produced a profound international fan base. Games of Thrones is an American drama series based on fantasy characters that were adapted from George R.R. Martin’s novel, A Song of Ice and Fire. The violent series is played out in the ‘Seven Kingdoms of Westeros’ and follows the complex relationships between noble families as they fight for the ‘Iron Throne’. An online fandom is prevalent for this series. Fans have come together on media platforms such as Facebook, Deviantart, Twitter, YouTube, Blogging websites and Comic Con to share their interests and interpret the text in their own ways.

The following videos show how fans have manipulated and become producers of a text. They have used YouTube and edited together a Game Of Thrones season or character’s growth into a short clip accompanied by music that they believe suits the mood.

Through rethinking the traditional mass audience and recognising it as fragmented across different platforms we see the ways in which fan bases can be formed. With emerging technologies such as the Internet the audience and fans are forming niche markets, becoming more active in their roles as consumers. Essentially, online platforms are further creating new ways for television fans to interact, network and socialise with each other. It is through these new ways that fandoms can be formed.   

References:

Bacon-Smith, C 1992, Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Gray, J 2007, Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, NYU Press, New York

Jenkins, H 1992, Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture, Routledge, New York.

National Library of Australia (n.d.), Star Trek Fandom in Australia, viewed 21 October 2015, <http://www.nla.gov.au/collect/startrek.html>

Rohrs, JK 2013, Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans and Followers, RMIT University, viewed 10 October 2015, <http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/(S(ozxuedckdihcpclg3x3bzju5))/Reader.aspx?p=1547075&o=116&u=EsIQrT7WB2w8jvtab23BKg%3d%3d&t=1445491652&h=CA8FD203A0955C3D1797EAABDB309514E5ED0B28&s=21970056&ut=337&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=1>


Sullivan, JL 2012, Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power, Sage Publications, viewed 2 October 2015, <http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/50993_ch_8.pdf>

Transmedia Breaks Bad -Tv Cultures-Part B

Posted on by

0

With rapidly changing and developing technologies we have become a demanding audience. One that seeks a deep level of involvement and interaction with the characters and plots we see in our favourite television series. We lose interest quickly, become distracted and are no longer engaged by just watching the single television medium- we are looking for stimulating and exhilarating forms of interaction with storytelling, to heighten our television viewing experience.

The recent upsurge of transmedia has allowed television storytelling to connect with its audience in the most effective way, bringing the story to their everyday life (Jenkins 2007). The need to expand narratives across different media has been prevalent since one of television’s first hits, Dragnet (1950s), which shifted from radio, to television, to books, board games, and film (Media Commons Press 2011 para.4). However, the modern transmedia techniques are ‘both greater in degree and different in kind’ to the original forms due to fast-paced changes in technology and online media (Media Commons Press 2011 para.5). Transmedia is essentially a new form of storytelling which sees a convergence of different mediums, such as television, internet, social media websites, web series, gaming, films, music stations, live events, radio shows, and books (The Artifice 2013 para.4). The audience experiences a more in-depth, captivating way of interacting with characters and storylines as transmedia makes ‘its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story’ (Jenkins 2007).

With the increasing ‘innovative forms of narrative extensions’ on television, AMC’s crime drama television series, Breaking Bad (2008-2013) demonstrates the successful use of transmedia to engage its audience (Media Commons Press 2011 para. 3). The narrative of Breaking Bad depicts the life of a former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who falls ill with terminal lung cancer. In a quest to support his family financially, Walter decides to join up with a past student, Jesse Pinkman, to create the purest meth distribution company. After 5 seasons and 62 episodes, the popular award winning Breaking Bad had to come to an end. However, this didn’t mean the story surrounding Breaking Bad had to end too. There were still many questions left unresolved and shallow character developments that had to be addressed to ultimately fulfill the audience’s’ needs for what they would feel to be the true end to the series.

As a result, AMC along with Vince Gilligan (the creator of Breaking Bad) employed transmedia techniques to allow for a more in-depth audience interaction with the narrative and particularly the characters. Their extensive transmedia includes a live talk show (Talking Bad (2013)), online video games, an online alternate ending, Huell’s Rules (2014) and Better Call Saul (2015). The spinoff to Breaking Bad entitled Better Call Saul, saw necessary character development of main characters such as Saul Goodman and Mike Ehrmantraut. The spinoff was created not only to change the audience’s’ perspectives of these characters within Breaking Bad, but to give further perspective to the loose holes in the storyline. Through transmedia, Better Call Saul essentially satisfies the audience’s’ ‘demands’ to further interact with the storyline (The Artifice 2013 para.4).

(Huell’s Rules 2014)

Better Call Saul

(Better Call Saul, n.d)

A more interactive transmedia experience for the audience of Breaking Bad is AMC’s Breaking Bad Story Sync which entered the series in season 5. Story Sync is an application on a second screen which the audience can use to ‘participate in polls, trivia and exclusive content’ whilst watching an episode (The Artifice 2013 para.6). It has significantly helped to ‘transcend’ the audience from the single medium of the television to an alternate story world where they can also communicate on Facebook and Twitter (Media Commons Press 2011 para.4).

See Breaking Bad Story Sync here 

Story Sync

 (Breaking Bad Story Sync, n.d)

Through the use of transmedia we can see the ways in which the audience’s’ television experience becomes heightened, interactive and invigorating. In Breaking Bad, transmedia is used specifically to expand on characters and unresolved questions surrounding the plot. Audiences gain further insight into the character’s background, ultimately fulfilling their desire to ‘fill the gaps’ from the series, leaving them with a sense of closure (Jenkins 2007).

Take a look at the alternate ending of Breaking Bad for an interesting interpretation of what could have been….

References:

Better Call Saul, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015,  <http://www.slashgear.com/better-call-saul-smashes-record-with-highest-cable-debut-ratings-09368228/>

Breaking Bad-Alternate Ending, video, Vimeo, 2014, viewed 12 August, <2015, https://vimeo.com/91034065>

Breaking Bad Story Sync, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://the-artifice.com/breaking-bad-story-sync/>

Huell’s Rules, video, YouTube, 27 May 2014, viewed 12 August 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8domW4NwpBQ>

Jenkins, H 2007, Confessions of an ACA fan: The official weblog of Henry Jenkins, WordPress, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html > 

Media Commons Press, 2011, Complex Tv: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, Media Commons Press, viewed 10 August 2015, <http://mcpress.media-commons.org/complextelevision/transmedia-storytelling/ >

The Artifice, 2013, Breaking Bad Story Sync: Incorporating the Second Screen into Transmedia Storytelling, The Artifice, viewed 12 August 2015, <http://the-artifice.com/breaking-bad-story-sync/ >

TV Cultures- ‘Dead Set’ – Part A

Posted on by

0

We are currently surrounded by ‘a global explosion’ of the zombie text throughout ubiquitous media platforms (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014 p.3). With a particular focus on television, we see the ways in which the zombie text has taken place and shaped the notion of the contemporary zombie throughout popular culture. Being a zombie text and a television series, it is through Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set (2008) that we see the construction of a contemporary zombie and what it represents. Dead Set’ explores the outbreak of unconventional fast zombies intertwined with a fictional version of the British reality television show, Big Brother. In this five-episode mini series, aired on E4, the classic slow zombie has been transformed to an undead creature that viciously and rapidly attacks the living, spreading infection. The only safe haven from the outbreak is in the Big Brother household. Oblivious to the outbreak, the first episode of the series shows the contestants of Big Brother and the production company staff as the last survivors standing.

It was George Romero’s horror fantasy films that sparked the emergence of the modern zombie into popular television culture (The Guardian 2008a). He re-ignited the popularity of the zombie genre, making the zombie figure a ‘cultural icon’ in society (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014 p.13). Romero’s traditional and classic representations of a zombie in Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) affirmed the notion of a zombie as being a slow, cruel, undead creature that seeks human flesh. As a result of Romero’s work, Brooker was inspired to produce Dead Set. In juxtaposition to Romero’s work, Dead Set challenges the conventional zombies seen in Romero’s films and essentially draws upon the traits of the fast zombies depicted in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) (The Guardian 2010).

Dead Set

(Davina McCall in Dead Set n.d)

Within the mini-series, Brooker creates a modern zombie text which possesses a deeper underlying social commentary on the consumptive nature of the television audience- an audience which has become mindless, deadened and passive as a result of television’s consumptive control (The Guardian 2008a). There is an element of satire which undertones the audience’s consumption of television throughout the series. Particularly, this is evident through the ways in which Brooker parallels the traits of ‘Big Brother’ contestants and the production staff with the traits of the zombies. A parallel which Brooker perhaps uses to highlight that the destructive human traits aren’t all that different from the zombies.

Ultimately, Brooker intended on creating a zombie series that differentiates itself from the representations of zombies in past texts (The Guardian 2008a). Whilst the zombies do run and are fast-paced in Dead Set, they still reflect aspects of the traditional zombies seen in Romero’s films such as being flesh eating, brain-dead creatures (The Guardian 2008a). In contrast, Simon Pegg, co-writer of the satirical zombie film, Shaun of the Dead (2004) is against the way in which Dead Set steers away from Romero’s traditional slow zombie (The Guardian 2008b). He believes that the zombies shown within popular culture should possess the same attributes and values as the zombies seen in classic zombie texts (The Guardian 2008b). However, perhaps Pegg is wrong in assuming that audiences should see stereotypical zombie texts. Had Brooker not taken the risk of evolving the typical slow-brainless zombie to a fast-paced-destructive one, the regularity of a stereotypical zombie could have made the series stale.

Consequently, Dead Set is a mini-series that challenges the classic zombie text and re-interprets it into a contemporary and fast-paced creature. A creature that we are all arguably becoming today – fast-paced in the sense of technology and technological advances, but ‘zombified’ in the sense that we are becoming a brain-dead and mindless society consumed by television. The modern zombie representations such as those within Dead Set are changing the perceptions of the traditional zombie seen on television and transforming them into a social commentary on the consumptive society we are becoming today (Hubner, Leaning & Manning 2014).

Take a look at the first episode here:

(Dead Set- Episodio 1)

References:

Hubner, L, Leaning, M & Manning, P 2014, The Zombie Renaissance in Popular Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, London.

The Guardian, 2008a, Reality Bites, The Guardian, viewed 9 August 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/oct/18/horror-channel4>

The Guardian, 2008b, The Dead and the Quick, The Guardian, viewed 8 August 2015,<http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set>

The Guardian, 2010, Is Obama really president or am I just watching a fantasy? It’s almost too good to be true, The Guardian, viewed 10 August 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/barack-obama-zombies-running>

Davina McCall in Dead Set, n.d. photograph, viewed 12 August 2015,<http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/styles/article_main_wide_image/public/images/35204.jpg?itok=Erk8914G >

Dead Set- Episodio 1, video, YouTube, 10 September, viewed 7 August 2015,<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNwTfK4Kddk>