Series - International Journal of TV Serial Narratives

Style and Staging. Aspectual Variations of Mise-en-Scène in Aaron Sorkin’s Television Serials

2023-09-04T16:13:15+02:00

This study explores the matrices of serial style present in Aaron Sorkin's dramaturgical writing for television serials. The focus is on the way in which teams of directors associated with Sorkin’s productions employ solutions for the staging of these works, thereby establishing their recognizable styles. The analysis values the heuristic uses of the concept of “style”, in disciplines of art history and literature studies, aiming to understand the dynamics under which television serials results from creative encounters between dramaturgy and mise-en-scène. As proving grounds of this examination, we analyse the works of two directors of Aaron Sorkin’s show, The West Wing, evaluating the diversified manners in which these two propose solutions for the staging of Sorkin’s writing.

“Las chicas del cable” (2017–2020): An Oral History of Netflix’s First Spanish Original

2023-05-19T19:06:15+02:00

The article analyses the production of Netflix's first original series in Spain, Las chicas del cable (2017-2020), through 6 interviews with professionals involved in its development, both from Netflix (Diego Ávalos) and the production company Bambú Producciones (executive producer Teresa Fernández Valdés, co-creator Gema R. Neira, head writer María José Rustarazo, head director Carlos Sedes, and cinematographer Jacobo Martínez). The goal is to use to examine the localisation process of Netflix through its original productions, and the challenges (such as cultural misunderstandings) it posed for both the video-on-demand service and the local production companies with whom established close links during this period of global expansion. The conclusions points to a mutually beneficial partnership where Bambú Producciones learnt how to work with international video-on-demand services and became less dependent on the Spanish market, and Netflix benefited from a safer arrival to new territory with a company that has a strong track record.

Kama Pida: The Dark Emotions Evoked by the The Netflix Dahmer Story

2023-05-12T13:44:46+02:00

This is a study of emotional responses as expressed in user-generated content at International Movie Database (IMDb) concerning the 2022 series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The series has triggered vehement emotional reactions. The theoretical point of departure for examining 679 reviews of this series is a phenomenon called kama muta (Sanskrit for “moved by love”), an experience of being deeply moved or touched by something amiable. Kama muta is an intense and elevating feeling of communal sharing (Fiske 2020). This article proposes kama pida (Sanskrit for “moved by pain”) as a term for the opposite feeling. Kama pida is on the very “dark side” of the emotional spectrum. It is a multivalent emotion accompanied by bodily reactions or embodied experiences. The emotion of kama pida is in most cases expressed by metaphors concerning the stomach, the nerves, the heart, breathing, and other bodily functions, but also by more cognitive/mental reactions like the experience of being very stressed, seeing a nightmare, or sharing in a trauma. The affective content of kama pida concerns the utterly unspeakable experience of horror, but is all the same expressed by the reviewers of the Netflix series about the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Representing Domestic Containment through Inter-character Negative Judgements: Discourse Analysis of Career Talk in I Love Lucy (1951-52)

2023-07-14T12:24:27+02:00

This paper approaches fictional telecinematic discourse from a perspective of inter-character negative evaluation in a specific context. The paper adapts a categorisation for interpersonal negative judgements and uses it to analyse instances of negative evaluation where participation in career practices are negotiated between the marital couple of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo in the classic sitcom I Love Lucy. A recurring theme in the show, Lucy’s desire to star in show business and Ricky’s attempts to thwart her ambitions have been discussed as both a representation of domestic containment typical to Post-War gender roles as well as an example of early feminist representation in televised sitcoms. The analysis reveals three intertwined facets of containment: Moral judgements condemning the oppressive behaviour of restricting Lucy’s access to career opportunities, moral judgements condemning the subversion of authority, and moral judgements of fairness condemning the distribution of social resources.

Introduction: Capturing the New Dynamics of Turkish Television Series. Disjunctions and Continuities

2023-01-22T13:20:49+01:00

Towards a Social History of Turkey Through Television Series

2022-11-02T12:20:03+01:00

By taking a sociological perspective toward relationships between media products and social issues and relying on historical analysis of Turkish TV series in the last five decades, this article explores the transformation of Turkish TV series in the context of changing socio-political, cultural and economic milieu in Turkey. Focusing on 102 TV series broadcast between 1974 and 2022, it strives to understand the social and political history of the country through television series. The article concludes that while Turkish TV series have reflected the ever-changing political orientation of the government and constant cultural fluctuations of society in every epoch, the discourse, narrative and formats of TV series have undergone significant transformations due to the impact of socio-cultural and political issues, the development of the TV production and broadcasting sector, and cultural policies of the state in Turkey. In this case, Turkish TV series can help us to understand the failed attempt of the governments for creating a national community united around middle-class values in the 1980s and 1990s as well as the polarized structure of society in today’s Turkey.

Transnational Audiences of Turkish Dramas: The Case of Sweden

2022-10-04T15:14:28+02:00

The Swedish public service television company, SVT (Sveriges Television), has been airing Turkish dramas regularly for the past decade. By examining the reception of Turkish TV series in Sweden, this ongoing research aims to shed light on the cultural exchange between the two countries and to contribute to ongoing debates surrounding the role of television series in facilitating transcultural encounters. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the audience’s reception of Turkish television series in Sweden, this study employs in-depth interviews with loyal viewers, bloggers who wrote about Turkish dramas and executives at SVT and the Eccho Rights distribution company, which played a role in bringing these series to Sweden. This approach allows for a nuanced examination of the motivations, perceptions, and experiences surrounding the broadcast and reception of Turkish TV series in Sweden. The paper concludes that Turkish TV series that appeal to Swedish audiences with a range of unique and compelling elements tend to create loyal audiences with strong ties to these shows.

Standing on the Edge of the New Cognitive Mapping: “Ethos” (“Bir Başkadır”)

2022-10-04T15:25:59+02:00

The fact that the digital platforms in Turkey are a decisive force in content production (film and TV series) has enabled the production of freer and more creative content in a number of creative fields such as screenplay, narrative language, cinematography, costume/set design and acting in the context of TV series. The rules and pressures of the Turkish state agency RTÜK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) and the executives of traditional television channels have caused a tendency toward digital platforms in the audience. This article focuses on the Netflix series Ethos (Turkish title: Bir Başkadır), which aired in 2020. Within the framework of the concepts of nostalgia and cinematic mapping, the article aims to analyze Ethos’ political plane, references, characters, and also the social class/identity and lifestyles that the series gives voice to. While analyzing the hybrid narrative of the series, this paper attempts to reveal the cinematic mapping along with the characters, spatial representations, and values that express them and will discuss how the concept of nostalgia works and functions as a tool providing such mapping. In this context, we read Ethos as a call for confrontation for the new cognitive map, especially at a time when the desire of people to coexist has been seriously damaged due to polarization between them as a result of the government strategies and belligerent policies of the last two decades. The series employs a nostalgic gaze through a hybrid narrative to construct the vanishing present.

A Turkish Drama in the Land of Telenovelas. The Reception of ‘Fatmagul’ in Brazil

2022-10-17T09:42:38+02:00

Brazil is well-known for its consolidated television industry that produces and exports telenovelas since the 1970s. However, a new phenomenon took place in the country in 2015: free-to-air television network Band started to air Turkish TV dramas. Fatmagul, the second Turkish drama broadcast by Band, achieved considerably high audience ratings and engaged audiences online. In this work, I rely on discussions about melodrama and transnational media flows to investigate Brazilian viewers' perceptions of Fatmagul. More specifically, my research questions are 1. how is this foreign narrative related to the context of Brazilian audiences' daily lives? and 2. what differences and similarities do Brazilian audiences see between Turkish and Brazilian productions regarding the narrative content? To gather data on the audience profile and general preferences, I shared an online questionnaire on groups about Fatmagul on Facebook. Among the respondents, I selected five female viewers from varied backgrounds and conducted in-depth interviews. The results point out that viewers relate to the melodramatic structure and moral of Fatmagul, especially concerning the emphasis on romance and the protagonist overcoming obstacles. Results also suggest that viewers reject more realistic narratives presented by Brazilian telenovelas, which they consider too sexualized and not family-oriented.

Male Rape, Femicide, and Torture: How “Borgia: Faith and Fear” Demystifies the Italian Renaissance

2023-01-10T10:06:12+01:00

This article argues the growing interest in investigating how popular historical television series recreates and represents the past by comparing the creative and representational choices of Tom Fontana’s Borgia: Faith and Fear (Canal+, 2011-14) with those of Neil Jordan’s The Borgias (Showtime, 2011-13). The comparison aims to show how these historical television series have boosted the public’s interest in the branding of Italy, the Italian Renaissance and, at the same time, managed to create a unique sense of historical engagement. I call this phenomenon ‘historicity,’ that is, something that ‘might have happened’ given the violent milieu of the times.

Even though the creators and writers alter and adapt certain facts, they successfully manage to make the viewers ‘travel through time’ and emotionally engage them with the past, allowing them to meet—virtually, of course— the characters and experience events that shaped Italian and European history from 1492-1503. I intend to show how Fontana’s Borgia, in particular, succeeds in de-mythologizing the Renaissance by shattering the mythical depiction of a golden age and focusing, instead, on the prevailing unbridled violence of the times. Fontana’s narrative does not shy away from displaying the most atrocious tortures, disfigurements, feminicides and male rapes. Although some of these scenes are certainly alienating and shocking, and may leave the audience uncomfortable and even appalled, they succeed in reawakening historical consciousness through affective engagement, narrative transportation, and the proximity effect.

Social Class, TV Series and Resistance: the Reception of Turkish Dramas by Greeks

2022-10-04T15:35:22+02:00

Turkey has a leading role on the international media scene as far as the export of serial dramas is concerned. Turkish soap operas represent the preoccupations of poor persons and their (mis)adventures following their encounter with wealthy people. They thus combine the representation of the lifestyle of the wealthy classes with messages that, at the same time, criticize it and validate the lifestyle of the working-classes. Since the economic crisis, Greece is among the countries that systematically import Turkish soap operas. Through this article, the author analyzes how Greek audiences negotiate the power relations imposed on them by the capitalist system through the viewing of Turkish television soap operas. This research has revealed that the resistance of meaning receivers toward the hegemonic system is not always opposed to the media text. The results presented in this article are based on an ethnography of Greek audiences of Turkish soap operas as well as on an analysis of the representations of social classes projected through Turkish soap operas.

The Fran Lebowitz Series in Scorsese’s “Pretend It’s a City” and “Public Speaking”

2022-03-30T11:47:19+02:00

Writer, humorist, and style icon Fran Lebowitz, author of Social Studies (1981) and Metropolitan Life (1978), then merged in The Fran Lebowitz Reader (1994 and 2021), has been the subject of Martin Scorsese’s Pretend It’s a City (2021) and Public Speaking (2010). Both introduce Lebowitz as a storyteller, social commentator, and public intellectual who narrates her life in the style of documentary performers (Waugh) without neglecting the techniques of the cinéma vérité.

Scorsese’s two works on Fran Lebowitz do not conform to the usual biopic yet can be understood as a selective biography. In introducing Fran Lebowitz to a contemporary large audience, the combination of biographical perspective and quasi-vérité style addresses the opposition between private and public (Arendt and Habermas). Altogether, the two productions can be considered as a series with an opening (Public Speaking) and seven episodes (Pretend It’s a City) that create Martin Scorsese’s series on Fran Lebowitz. The biographical traits, paired with Lebowitz’s status as public speaker, create a double portrait, almost a doppelgänger, as a split between the Lebowitz’s performance and her representation.

Uncovering the Narrative Structure of “Breaking Bad” Through a Multi-Dimensional Quantitative Analysis

2022-03-21T16:13:03+01:00

The quantitative analysis of TV series has so far focused on the interactions among characters, typically employing a network model. However, such analyses can exploit additional information extracted as manual annotation from the series. That additional information can help us obtain a more complete view of the series narrative structure, accounting for the sequence of scenes and shots. In this paper, we propose an analysis of the TV series "Breaking Bad" that relies on the measurement of locations and scenes as well as the speech and video presence of individual characters. We also exploit those data to measure the degree of concentration achieved by locations and individual characters. We observe a consistent pattern for most variables, which highlight the stylistic characteristics of the series.

The Paradox of Disgust Revisited. The Meta-Emotional Entertainment Experience of “Hannibal”

2022-03-30T11:48:58+02:00

This paper addresses the paradoxical nature of entertainment experiences like the pleasure derived from violent media content. Building on the psychological concept of multidimensional meta-emotions (comprising suspense, enjoyment, appreciation, and artistic value) an empirical survey with 876 fans of the quality TV series Hannibal (NBC 2013–2015) was conducted. The study addressed perception and experience of Hannibal as well as its engagement potential. Results showed that respondents assessed the show as quality TV that is highly aesthetically appealing, but comparatively low on violent content. Moreover, the study showed that Hannibal elicited a complex entertainment experience that was enhanced by a positive aesthetic judgement, while a stronger perception of the show’s violence diminished it. Finally, it showed that respondents hardly engaged with additional content. If viewers did engage, however, the entertainment experience was slightly enhanced. Overall, the study showed that besides hedonic enjoyment and suspense viewers also find meaningfulness and artistic value in Hannibal. The perceived violence, however, is tolerated rather than enjoyed or appreciated. If we concede effects of violent media content on individuals or the society as a whole, less (violence) might be more, not only to enhance viewing pleasure but also to lessen the potential for harmful effects.

From a Literary Genre to a Television Genre. The Circulation of “Finnish weird”

2022-03-01T15:28:38+01:00

This article examines Finnish weird, a television genre that was established to promote Finnish television series abroad. Originally a literary genre blurring the boundaries of sci-fi, fantasy and realism, the concept of Finnish weird was adopted by the television industry in 2018, when a number of series were branded as “Finnish weird” at an international industry event. In both production and reception Finnish weird was mainly characterised by a comparison to Nordic noir. However, the genre failed to replicate the success of Swedish and Danish crime drama and soon vanished from the industrial discourses. This article analyses the genre as cultural practices by examining the circulation of Finnish weird. Through investigating the origin of the concept, the practice of branding diverse television series as Finnish weird and the generic discourses defining Finnish weird in relation to Nordic noir, the text shows how the literary genre was appropriated and redefined for television.

Introduction: Latin American Television Fiction in Times of Change (2015-2021)

2021-12-19T12:10:48+01:00

“I’m Not Always the Most Reliable Narrator”. On Character Voice-Over as a Rhetorical Resource in HBO’s “Euphoria”

2021-12-09T10:49:07+01:00

Voice-over narration features in various ways in contemporary TV series. One recent series that employs voice-over extensively is HBO’s Euphoria. In the series, the protagonist, Rue, narrates repeatedly in each episode of the first season and critics have labelled her voice-over with terms such as “unreliable” or “omniscient”. The aim of this article is to analyze the uses of character voice-over in Euphoria and to argue that such analysis require examining the theoretical terminology often applied to film and TV voice-overs. The article argues that character voice-over should not be defined based on a structuralist narratological conception of the narrator. Rather, voice-over should be approached within a framework of narrative rhetoric and viewed as a medium-specific rhetorical resource. The proposed view, as opposed to one classifying different types of voice-over narrators, is better able to explain how voice-over works in serial storytelling and how this resource is employed in Euphoria to create different effects and affect the audience in different ways.

On the production of audiovisual fiction after the arrival of OTT platforms in Colombia

2021-10-08T10:37:19+02:00

The Colombian audiovisual environment has experienced considerable changes at the same time as the establishment of OTT platforms in Colombia. Many of those changes can be traced back to the cultural policies that promoted audiovisual fiction production for regional broadcasters and those that seek to lure international film productions under the Location Colombia law. The results of these governmental efforts can be spotted at the India Catalina Awards for the Colombian Audiovisual Industry. In that event, series with few episodes produced by public channels, as well as those by Netflix, with less melodramatic elements, have garnered awards in the main categories thanks to their quality standards. All of these processes have included a change in aesthetics and narratives in fiction content, leading to a reduction in the contemporary production of standard telenovelas.