Created on Wednesday, 02/14/2007 8:58 PM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Thursday, 02/15/2007 7:19 PM by Willa Kramer
In "Soap Opera Survival Tactics" Seiter and Wilson explore the way soaps are perceived and incorporated by viewers and networks. They talk about how soap opera tactics have been used by other television genres such as reality and prime time. In class we came to the conclusion that a more useful way to think about this was through melodrama. Soap are an explicit and transparent form of melodrama- other genres mask/restrain melodrama through claims to “quality,” differing production values, auteur claims, or prime time association. Melodrama- or drama, “ the hour long episodic series, organized around a set of recurring characters who interact with one another and with occasional new characters in a recognizable, bounded social setting” (Anderson 78) - is inherent to the established patterns of network television, but there are levels of excess and restraint. Soap opera is often dismissed and associated with “trash” or low quality viewing because of its excess. One of its survival tactics is to acknowledge such excess in camp parodies like Passions.
The prime time teen soap is another survival tactic. Despite its young male protagonists, The OC is centered on emotional relationships and moral legibility- basic characteristics of melodrama. So, is VM a prime time soap? Well, it’s a melodrama drawing on the generic formats of crime noir and soap opera. It’s the juxtaposition of the two that makes the show interesting- the intense prolonged emotional conflicts interwoven with CSI like crime solving. And both VM and OC are self reflexive about the worlds they have created- their excesses are remarked upon and acknowledged through inside comments that reward faithful viewers (time for an OC moment- Seth walking into the pool house in a white wife beater trying his best to brood like Ryan). Its all about hybridism and convergence- a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I remember seeing some magazine in the grocery store with a Grisom (CSI Las Vegas) on the cover and the title was “Grisom and Sarah grow closer” or something like that. And I couldn’t help thinking, that was the exact same tension of the first season…and they are still working it for all its worth.
Comments (2)now I have a screen name - edithistorydelete
Created on Tuesday, 02/13/2007 1:22 AM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Tuesday, 02/13/2007 1:23 AM by Willa Kramer
which I am too embarrassed to share in public. Yeah so I took the final leap and created a CW account. I made my first post on the VM chat page on the topic "100 reasons why the CW should renew Veronica Mars." I stepped over the line into active fandom. I also signed the petition-
To: To The CW Executives and Producers
This petition relates to the great show "Veronica Mars" and it's known-to-be progressive future. "Veronica Mars" is a cult-hit that only gets good ratings and reviews, and a show whose audience is increasing with each episode. We, The Undersigned, would like to see "Veronica Mars" with a full 22-episode season and more seasons to follow, for that matter. CW Execs, I hope these signatures show the undying and proactive love many people have for "Veronica Mars"!
If you have any love for VM at all, you should sign too (wow that was a quick move from first time fan to VM pimp. also notice that its around 1 am).
http://www.petitiononline.com/vm4fulls/
This was an interesting comment: "Please don't cancel this.It's one of the most intelligent shows right now...I just wish it was marketed like LOST or Desperate Housewives." But isnt part of being a cult show fan that knowledge that only a select group know about it? The fans also talk about making an alliance with another show to boost ratings. One suggests Gilmore Girls or Supernatural but they seem to popular- they need a show that also needs better ratings.
Greys and Girls - edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 02/11/2007 10:15 PM by Willa Kramer
I work in the game room on Thursday nights. Usually its pretty calm, not a lot of people. But last thursday, about 15 people came to watch Grey's Anatomy. They had been kicked out of Parrish parlours by two guys who wanted to watch a hockey game. Think about this- 15 (mostly girls) against 2, and the 2 guys won- because for some strange reason sports events trump all regularly scheduled programs or girls wont argue about television space with dedicated guys. Melodrama apparently didn't rate on their scale. So this huge group of people came to the grame room and we all watched Grey's together. And when Meredith fell over the dock and into the water, there were fifteen simulatenous gasps of disbeleif at the hutspa of the show to never cease its over dramatic machinations (plus I think some of us hoped Meredith would be okay).But about gender, genre and space...
Thoughts on the Beeb - edithistorydelete
Created on Thursday, 02/08/2007 2:54 PM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Sunday, 02/11/2007 10:04 PM by Willa Kramer
Yay the BBC. So I started thinking about my experience working there and how the infrastructure of the television industry works with flow. During the Spring of 2006, the BBC had two hit shows- Dr. Who and the Catherine Tate Show.
First, watch this hilarious clip of "Bovvered" skit. Catherine Tate is the new Tracy Ullman. She does a skit show all about British culture. So this one is about school age kids who use elaborate slang language.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZyF-DsVCJOE
Dr. Who is also very culturally specific. Much of it takes place in London and involves revisiting the UK's past and imagining its future (ie spaceships hiding in Big Ben's clocktower). FYI, David Tennant is an awesome Dr. Who. Christopher Eccleston was okay, but I enjoy him more on Heroes as the crazy invisible man. Talk about transcontinental flow. The show also starts Billie Piper, a former British one hit wonder pop singer turned actress, which seems to me like a smart marketing move in a culture that loves their D-celebrities and makes Big Brother the number one show in the nation (the US market could definitely take this hint and kick up US Big Bro). Dr. Who also has a historical generic flow- the 1960s show was very successful and also generated a large fan base that can still be tapped into today.
The BBC constantly has big conferences and lectures on how to improve its services. One time they had a huge lecture series on how to make more BBC shows like Dr. WHo and Catherine Tate, both of which pull in large, dedicated, and multigenerational audiences. You could either 1) go to the live lecture at one of the BBC buildings 2) watch the live broadcast of the lectures on TVs in the BBC office or 3) stream the lectures online. So even within the BBC there was a convergence of information about television, and a flow of information that staff were supposed to absorb throughout the day one way or another.
Flow - edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 02/04/2007 1:45 PM by Willa Kramer
Raymond Williams proposes the metaphor of “flow” to describe television as a sequence or set of images: “the replacement of a programme series of timed sequential units by a flow of differently related units in which the timing, though real, is undeclared, and in which the real internal organization is something other than the declared organization” (235). Television is organized around these flowing sequences that seek to balance commercialism and entertainment, to somehow maintain the viewer even between the interruptions and breaks of advertising and competition. There are two aspects of flow I want to explore: generic flow, or “content,” and convergence flow, or “form.” Although I’m already channeling McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” and expect to trace some of the connections.
What interests me is thinking about how flow is maintained once a viewer migrates to the internet. Because I don’t have access to a television during Veronica Mars (VM) I always watch the newest episode online. To do this I have to navigate the CW website, which directs me through a sequence of pages to the full episodes, where I can pick from a range of CW shows. Before I do that, Tyra Banks pops up and dances around, telling me “Welcome to the jungle, ladies.” Which has interesting connotations- does the WB assume everyone is a female fan? Is television a jungle? CW has seven select shows that offer their latest episodes. I don’t know what you do if your show isn’t one of those select. It also offers director’s cuts, sneak peaks, interviews, tests/quizzes and chat lounges- basically anything to keep you on the website once you have come. So I pick VM and start watching- and magically, there are no commercials and no blaring CW ads! It’s a miracle. I guess the website is banking on fans being sucked into the flow of the internet offerings just like a TV watcher would have a hard time turning the tube off. Okay, so maybe I did check out the director’s cut of VM, and maybe I did end up watching Beauty and the Geek. But oh well. I’m a sucker for flow.
My experience with flow supports Uricchio’s revised definition of flow “as a means of sketching out a series of fundamental shifts in the interface between viewer and television” (165). Uricchio’s concept of flow includes the idea of mediation by metadata programmers and filtering technology (search engines and adaptive interfaces). The internet as a filtering technology presents the viewer with a map of prescribed options meant to direct the user to other aspects of the website and to encourage an active (and controlled) fandom.
Now, on to genre. VM is situated in a historical progression of what I like to call “blonde chick saves the world.” You can trace it back to snotty Nancy Drew, who solved mysteries without messing up her hair, to Buffy, who kicked ass (in both film and television), and past VM to Claire from Heroes who inspired the “save the cheerleader save the world” catch phrase. So “blonde chick saves the world” has migrated through print, film and television. In a sense it has become a image-genre, a compelling iconic symbol that is filtered through various delivery systems, similar to how we positioned race as a genre/content in class on Thursday.
Big Broadcasting - edithistorydelete
Created on Tuesday, 01/30/2007 1:15 PM by Willa Kramer
Gripsrud’s article in TATV was quite interesting. I did notice that he fell into the “black box fallacy” outlined by Jenkins. Despite Gripsrud’s belief that one day he would sit in awe before the box that does it all (anyone seen Batman Forever, ie the Riddler’s brain sucking TV?) both scholars share an interest in social/political “protocols”- perhaps software over hardware. Convergence is more about the viewer/consumer/producer relationship and the ways people access and interact with all forms of media.
Anyway, Gripsrud goes on to de-bug the “end of all media” argument that basically says convergence and digitalization will destroy the broadcast power centers, the consumer will get more power, and anarchy and chaos will reign forever and ever. I agree with his assessment that broadcast networks have a social role to connect and organize communities- and that hundredsof other channels cannot wean people away from the main staples they are used to. He sites three reasons why the big broadcasting networks shouldn’t panic: television has “simultaneity, liveness and ritualization of everyday life” (p 216). For an example, he talks about how the BBC (the beeb) moved Dr. Who to another night and was not well received. After living in London for the semester and working the BBC, I like to talk about them a lot, so bear with me. The new Dr. Who was just starting its second season when I was there. It was on a weekend afternoon and you HAD to watch it. It was just a cultural imperative. I think in part this was due to the Brits loyalty to BBC. They want their big channel to succeed but they also want quality programming that is up to date and not antiquated, so when the BBC offers them something good they are eager to snap it up. Dr. Who was a live event watched simultaneously by a large population in a ritual of Britishness going back decades that would also affect the rhythm of life the next day at the office.
The water cooler effect is not to be underestimated. In some ways I think that is the defining genius of Lost. Lost wooed viewers back to network television because it was high quality and it was completely baffling (questions about plot created even more fan involvement). It generated a fan subculture that didn’t have to be a subculture- because everyone could and did watch the show. New broadcast channels are also vitally important to keeping said broadcast networks in power. FOX did its part to woo the elusive young male viewer- as Family Guy and 24 attest. And when UPN and the WB merged to form the CW, they made a broadcast network out of niche interests such as teen drama. I know Veronica Mars fans were in a flurry of activity to guarantee that the show got picked up in one of the few slots the CW was offering. As long as minority/niche programming is included in some way in the broadcast networks, cable channels become less necessary and vital. Gripsrud’s article does suffer from his rather shallow analysis of American media trends. I think pay-for-channels such as HBO and to a lesser extent Showtime have also emerged as a must for many viewers. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under and The L-Word all have reputations for being quality and boundary pushing television luring broadcast viewers away from the pitiful comedy line up on Thursday nights.
Me & Media - edithistorydelete
Created on Monday, 01/29/2007 8:49 AM by Willa Kramer
I am a dedicated and distracted media consumer. By that I mean I go through large amounts of media- from television, movies, music, websites, magazines, blogs, radio, etc- every week but my interaction with most of it is on a cursory, browsing and distracted level. For instance, while I am writing this I am also watching American Idol and simultaneously enjoying it and feeling disgusted at its lack of sophistication. Why are Simon’s bored insults still entertaining? I think it must be the appeal of the American dream that one’s inflated sense of potential stardom will be reinforced- and for all those whose dreams have been crushed, it is satisfying to watch Simon crush others.
On the other hand there are a handful of television shows that I watch with the dedicated enthusiasm of a true fantastic and examine through a lens of television theory. Right now Lost and Veronica Mars top the list. You can’t distract me while I watch these shows- you can’t even talk. And I cannot start watching in the middle of the episode or stand to hear any spoilers. Can I just say that Veronica Mars is perhaps the best television show EVER. It has all these little references that are aimed at the academic circles and tv buffs and rewards the fans on a regular basis. And Veronica kicks some serious booty. I’m still riding high from the paper I wrote last semester on VM’s complicated interaction with ideas of feminism and the representation of femininity. Lost is just crazy. Every time I watch I wonder if the writers know what they are doing, if they can possibly contain and control their spiraling tale. But I don’t know how many more times I can watch tears well up in Matthew Fox’s eyes.
My sources of media are my television and my computer. Yes, I have a physical television and yes I watch it, although not a great deal. But I like to turn it on for background noise or a momentary distraction. My computer is by the far the greatest source of media. Especially now that the major networks are putting episodes up on their sites for afterwards, you don’t have to be chained to a certain date and time. But for some shows like Lost, I prefer a large screen and other people to digest the show afterwards. Part of being a film and media major is both defending your choice as academic and enjoying the excuse to watch a lot of TV. But television especially- because of its proliferation, the serial nature, the instant appeal, the domestic placement- reflects so many problems and issues of American society. What is at stake in the dominating and successful narratives? Why is Heroes so appealing in a time of war? How has Grey’s Anatomy revitalized the hospital/soap genre? It’s like linking into the image/consciousness of society- the images that are selling.
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