‘Long form television dramas lack originality; no matter
which country they are made in, they all use intertextuality in the same way.’
How far do you agree with this statement?
In your answer you must:
• consider the contexts in which long form television
dramas are produced and consumed
• explain how media contexts may have influenced the
use of intertextuality in the set episodes of the two long form television
dramas you have studied
• refer to relevant academic ideas and arguments
• make judgements and reach conclusions about reasons for similarities or differences in the use of intertextuality between the two episodes.
THIS FIRST SECTION OF THE POST IS TAKEN FROM THE MARK SCHEME
SECTION ONE: CONTEXTS
Social Contexts
• US and foreign language LFTVDs
often reflect society. Changes in social attitudes (e.g. gender roles) may influences
the codes and conventions of the television programmes. However, it is possible
that conventions are used in reaction to other media rather than in reflection
of society. The
subjective nature of intertextuality makes it difficult to tell the motivation
behind its use.
• Social values and/or contested
social ideologies may influence the codes and conventions of television
programmes: e.g. diminishing trust in institutions (Stranger Things), revisionist
responses to history (D83). These may
reflect society or be simple copying of conventions that have worked well in
other LFTVDs. Intertextual references may be
deliberate or evidence of broader tropes which drive fictional narratives.
Cultural Contexts
• TV dramas have significant cultural importance in reflecting
and re-enforcing or challenging and subverting national cultural values, attitudes,
and ideologies. In this process, there is likely
to be a high degree of intertextuality as they reference wider cultural codes.
• Globalisation and hybridisation has had a significant
influence on television programmes and values, attitudes and ideologies may
share certain intertextual similarities in their influence on codes and
conventions across Western television culture; these
may well be propagated through intertextual references within the LFTVD (either
directly or sub-textually).
Historical Contexts
• Historical events may
influence the values, attitudes and ideologies demonstrated by television programmes.
Key historical events/situations may be
referenced in LFTVDs to form recognisable/ intertextual motives/ tropes for
audience enjoyment and may be regarded as unoriginal, archetypical or
counter-typical.
Political Contexts
• Television programmes can reflect, reinterpret, amplify or
satirise the values, attitudes and ideologies of and towards national political
institutions. Western programme makers have the freedom to celebrate, criticise
and satirise their own domestic politicians and political systems. Intertextual references may illuminate the political
context, allowing audiences to access the messaging in political dramas from
different countries.
Economic Contexts
• Budgets and sales have a significant influence on flagship
television programmes from different countries, Intertextual
reference / generic conventions may ensure that there are audiences for high
budget/high risk or niche projects.
• The disparity between production budgets for US and
European T.V. dramas can influence the codes and conventions available to
represent the values, attitudes and ideologies of those countries.
• Intertextual references to
popular texts simply reflect the business model of LFTVDs as a bankable model.
SECTION TWO: SPECIFIC SHOWS
Stranger Things:
• Episode one is shaped by
nostalgic exploration of what America was like socially in 1980s; it is
deliberately littered with intertextual references to films of the same era
(ET, Predator, Aliens, The Thing, Star Wars). From the opening, Stranger Things
is very obviously intertextual due to the meta-referential nature of the first episode.
The intertextuality is clearly deliberate rather
than unoriginal, though it may be argued that it is influenced by the financial
need to recoup a huge budget by jumping on a nostalgia bandwagon.
• Marketing emphasised the
intertextual nature of the show, with music and mise en scene recalling many of
the intertextual references that would be present throughout the first season.
• The narrative mirrors
traditional family values using familiar tropes to establish these ideas (nuclear
family, picket fences, green lawns, etc.). However, it subverts the familiarity
constructed by these tropes in order to challenge traditional patriarchal
systems. It is not clear if this is due to the
influence of generic tropes familiar in 80s media/ society or a deliberate reference
to social changes since the 1980s. It may be more concerned with referencing the Spielbergian
model of suburban family life through the intertextual use of media language
than with any commentary on social conventions.
• Nancy is arguably a nod to
fourth wave feminism as she subverts cultural and social codes and conventions;
however, the school setting in which we find her is clearly a reference to the
culture of similar teen movies in the 80s and the subversion of stereotypes may
be used as a form of cultural shorthand.
• The “Conspiracy theory”
elements codified through use of sinister agents has global recognition for
audiences who are used to being positioned as Americans due to the domination
of global culture by American media.
Deutschland 83
• Intertextuality is embedded through choice of music and
costume to reflect the time period. While these intertextual references add to
the hyperreal nature of Stranger Things, we could argue that they are intended
to create a more realistic diegesis in D83. That said, they may be a deliberate
attempt to construct a more subtle simulacrum in order to comment on the social
contradictions in divided 1980s Germany and to ignite debate about perceptions
of that time from a modern German perspective. This may reflect the influence
of contemporary social anxieties about facing up to Germany’s divided past as
well as the idea of telling the story from the point of view of “the other side.”
This is arguably very original as most Western
spy dramas take a NATO-centric viewpoint.
• D83 is one of the most successful subtitled TV dramas
screened in the UK, largely thanks to marketing which referenced other
spy-dramas. We might argue that its success was reliant on intertextuality
through its use of generic conventions, though there is valid argument that it subverted
generic conventions by featuring a ‘hero’ that is communist, reluctant, and initially
incompetent.
• The cultural focus on fashion and style which has global
influence on ideologies and values of audiences, may play a significant part in
attracting interest from European viewers by tapping into the same 1980s nostalgia
as Stranger Things.
• D83 reflects the highly competitive nature of US cable and
satellite television in which channels such as Sundance Channel seek quality
programming to maintain the brand, by moving into international cooperation to
produce and premiere foreign-language programming. The
pressure on these types of programmes to perform financially leads to a use of
intertextual referencing as a form of marketing (e.g. the soundtrack, which can
be accessed via Spotify playlists – a meta-level of intertextuality).
A RESPONSE
‘Long form television dramas lack originality; no matter which country they are made in, they all use intertextuality in the same way.’ How far do you agree with this statement?
One of the ways that we can evaluate
this statement is to consider the social context around Stranger Things and
D83. Both US and foreign language LFTVDs often reflect society, so by looking
at changes in social attitudes to a universal like gender roles we might decide
if intertextuality is used in an un-original way. In, Stranger Things,
the representation of Nancy embraces some values of fourth-wave feminism. Intertextual
references to familiar high school T.V. and movie tropes establish her as a
stereotypical teenage girl. Neale might argue that she is an example of
repetition, allowing audiences to quickly locate the stereotype as a kind of
narrative shorthand. However, she countertypically excels at science. Gauntlett might argue that these
contradictory messages represent an increasingly open attitude to gender
identity that is valued by modern audiences. So, the intertextual referencing
is unoriginal in the way it builds a stereotype, but the contrast with the
countertype constitutes an original take on gender norms. In D83, the most significant female
representation is Lenora. Strong female characters are not unusual in the spy
genre, but Van-Zoonen would point out that they are often objectified to make
them palatable to the male gaze. Lenora is evidently not an intertextual
reference to ‘bond girl’ type spies, but she may be an intertextual reference
to Judy Dench’s M (The Bond Franchise). Like M, she is clever, competent and ruthless.
Again, we might apply Neale, assuming that, like Nancy, Lenora is an example of
intertextuality used as narrative shorthand. However, unlike M, who is a modern
woman in a modern world, Lenora lives in the same period as Nancy, a time of
patriarchal ideas about women. Applying
historical context may reveal that she represents a comment on the social
contradictions in divided 1980s Germany and on the tension between capitalist
and communist ideologies at the time (communist regimes were much more likely
to promote women to positions of power). So, what might seem to be an unoriginal
intertextual reference to the spy genre, may be an attempt to construct a
revisionist historical representation of 1980s Germany. The difficulty is that
the subjective nature of intertextuality makes it impossible to tell the
motivation behind its use. Maybe we are finding originality where none exists
or missing it where it does.
Another approach to the statement may
be to consider the impact of economic contexts on both originality and
intertextuality. It may also provide some illumination on the importance of
national identity, given that the statement asserts that all LFTVDs “use
intertextuality in the same way” regardless of “which country they are made in.”
D83 may be a German production, but it
was jointly funded by AMC’s Sundance TV. The series premiered on 17 June 2015
on the Sundance TV channel in the United States, becoming the first
German-language series to air on a US network. Sundance has a reputation for
commissioning prestige drama and seeks quality programming to maintain the
brand. As such, it seems likely that the programme creators may have had a
sense of the significance of this audience in the production process. If we
accept this premise, then it becomes hard to judge whether other German
productions without this same revenue stream would use intertextuality in such
a familiar way. Knowing it's intended audience, it is not surprising that D83 makes intertextual use of
codes and conventions of spy narratives, which have global cultural resonance
and will therefore appeal to its Sundance audience. However, it also unconventionally
positions a communist protagonist, allowing socio-political values and ideas to
be scrutinised. In one scene from Episode 1, Lenora passes a Puma t-Shirt,
Adidas trainers and Levi jeans to Martin (a close up highlights the brands).
These brands represent the East German attempt to simulate the appearance of a
capitalist West Germany. More deeply, these labels are worn by West Germans
because they are simulacra of the freedom of consumerist culture. A copy, of a
copy, of a copy. In these clothes, Martin decides to escape, and finds himself
in a supermarket, the perfect simulation of freedom when viewed through the
lens of Baudrillard’s theories. Here he is surrounded by signifiers of
abundance and choice, meanwhile the intertextual diegetic sound features Sweet
Dreams, a song expressing feelings of nihilism in a world filled with too many
choices. The use of intertextuality then is a convention with clear appeal to an
international audience that have come to enjoy 1980s nostalgia, but it also
appeals to the more media literate Sundance audience seeking a subtler, more
original exploration of cultural, political, and historical context.
While D83 appeals to a fairly large
but essentially niche audience, Stranger Things, with its estimated $6million
dollar budget per episode of Season 1, reflects a significantly greater risk
for its producers. Hesmondhalgh points out that cultural industries rely on
repeatable conventions, like the use of genre or the appeal to intertextuality,
to minimise risk. However, successful streaming services such as Netflix, need to
maintain brand identity by creating innovative and original programming that
integrates high end production values. As such, Stranger Things walks a
tightrope between appealing to conventional tropes and presenting fresh and
exciting new ideas. The marketing for the episode reflects that tension. The
trailer for Season 1, established the shows credentials as a high quality, high
budget production, even culminating in the now famous telekinetic truck flip
scene. The use of generic conventions for intertextual effect also drew
comparison to other famous cultural and media texts, which would have appealed
to a wide and established audience. We might suspect that creative business
managers at Netflix commissioned a series explicitly designed to ‘cash in’ on
the 1980s nostalgia present since the turn of the 21st century. However,
Hesmondhalgh points out that symbol creators are often given enough freedom by
industry controllers to excite audience interest. So, it seems more likely that
Stranger Things is less concerned with recycling conventions that appeal to
audience pleasure in noting intertextual references and more of an homage to
Speilberg’s late 20th-century classics like Goonies, E.T. etc (the programme
even uses Leica Summilux-C lenses to capture Speilberg’s visual style. Of
course, the success of Stranger Things is due in large part to the use of conventions
that appeal to its audience, and to the inherent pleasure in shared cultural
references, but it is impossible to tell if this is deliberate, or if it is a side
effect of affording artistic freedom to symbol creators steeped in 1980s cinema.
No comments:
Post a Comment