Blog Posts

For the assessment of my blog, I’d like you to read my “Response to Henry Jenkins’ Transmedia 202”, “Response to Gareth Palmer’s “Exposing Lifestyle Television””, “How TV has changed” and “Things I Watch: Buffy”.

Response to Henry Jenkins’ Transmedia 202

We were reading about Henry Jenkins’ reflections on transmedia storytelling today in class and I started to think about examples of this in some of my favorite television shows. Perhaps my favorite television show of all time is Twin Peaks, a series which screened in 1990, directed by David Lynch, and this is a great example of transmedia story telling.

The television show follows the lives of a host of characters living in the small town of Twin Peaks, mainly following the lead character Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), a detective investigating the murder of local girl Laura Palmer. Its a great blend of soap opera style melodrama and chilling mystery and intrigue, and while it follows a gripping storyline it still maintains a high level of surreal and imaginative sequences.

The Twin Peaks world however does not only exist in the television show. After the show was cancelled, they released a film called Fire Walk With Me, which was not a movie adaption but rather an extension of the show’s narrative, acting as a kind of prequel exploring Laura Palmer’s life before her murder. In this way, it is adding what Jenkin’s referred to as ‘additive comprehension’, providing back story. Now we have crossed two mediums; film and television.

Furthermore, the Twin Peaks world was continued in books titled “The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes”, “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer” and “Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town”, all of which continued the story in various ways. “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer” was created as the diary seen in the television show, and traced Laura’s double life before her death, providing character background, as did “The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes” for Dale Cooper. And crossing yet ANOTHER media form, during season two of the show the creators officially released a cassette tape titled “Diane… – The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper”, as an audio book.
Therefore Twin Peaks is the perfect example of transmedia storytelling, as it creates not just a story but an entire community and world within the town of Twin Peaks, crossing over numerous mediums to paint something that lives and breathes and is no longer ‘just’ a television series.

References:
Henry Jenkins. (2011). Transmedia 202: Further Reflections, August 1, Confessions of an ACA-Fan.

Response to Gareth Palmer’s “Exposing Lifestyle Television”

Gareth Palmer’s book “Exposing Lifestyle Television” was a great find, as it examines in fair detail a very broad range of lifestyle genres such as pet shows, make over shows, gardening shows, and the one that interested me the most, talent shows. Its no secret that television series such as Australian Idol, X-Factor, Australia’s Got Talent and Popstars has been popular in this country for years. In fact, even tracing back to when my parents were young, talent shows have always been around (like Young Talent Time) and people have always watched them. Certainly they have evolved, now having become far more competitive and attempting to build stronger emotional connections to the contestants than before, but at the core they are the same concept. Why are they so popular? What is it about us that makes us want to sit and watch some awkward teenagers struggle to get through Barry Manilow covers and shriek like dimwits when offered (what are probably fifty dollar Jetstar) flights to Sydney to “continue their journey” in the next round?

This is what the book is exploring. In chapter 10 “Making over the Talent Show”, written by Guy Redden, the article attributes the re-boot of talent shows to the 1999 series ‘Popstars’, originally screened in New Zealand. After this was proved to be popular a steady influx of similar shows bombarded the public broadcast, some getting more and more elaborate such as ‘Dancing on Ice’, similar to the celebrity dancing shows but taking it a step further, to teach celebrities to ice skate.
Redden attributes the enormous popularity of these shows to the successful mix of “suspenseful competition (game show), person-watching (reality TV) and stories of personal transformation (lifestyle).” (Redden 2011 p. 134) He goes on to explain that the main appeal for audiences is to see the transformation of the contestants from someone who is seen to ‘need’ a change (the single mother, the country bumpkin, someone with a disability) to somebody that has achieved something, and wins not just a recording contract but a “new life”.

However, after reading his chapter I feel that Redden neglected the other main appeal of shows in this genre – the need to watch people fail miserably. More than wanting to see these people succeed, there is a basic human drive that makes us enjoy seeing people as failed outcasts, who think mistakenly that they have what it takes. Observe the following clips:

We don’t WANT to see them transform, we like seeing them fail, and we find it funny. This is one of the biggest appeals of the earlier episodes of the show, and until all of the people like this have been weeded out, it’s the main comic relief. In later episodes, its true that the talent level is higher and the emotional connections to characters/contestants is stronger, but in the earlier episodes I would argue that the main reason we watch is the cringeworthy contestants, because they give us a sense of “well, I could do that better”.

References:
Guy Redden (2011), Making Over the Talent Show, In: Gareth Palmer Exposing Lifestyle Television, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing

Opening Credits – Six Feet Under

The opening sequence of HBO series Six Feet Under tells us a lot about the content and mood of the show, almost as if it is allowing us to assess whether or not we will enjoy the series in one minute and forty seconds. The sequence is accompanied by music composed by Thomas Newman, and was so widely acclaimed it won the 2002 Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music and two Grammy Awards in 2003 for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement. The music is a clever blend of both cheerful, bright sounds interspersed with more melancholy, delicate moments. These moments are generally accompanied by a visual that describes the fleeting quality of life, and the inevitability of death, such as the wilting of a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

The overall message of the sequence is that life is fleeting, death is inescapable, and that it is simply a normal part of life. This sentiment is shared throughout the whole series in which characters are forced to face the reality of death while working in a funeral home, each dealing with it differently – some terrified at the prospect of their demise, others simply accepting it as a fact of life (as echoed in the cheerful opening music).

The opening, although not gory in any way, shows the path of a corpse from the hospital to burial, and would undoubtedly turn away any viewers who were squeamish about dead bodies or death in general, while attracting others who might have an interest in existentialism, or simply are curious about death and the lives of those working in the ‘death industry’, ie a funeral home.

Things I Watch: Buffy

Since this is a Television Cultures Blog, I see it as only fit that I write about some of the tv shows that I am addicted to, and what it is about them that I find interesting. Starting back from when I was younger, the first television show that I really took a shine to would have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After watching a couple of episodes with my big sister it quickly became my favorite television show at the time (and certainly, on some days, it still is).

As most of you are probably aware, the show tracks the life of Buffy Summers, a seemingly ordinary teenager with a dark secret: she is the Chosen One, the sworn defender of the humans against the evil ghoulies of the night, which most people don’t believe in. Not only does she stake vampires, but she defeats all kinds of paranormal creatures (spanning from werewolves, ghosts, demons, and gods themselves). The television show starts off as a cute, tongue in cheek teen drama, but in following seasons eventually morphs into a more serious show, as times grow tougher for Buffy and her friends in the face of impending doom.

Comparing an episode from season one and season seven is a most strange experience; the pace and dialogue of the shows are vastly different, which I belive works as the audience base grew in age with Buffy, with the first couple of seasons being more catered to a sixteen/seventeen year old crowd, and the later seasons being far more adult. However, the great thing about the changing nature of the show is that even though it ‘grows up’, and starts to become an edgier and more confronting series, it always stays true to the characters, with little moments of Buffy’s spunkiness and Willow’s cute nerdiness (circa season 1) shining through, even in later seasons.

Season One

The show’s plotline followed a familiar trope – the human girl falling in love with the undead vampire, however turned it on its head a bit by adding in the fact that Buffy, as the slayer, is super strong and therefore matches (or perhaps exceeds) the strength of her male counterparts. The show questions traditional gender roles by placing Buffy in a position of power (at times making this a cause of conflict for her, such as when she dates Rylie, a human male, who finds it difficult to accept her as being stronger and a better fighter than him). It also broke down some hetero-dominated norms in television by showing the first lesbian sex scene in network television. Both of these things made me consider the television show in its later years as not simply a teen show but as a landmark series which pushed the barrier on what was considered ‘the norm’, and I feel we really all owe a lot to Joss Whedon the creator of Buffy for pushing us forward in this respect.

How TV has changed

It was interesting to learn about television ‘futures’ this week, and it got me thinking about the way television has evolved throughout my own lifetime, from when I was a little kid until now. I had a weird moment the other day when I finished watching season 2 of Glee, and then came to realise that I have never in fact seen an episode of this show screened on television (whether it be free to air or cable). Every episode I have ever watched has been downloaded, and now I’ve completed all current existing episodes to date. How strange, that I can see an entire series to date, and never even contribute to its ratings on a tv network!

I remember, as a kid, begging my mum to let me have a television in my own room. She never budged, telling me it would turn me into a hermit and keep me awake at night. Finally she conceded that when I turned eighteen I could have one, as long as I bought it myself. Funnily enough, by the time I was eighteen, I had no real interest in a television any more – all I needed was my laptop to watch whatever I wanted, wherever I chose. I went so far as to buy a large flatscreen computer moniter that hooks up to my laptop so I could watch movies with my friends as well. The interest for television was waning. I didn’t want to sit through shows simply because they were ‘on’.

I wanted the shows I liked, and I wanted to watch them wherever and whenever I pleased. This is the future of television, and why creations such as interactive television have become so popular.
Part of me thinks this may be a negative reflection on our culture – have we become so impatient that we need to see what happens ‘next week’ right now, by downloading episode after episode at our own pace? But another part of me can see the positive in this development. No longer will our society simply be spoonfed television shows from a tv set – we demand to see things that we view as quality, and will no longer accept the status quo. We can now opt for shows that speak to us, and as a result we are less likely to be led into a ‘collective mind’ by any one program or network, in the way Fox News attempts to do. So while some people may argue that this new way of viewing is nurturing a sense of immaturity and immediacy, I would argue that its providing scope for choice, and perhaps giving shows that speak to minorities more of a chance for being viewed than they used to.