Le voile, le miroir et l'aiguillon. La télévision et les mouvements de société jusque dans les années 1970

Abstract

The veil, the mirror and the spur. Television and The Movements of Society until The 1970s, Agnès Chauveau. French television from the 1950s to the 1970s looked ambiguously at French society. An ideological approach, often translating the intellectuals' disdain for it, makes this medium the place for the reproduction of all forms of conservatism and social alienation. While the small screen did indeed throw a prudish veil over major social developments, it can not be reduced to a role of censor. It is also the reflection of the difficulties and transformations of French society. This attempt at anthropo-logical observation was shared by several programs (Emergency States, The Discovery of the French) that organized real scenes of daily French life in order to better detect changes. Even more, television is often ahead of the game and like radio begins debates directly involved in the social changes of the moment. Taboos were lifted, often with precaution, in programs like Coping, Women Also by Eliane Victor or the current events program Zoom. Subjects judged subversive - contraception, sexuality, or prostitution as well as problems of society such as racism or prisons were covered and subject to discussion. Veil but also mirror and spur. Television of the 1960s opened a breach.