Television

Abstract

As a genre which is suffused with familial dramas and disturbing domestic spaces, the Gothic is a genre which is ideally suited to television, though it was not acknowledged as a distinct category of television programming until relatively recently. While some have seen television as too “literal” or “bland” a medium to successfully present potentially affective Gothic fictions (King 1981; Waller 1987; Baddeley 2002), others have argued that it is precisely the quotidian nature of the medium which makes it a most suitable site for tales of young wives trapped in old houses, confused paternities and sinister relatives, and houses which are troubled by family secrets, hauntings, and other uncanny occurrences (Ledwon 1993; Wheatley 2006; Robson 2007). Given the Gothic's notorious “slipperiness” as a generic category, and the multiplicity of interpretations of its meanings and identifying features, it is difficult to offer a singular definition of Gothic television. However, arguably Gothic television can be identified by the following: a mood of dread/terror; the presence of highly stereotyped characters and plots, often derived from Gothic fiction; representations of the supernatural (implied or fully visualized); the structures and images of the uncanny (repetitions, returns, déjà vu, premonitions, ghosts, doppelgangers, animated inanimate objects, and severed body parts); homes and families which are haunted by events/figures from the past; complex narrative organization (flashbacks, dreams, memory montages); dark/drab mise‐en‐scène; and subjective/impressionistic camerawork and sound recording (see Wheatley 2006 for an elaboration on this definition). In producing such a list, it is possible to see the Gothic as a separate generic category of television programming (albeit one which is produced by critical endeavor, rather than one which is frequently used by audiences and program makers to define the programs they watch or make), though thinking about the Gothic as a style or mode of television might encompass a wider set of programs. The above definition is also complicated further by television's generic hybridity which means that it is possible to identify Gothic elements in a range of texts that do not necessarily fit the generic categorization above exactly, from sitcoms like The Addams Family (Filmways, 1964–6) and The Munsters (Kayro‐Vue, 1964–6), to teen dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Twentieth Century Fox Television, 1997–2003) or The Vampire Diaries (CW, from 2009), to reality TV like The Osbournes (MTV, 2002–5) and The Swan (Galan Entertainment, 2004–5).