American Television Series Research Articles

Protocole gouvernante by Guillaume Lavenant

Reviewed by: Protocole gouvernante by Guillaume Lavenant Araceli Hernández-Laroche Lavenant, Guillaume. Protocole gouvernante. Payot, 2019. ISBN 978-2-7436-4814-5. Pp. 176. Can we really know and trust the caretaker, the nanny, whom we welcome into our intimate domestic sphere and who is supposed to look after our child? Initially, that seems to be one of the main questions that this novel is probing with unrelenting suspense. That same question can haunt again and again. At the beginning, the plot seems to echo Leïla Slimani's Chanson douce (Prix Goncourt 2016). Fortunately, Protocole gouvernante charts new territory, in that relationships are explored beyond the individual level. An initially unidentified narrator instructs the young female nanny on how she must behave and feel: "Partout où vous passerez, vous rencontrerez de telles résistances, de telles suspicions. N'en tenez pas compte. Suivez le protocole" (27). With utmost discretion, the nanny meticulously executes a protocol authored by a leader of sorts named Strand and influenced by a mysterious "Lewis." They concoct a vision and plan to impose their peculiar worldview. Lewis affirms: "L'erreur, la grande erreur, l'immense erreur […] serait de se croire exclu de cette règle, de penser que […] nous sommes uniques" (26). It is not long before the theme of infiltration springs up to the surface. In its second half, the novel turns its focus from its original setting—that of a stereotypical French domestic space where la petite Elena resides and is looked after by the reserved nanny intent on reading a book she gifted—to a more open and shifting landscape. The impeccably manicured lawns of Elena's neighborhood symbolize a conformist, status-oriented culture where "ceux qui n'échouent pas" (15) share and proudly display their similar tastes. As the novel moves away from a more psychological description of the characters inhabiting such an [End Page 257] idyllic, uniform and tranquil neighborhood, the timeless allure of a privileged lifestyle is increasingly called into question. The rhythm then picks up and the novel reads almost like science fiction due to the extraordinary fast-paced action that ensues. In other instances, scenes from an American television series interrupt the novel's plot as a possible mirror reflecting the common themes of dangerous transgressions, flight or escapes, and subtle references to revolution and history. Other questions that simmered begin to erupt. Are we machines too easily inclined to follow orders, accept social norms and readily internalize and assimilate tastes and hierarchies fashioned by our daily media and entertainment consumption? Can we live autonomously and resist the comfort of uniformity? After a catastrophe of any kind in which our vie quotidienne is in any shape or form threatened, how do we individually and collectively respond? These are some of the questions provocatively explored in Protocole gouvernante. I would like to conclude with the cautionary words of the dominant narrator: "[N]e cherchez pas à connaître tout de suite la fin, qui n'en est pas vraiment une, vous le savez, agissez et lisez lentement" (49). Araceli Hernández-Laroche University of South Carolina Upstate Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

Jak wyrwać się z nostalgii [dot. P. Włodek: Kres niewinności. Obraz i upamiętnienie ery Eisenhowera w amerykańskich filmach i serialach – pomiędzy reprezentacją, nostalgią a krytycznym retro

The article discussesa book by Patrycja Włodek entitled Kres niewinności. Obraz i upamiętnienie ery Eisenhowera w amerykańskich filmach i serialach – pomiędzy reprezentacją, nostalgią a krytycznym retro [The End of Innocence: The image and remembrance of the Eisenhower era in American feature films and television series – between representation, nostalgia, and critical retro style]. The author of the article positions her publication amongst other film studies research devoted to “nostalgic cinema” and enters into dialogue with concepts put forward by Włodek. The polemical pendants and glosses centre on searching for currents, titles, and readings both supporting Włodek’s considerations and transcending her interpretive framework relating to retro nostalgic (cinema of the 1980s) and retro classic (the most recent films and television series).

How American Television Series Develop Enemy Review of Homeland Season 7

How American Television Series Develop Enemy Review of Homeland Season 7

The Cult of the American Sniper in the Age of the Imperial Security State

This essay analyzes the cult of the American sniper, a figure associated with “covert ops”, atomized violence, and the surprise element of targeted shots fired at long range, as key to the militarization of modern life in the imperial security state. I examine some of the countless books, video games, and websites devoted to teaching civilians how to “shoot like a sniper”, with a “warrior attitude”, urging citizen-soldiers to “remember: complacency kills”. Building on the recent work of Inderpal Grewal, Matthew Thomas Payne, and others, this essay explores the sniper as a fetishized “man as machine” imperial technology, the cyborg analog of the drone in many respects. Recent movies like American Sniper and television series such as Homeland humanize the white male American sniper at the expense of racialized others, particularly Arab and African American characters. However, the position and power of the American sniper has not only been taken up by those who seek to enact white imperial hypermasculine patriarchy; the American sniper has a more complex genealogy that has also been imagined and enacted by African Americans and racial, ethnic, and religious others who turn the state's weapons back on itself. The sniper, like all killing technologies and militarized subjectivities, cannot be fully contained, controlled, or deployed. I consider examples of counter-hegemonic sniping (both imagined and made manifest), with particular interest in the politicized “blow back” of those cultural workers and veterans of colour in the late twentieth and early twenty-first-centuries who trained critique and/or their weapons on local police officers. As we demystify and deconstruct the cult of the American sniper, we come to understand the fallibility, the vulnerability, and the volatility – the insecurity – at the heart of the white supremacist empire and the security state.

Genre & écrans. L’intersectionnalité dans les séries télévisées et le cinéma anglophones

Continuing the RIN project “Genre & ecrans,” l’Universite Le Havre Normandie welcomed speakers from various disciplines to discuss notions of intersectionality in a plethora of British and American television series and films. These talks analyse the multi-layered representations of gender, race and class in the audiovisual fictions presented, as well as the real-world ideological implications anchored in British and American culture that these reflect. To begin the conference, first keynote ...

Randall Pearson: Framing Black Identity, Masculinity, Adoption and Mental Health in Television

Entertainment media shape audience perceptions about various demographic groups, including Black Americans. Researchers took a summative approach to performing a qualitative content analysis of the self-reflections and interactions that Randall Pearson experiences on the U.S. American television series This Is Us. Frames related to Black identity, masculinity, adoption, and mental health are discussed.

The invention of the Mideu: redefining American television in South Korea

This article examines the ways in which South Korean media redefined and reevaluated American television between 2006 and 2008, when the dominance of domestic series in entertainment television was purportedly challenged by the resurging popularity of American shows. By analyzing traditional and digital newspaper articles published on this phenomenon, this article demonstrates how the local media produced and disseminated a coherent discourse that transformed American television series into the localized concept of mideu. This process involved the reframing of American television as an idealized alternative to the local counterpart, the reinterpretation of evaluative terms such as diversity and narrative strength, and the selective inclusion and exclusion of certain genres and programs. A close investigation of the construction of the mideu discourse offers an insight into how the local mass media function as the cultural intermediary that translates transnational media to the existing conditions of the local media industry and culture.

American Network Series of the 1980s

This was a follow-up conference to the one-day symposium on American Network Series of the 1950s-1970s, organized by Claire Cornillon and Dennis Tredy in 2018. This series of conference was backed by GUEST, a research group on television series. Its aim is to stimulate research on American television series of the past, notably in order to better contextualize the contemporary series that receive more attention in television and media history. The conference on the 1980s was thus aimed to pur...

Finding yourself in Lost: Viewer interpretation of the series through reader response

The popular American television series Lost (2004–10) gained notoriety and a cult following for its interwoven storylines and numerous mysteries that permeated the series. However, despite the expansive amount of research that has examined and analysed the series, relatively little has explored the way viewers interpreted the series based on their respective academic, philosophical or religious backgrounds. With that in mind, the current research argues that rather than containing definitive meaning, Lost’s success is due in part to its permutability with regard to how the show could be read by viewers. As one of the ground-breaking and iconic series of the twenty-first century, it is important to understand how Lost’s approach to storytelling allowed the show to thrive in the contemporary television landscape and the impact it may have on how television is made in the future.

Eobard Thawne: A Study Case of Main Villains in the Flash Series Season 1

Every superhero needs a villain. The Flash is an American superhero television series developed by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Geoff Johns, airing on The CW. It is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / The Flash, a costumed superhero crime-fighter with the power to move at superhuman speeds. In The Flash TV series Season 1, Eobard Thawne is introduced as a scientist from the future; he duplicated the reaction behind Barry Allen/The Flash's powers and learned he would become his own hero's arch-enemy: the Reverse-Flash. This study is aimed to identify the methods of characterization used in introducing Eobard Thawne as the main villain, and also analyzing the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that the main villain character develops. In collecting the data, this study used library research and the data itself was analyzed qualitatively. Finally, the methods of characterization of the main villain character as well as the character’s motivations are explained. The character may be seen as simple at first glance, but Eobard Thawne has the components that describe him as evil character; from his characterization in his introduction to the motivations that guide him through each step of the story. Indeed, it is absolute reverse.

Branding "Frenchness" in Mad Men

This article analyzes "Frenchness" in the American television series Mad Men. Set in New York City's advertising world of Madison Avenue in the 1960s, Mad Men is replete with the products, images, concepts, and language of Frenchness. Likewise, many characters have personal ties to various manifestations of Frenchness in almost every episode of the show's seven seasons. Through an analysis of these occurrences, I argue that Frenchness acts like an intangible product being branded on this show and that, in turn, brands Mad Men itself for the Francophone world.

Vingar e Punir: Motivações para a prática do Spoiling

Através de um survey com fãs brasileiros de séries televisivas americanas (n=1805), buscamos lançar luz sobre a prática do spoiling. Sabendo que a prática realizada pelos fãs é constituída por discursos enraizados no capital cultural e subcultural e, em negociações de poder dentro de cada comunidade, procuramos entender o espectro de toxicidade por trás do spoiling. Os resultados indicam que o spoiling tornou-se uma fonte de sociabilidade, troca de conhecimento, bem como prazer para o fã brasileiro. Porém, a prática também é utilizada por vingança ou até mesmo para "punir" espectadores atrasados. Observou-se que os fãs se aproveitam da possibilidade de mostrar mais conhecimento entre si, levando a conflitos nos fandoms e revelando o potencial tóxico por trás da difusão de spoilers.

A Woman’s Place Is in the Morgue: Understanding Scully in the Context of 1990s Feminism

A Woman’s Place Is in the Morgue: Understanding Scully in the Context of 1990s Feminism

Has autism found a place in mainstream TV?

Has autism found a place in mainstream TV?

Daenerys Targaryen Will Save Spain: Game of Thrones, Politics, and the Public Sphere

This article deals with the use of the American television series Game of Thrones (HBO: 2011–) as part of the political discourse of the emerging political party Podemos in Spain. First, we focus on Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, who, in 2014, edited a book devoted to analyzing this series from a political science viewpoint. We then move on to study ideologically charged symbolic gestures and the detailed analysis of the parallelisms between Daenerys Targaryen’s revolutionary enterprise and Podemos’s bottom-to-top quest to seize power. We then scrutinize how emergent political forces that threaten the enduring hegemony of traditional parties use popular cultural artifacts to intervene in the social fabric and how they attempt to tune in with the Internet-dedicated, socially networked younger classes. This article, thus, analyzes how the relationship between politics and serialized TV fiction has morphed within the Spanish mediascape, paying special attention to the impact of participatory culture.

An Overview: American Television Series as Authentic Resources for English Language Development

How can English language learners (ELLs) increase their exposure to spoken English while studying English in their home country? How can they prepare...

'Herói ou humano?': a construção do imaginário médico nas séries americanas

Este artigo busca analisar e discutir a construção dos profissionais de saúde nos seriados americanos, com o foco específico nos médicos. Defende-se que esses profissionais foram inicialmente construídos na televisão como heróis infalíveis devido à participação direta e indireta de instituições médicas. A revisão da literatura revela que esse modelo começou a dar sinais de desgaste nas décadas de 1970 e 1980, apresentando médicos passíveis de falhas, erros e até mesmo crimes. Argumentamos que as produções atuais, apesar de apresentarem profissionais ‘mais humanos’, continuam sendo influenciadas por organizações e instituições de saúde públicas e privadas, de modo a perpetuar um imaginário favorável do médico e da própria instituição. Para tanto, daremos atenção à recente participação da Hollywood Health and Society na ficção seriada televisiva.

“MULHERES DIFÍCEIS”: A anti-heroína na ficção seriada televisiva americana

Tendo em vista a expressiva quantidade de séries televisivas centradas em anti-heróis com destaque nas últimas décadas, tais como The Sopranos, Mad Men e Dexter, este artigo busca pensar a figura da anti-heroína. Para isso, apresentamos uma perspectiva histórica sobre a representação das mulheres nesse tipo de produção, destacando papéis recorrentes e suas implicações sociais. Para problematizar o contexto contemporâneo, quando personagens femininas mais complexas começam a aparecer, tomamos como objeto central da análise o drama UnREAL e partimos do pressuposto de que, embora apontem uma diversificação nas formas de representação da vivência feminina na ficção, as anti-heroínas são construídas através da aproximação ora com elementos tradicionalmente associados ao universo masculino, ora com habituais estereótipos de gênero.

Recepcja postaci Sokratesa w wybranych dziełach literatury oraz w serialu kryminalnym „Columbo”

The article refers to the figure of Socrates and its contemporary reception as a cultural phenomenon. The author recalls works in which Philosopher appears—in poetry, drama, prose, in radio dramas and in the American television series “Columbo.” Every time different aspect of the character is accented. Socrates as a multidimensional figure is invoked in various ways—its inconspicuous appearance, brilliant humor, and sharp language are accented, another time the search by him for the truth, and finally his conviction, his death and post-mortem rehabilitation, described by Diogenes Laertios, which, although not confirmed from another source, is information sufficiently strong that resist in the minds of recipients. The author tries to show how Socrates is presented in the context of creators its times. Undoubtedly, both the author and the times influence the perception of the philosopher. And so are the subsequent reflections of this character — tragic, coarse, penetrating.

Типологія конструкцій на позначення злочинів в американському телесеріалі "Позови"

he article suggests the definition of construction and approaches to classifying constructions in modern English. This research is based on the theoretical foundations of a constructionist approach to language analysis postulating that any linguistic pattern consisting of morphemes, words, partially lexically filled phrases like testify against somebody are constructions. Being generally defined as symbolic entities in which a particular meaning or function is associated with a particular form, constructions some aspect(s) of its form and function which is not strictly predictable from its component parts. The results of the analysis demonstrate that constructions about people, actions and instruments are the most numerous groups in the American television series Suits. The paper proves that the use of constructions is constrained by the type and genre of discourse.