Constructing the antihero: Linguistic characterisation in current American television series

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schubert
Keyword(s):  
Television Series ◽  
American Television

AbstractThis paper investigates the ways in which immoral villains in contemporary fictional television are linguistically constructed as antiheroes that are appealing and even likeable to a wide mainstream audience. The underlying dataset comprises the first thirteen episodes of each of the three American TV series

scholarly journals Researching Janet Dean

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-212
Author(s):  
Christina Lane
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Star Power ◽  
American Television ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Growing Medium ◽  
Film Producer ◽  
Production Practices

The 1954 American television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954–1955) capitalised on the star power of its lead Ella Raines, business heft of CBS executive William Dozier, and cache of film producer Joan Harrison. Though a brainchild of Raines’, the series relied heavily on Harrison’s decades of nuts-and-bolts experience producing Hollywood films. It became a vehicle for both women to pool their creative talents, advance a growing medium, and comment on contemporary social issues. This contribution to the dossier considers the methodological challenges posed by analysing this instance of female collaboration in 1950s television production. It represents an effort to excavate undocumented production practices and women’s creativity, while decentring prevailing historical narratives surrounding the “great genius” male executive.

scholarly journals When Both Utterances and Appearances are Deceptive: Deception in Multimodal Film Narrative

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-252
Author(s):  
Marta Dynel
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
American Television ◽  
Theoretical Account ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
Withholding Information

AbstractThis article gives a comprehensive theoretical account of deception in multimodal film narrative in the light of the pragmatics of film discourse, the cognitive philosophy of film, multimodal analysis, studies of fictional narrative and – last but not least – the philosophy of lying and deception. Critically addressing the extant literature, a range or pertinent notions and issues are examined: multimodality, film narration and the status of the cinematic narrator, the pragmatics of film construction (notably, the characters’ communicative level and the one of the collective sender and the recipient), the fictional world and its truth, the recipient’s film engagement and make believing, as well as narrative unreliability. Previous accounts of deceptive films are revisited and three main types of film deception are proposed with regard to the two levels of communication on which it materialises, the characters’ level and the recipient’s level, as well as the intradiegetic and/or the extradiegetic narrator involved. This discussion is illustrated with multimodally transcribed examples of deception extracted from the American television seriesHouse.In the course of the analysis, attention is paid to how specific types of deception detailed in the philosophy of language (notably, lies, deceptive implicature, withholding information, covert ambiguity, and covert irrelevance) are deployed through multimodal means in the three types of film deception (extradiegetic deception, intradiegetic deception, and a combination of both when performed by both cinematic and intradiegetic narrators). Finally, inspired by the discussion of Hitchcock’s controversial lying flashback scene inStage Fright, as well as films relying on tacit intradiegetic, unreliable narrators (focalising characters) an attempt is made to answer the thorny question of when the extradiegetic (cinematic) narrator can perform lies (through mendacious multimodal assertions) addressed by the collective sender to the recipient, and not just only other forms of deception, as is commonly maintained.

Killing Two Birds with One Deceit

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Dynel
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Television Series ◽  
American Television ◽  
Speaker Meaning ◽  
Complex Mechanisms

This paper explores the workings of deception performed in multi-party interactions, a topic hitherto hardly ever examined by deception philosophers. Deception is here discussed in the light of a neo-Goffmanian classification of (un)ratified hearers and a neo-Gricean version of speaker meaning, anchored in non-reflexive intentionality and accountability, which is shown to operate beyond the speaker-hearer dyad. An utterance, it is argued, may carry different meanings, judged according to their (lack of) intentionality and (non)deceptiveness, towards the individuals performing different hearer roles. The complex mechanisms of deception with regard to different hearers are illustrated with examples culled from the American television series “House.” Deception in fictional interactions is illustrative of real-life manifestations of deception, yet it brings into focus also those rare ones, which are in the centre of philosophical attention.

Du dialogue interculturel à la construction identitaire interpersonnelle et numérique - possibles exploitations pédagogiques de la série télévisée Emily in Paris (2020) -

Transilvania ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 93-96
Author(s):  
Dumitra Baron
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Construction Identitaire ◽  
American Television ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
Working Hypotheses

In this article, we propose to sketch some working hypotheses around the problem of the use of television series in the teaching of the FLE, addressing in an interdisciplinary way the possible fields of exploitation of contemporary cinema. We will focus most of our observations on the use of cultural stereotypes and intercultural communication, considering their expanded exploitation and illustration in the American television series Emily in Paris (2020). The issue of personal and cultural identity will also be explored from the perspectives of new media usage.

TV as Bully

2021 ◽  
pp. 142-162
Author(s):  
Wyatt Moss-Wellington
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Moral Ambiguity ◽  
High Profile ◽  
American Television ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Causal Logic

This chapter pushes back against notions of meritorious complexity, moral ambiguity, and cognitive “richness” in recent, high-profile American television series. It questions the heralding of television’s artistic transcendence above that of other narrative media and the use of cognitive theory to make such a case. I turn instead to literature on social psychology and bullying to make sense of our relationship to longform TV serials and investigate the ways in which a kind of bullying in the content and form of both serial and reality television has been normalized in an era popularly dubbed the “TV renaissance.” It concludes with a look at the relationship between a rising endorsement of aggressive populist leadership styles and the prevalence of bullying as causal logic on TV.

Modern times: the Victorian cave man’s long afterlife

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Horrall
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Racial Minorities ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Cultural Character ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
American Television ◽  
Scientific Accuracy

This chapter shows that the war consolidated the cave man’s status as a global cultural character. Cave men have since been frequently depicted on stage, in films, in advertisements, literature, and more recently on television. Hollywood finally embraced the British conception of comic cave men in the 1920s. By then the character was so completely divorced from earlier evolutionary associations, that religious fundamentalists ignored it. The character has subsequently followed an almost unrelenting downward trajectory into b-movies, cheap comedies and cartoons, and productions that paraded hyper-sexualised women. The slide decelerated in 1960 when The Flintstones, the most influential depiction of cave men, debuted on American television. The series satirised middle-class, suburban America, in much the same spirit as E.T. Reed had once viewed Britain. The chapter concludes by briefly examining more recent depictions of cave men and prehistory in film and television to show that comedy predominates alongside healthy doses of action and attempts at scientific accuracy. Various examples are used to show that women continue to be portrayed in dismissive and overtly sexualised ways and that prehistory still denigrates and dismisses racial minorities. At the same time, the seemingly endless popularity and profitability of cave men films and television series mean that they will continue to be made for years.

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