Food For Thought

When Becky met Chuck

Irene McGinn

School of Communications, Dublin City University.

Supervisor: Dr. Debbie Ging.

In part fulfilment of the requirement for the award of M.A. in Film and Television Studies, 2010.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the effects of the breakdown of the conventions and functions within traditional narrative that separate the audience from the text and the producers. I am particularly interested in the effects as they pertain to the fandom. Interaction through social networking websites and fan conventions has helped to create a sense of intimacy and collaboration between fans and producers. I will examine the possible repercussions of this, including ethical issues of privacy and power.

I primarily approach this through a case study of the television series Supernatural and its online fandom.  The story of Supernatural broadly centres on two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester who fight ghosts, werewolves, vampires and various other paranormal creatures together. In this dissertation I examine the close relationship that fans of the series have with the producers. I also look particularly at the representations of the fans and the producers within the Supernatural text and how this correlates with the close fan/producer relationship that exists outside of the text. This is achieved via a combination of a textual analysis of a number of Supernatural episodes and a document analysis of existing interviews, videos, DVD extras and fan comments. Through this research I have found a disparity in fan representations relating to gender. I have also identified a number of positive and negative potential effects of a close fan/producer relationship.

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This topic came up in  class in relation to HBO series The Sopranos.  There were a number of interesting questions raised such as  whether the portrayal of any female agency is progressive and if a reductive stereotype like women who manipulate men to suit their own ends can be seen as progressive. The most interesting question was ‘ Can a narrative be feminist without any feminist characters?’

Friday Night Lights: A Feminist Narrative?

I don’t watch the Sopranos but I believe it is possible for a narrative to be feminist without having any feminist characters.  Of the shows I watch, one of the best for portraying a feminist ethic is Friday Night Lights. This is a show that follows the trials and tribulations of life in a small Texas town.  Ostensibly a show about the local high school American Football team, Friday Night Lights was initially marketed at a male audience but changed tactics early in its run when it became obvious that women were equally interested in the show. The head writer and executive producer of the show is Jason Katims. Katims’ previous work includes Roswell and My So-called Life, the latter of which was a teen drama from the mid-nineties that, although short-lived, received critical acclaim for the sensitive way in which it dealt with many social issues like child abuse and drug use.

The female representations in Friday Night Lights over its run so far have been particularly good and the narrative never shies away from sensitive or controversial topics.  The most recent season dealt with a storyline about teen pregnancy and abortion and it tackled the issue head-on without sugar-coating it.  The story showed that there were no easy options available for the young girl, Becky, who was pregnant, and that she would have to make the decision herself.

This show tackles controversial topics like abortion.

The mirroring of her situation with that of her mother’s was very effective.  Her mother had been very young when Becky was born and seemed to harbour some resentment towards her daughter for this. Equally interesting and unexpected was the genuine loss that the teenaged father of the child was portrayed as experiencing when he was told that Becky had decided to have an abortion since this is not a point of view that TV drama often tends to explore. Overall this was just one of a series of issues that this programme successfully portrayed in a sensitive and realistic way.

Images from popmatters.com and mediadecay.com

In a lot of television and film it can be argued that hypermasculinity is an ironic take on masculine identity – an intentional exaggeration that serves to highlight the more primitive aspects of masculinity and male self-identity.  It can also be argued that these tough-guy action hero types speak to a kind of identity crisis in the male psyche, almost a rebellion against feminism and the metrosexual  ‘new man’ that has been put forward by certain media, commercial and advertising as the new desirable.  It’s likely that no one explaination can cover the whole story.  Hypermasculinity may have gone out of fashion for a short while in the 80s and 90s but it is certainly nothing new. It’s reemergence in the form of reality TV shows has been very successful with male audiences.

Manly-man shows take on more challenges — latimes.com.

“The concept of moderation is AWOL,” said Stuart Fischoff, senior editor of the Journal of Media Psychology. “We live in extreme times, and to get an audience interested, you have to keep upping the ante.”

For fans — many of them young men in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic — the shows deliver a vicarious thrill and a testosterone-charged option when they’re not watching sports.

“It’s not heavy cerebral lifting,” said Carlsbad resident David Migdal, a serious “Ice Road Truckers” fan who says he’s rarely watched episodic TV since “The Sopranos” left the air. “These guys work hard, battle the elements, get paid and move on. They’re throwbacks to a simpler, more basic time. They’re the last American cowboys.”

And, most important to the viewers, the newly minted stars of these shows are as authentic as their callings. If the cameras weren’t there, in other words, they’d still be risking their necks for a paycheck.

And here’s an interesting article about a content analysis of police dramas in 2001:

Tough guys: the portrayal of hypermasculinity and aggression televised police dramas

This study examines the presence of a macho personality constellation in male characters appearing in a wide variety of police and detective programs and correlates machismo with the antisocial actions of those characters. Though many types of television genres and other media content also contain “hypermasculine” portrayals, police and detective dramas are the current focus due to the presumed presence of both stereotyped gender roles and aggression and crime. Therefore, this study also adds a novel perspective to the much-researched investigation of television violence.