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Motley moments: Soap operas, carnival, gossip and the power of the utterance.
Abstract
this chapter stitches together a patchwork of material drawing from the narrative practices of television soap operas, conversations with soap opera fans, Mikhail Bakhtin's analysis of carnival and laughter, and reflections on the nature of women's talk, especially gossip, and its status as 'feminine discourse' (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Recent research has sought to explain the function soaps play in people's lives and its appeal to viewers (Ang 1982). The open-endedness of the narrative has been explained and taken for granted (Allen 1992, Brown 1994, and soaps have been scrutinised from feminist perspectives (e.g. Altman 1989, Byars 1987, Petro 1986). ...
... Viewed in the long term, soaps may have the open-ended narrative structure that is commonly attributed to them, (see Allen 1992, Brown 1989. They have been described as a "serial form that resists narrative closure" (never-endingness) (Brown 1994: 49). ...
... Situation level text is relatively unimportant and not that common in a soap opera. This follows Mary Ellen Brown's notion that soaps are weak on beginnings but have 'expanded middles' (Brown 1994). ...
... The second wave of feminism in the late 1960s forwarded the idea that women were oppressed in many ways stemming from their primary roles as homemakers and mothers. While some feminist theorists have criticized early soap operas for their presentation of the woman in the domestic setting and their tendency to link the role of women to motherhood (Modleski, 1979), others have praised many soap operas for centering stories on women in the domestic sphere, giving them power and control in ways that were not afforded in other settings in popular media (Brown, 1990). The 1970s, following the rise of second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, brought with it a variety of female characters who challenged gendered notions of maternal femininity and frequently played key narrative roles in sitcom television. ...
This entry examines the historical gender divide in the performance of domestic duties in popular American TV shows, particularly in traditional sitcoms. Housework in popular media is overwhelmingly performed by mothers, as particular kinds of work (e.g., cooking, cleaning, raising children) are coded as feminine. Yet social progression, along with changes to the labor market and economy, have meant that domestic responsibilities have shifted over the past century. Furthermore, the increase in representation of queer families and homodomesticity has challenged heteronormative constructions of the family unit, and meant that content creators must reconsider the relationship between masculinity and domesticity. Paradoxically, however, some have noted that apparently subversive representations of heteronormative families, femininity/masculinity, and domesticity actually work to reinforce hegemonic family structures. Thus, this entry tracks how representations of the gender divide in domestic labor have changed over time, and how such a divide has been subverted and reinforced by evolving understandings of the “typical” family.
... I studier av fjernsyn har Bakhtins Rabelais-studie blitt brukt i analyser av bl.a. såpeopera (Brown 1990), fribryting (Fiske 1987) og talkshow (Pedersen 1995;Shattuc 1997). De fleste analysene av fjernsyn vektlegger den lave kulturens transponering inn i den offentlige kulturen. ...
... Texts of female desire and of community Gossip is often denigrated as a predominantly female activity (Brown, 1990;Livingstone, 1990). However, it can be understood as an important form of oral networking offering people in subordinate social roles a forum in which to construct meaningful identities (Brown, 1994). ...
This article describes a study investigating narratives obtained from 45 participants about their watching of the television program, EastEnders. The first aim was to understand why people watch this program. The second aim was to identify the kinds of social object dominating their accounts as a way of revealing the forms of cultural debate catalyzed by the show. Material was generated via an open-ended email questionnaire and analyzed qualitatively using grounded theory. Two major themes constituting social objects were identified - female desire and community. These themes were made up of seven categories, each of which helped explain why participants watched EastEnders: reduced troubles, gender, relaxation, social activity, community, realism and Britishness. These results are discussed in relation to past research but the authors also argue that, as the findings suggest some participants gained a therapeutic effect from watching EastEnders, there is a fruitful and little-explored link between such comfort viewing and research on psychotherapy.
... Not surprisingly, soap operas are designed to appeal to emotions (rather than reasons), which are traditionally associated with the feminine (Fiske, 1987;Nariman, 1993;Singhal & Rogers, 1999). Concomitantly, Brown (1990) argues that linguistic codes within a soap opera further reinforce the gendered aspects of this television genre. As Brown notes (1990: 186): "the openness of narrative form" in soap operas resonates closely with feminine oral culture. ...
The present article analyzes the impact of Winter Sonata (a South Korean television series) and hanryu phenomenon -- the current fad for pro-South Korean popular culture -- on Korean residents in Japan (referred to as "Zainichi Koreans"). Considering Zainichi Koreans as a unique audience set for Winter Sonata and hanryu culture, the study offers an interpretive analysis of the qualitative data collected from Zainichi Korean viewers of Winter Sonata. Our study reveals that consumption of hanryu and Winter Sonata shifts the position of Zainichi Koreans from being invisible minorities to visible ones.
... In some feminist criticism, gossip is nearly synonymous with " women's talk " in general (E. B. Brown, 1990; Coates, 1988; Eggins & Slade, 1997; Jones, 1980; Spacks, 1982) or " girl talk " (Eckert, 1990). Rysman (1977) traced the etymology of the term as it refers specifically to women. ...
A half century of gossip research from multiple disciplines is reviewed. Discussed are definitions of the construct: social, evolutionary, and personal functions of the practice; and data collection methods. Though people engage in the practice frequently, there has been relatively little psychological research on gossip. The layperson's understanding of the term is included in, but insufficient to encompass, definitions used by researchers. Most data are ethnographic and discursive, and few parametric data exist. The area could benefit from better experimental methods and instruments. Neurobiological and social network analysis methods are promising foundations for further study. There are real-world implications for understanding gossip. Strengthening gossip theory and research methods will beneficially inform the way we view the practice in context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved). (from the journal abstract)
Stupid men and bad women. What housewives could laugh at in the Norwegian «Housewife films»
[This article is printed in the Norwegian academic periodical: Tidsskrift for kjønnsforsking (gender research)].
From 1953 until 1972, Norwegian housewives were invited to local cinemas to watch «Housewife films». These hour-long films were collections of several, +/- 5 minutes long, educational commercials, supplemented with entertaining sections. The commercials concerned objects and methods that promised to improve housework tasks, and thus served to tighten the bond between housework and woman. In the entertainment breaks, however, the ambiguities and incoherencies in this gendered discourse of housework are questioned. This article focuses on the invitation to women's laughter. While a man making a mess in the kitchen is a dominant theme of humour in the early phase, critic of women's failures, for instance excessive shopping, evaporates as the object of laughter in the sixties. Changes in the objects of humour over time are thus identified and tentatively related to changes in the image of the housewife in general.
Keywords: housewife, commercials, humour, discourse, women's laughter, male comedian, 1950s and 1960s, womens history.
In the wake of television series like Friends and Ally McBeal, Darren Star’s Sex and the City (HBO 1998–2004) has carved out a niche for itself among the shows about the trials and tribulations of 30-something American urbanites. With its focus on the private or rather intimate lives of its four female protagonists and their exploration and construction of the rules of dating in Manhattan, the award-winning show is made of the material typically discussed in gossip, the communicative practice that is widely engaged in but is often discounted as idle or immoral. The show deals to a large extent with characteristically gossipy themes involving sex and money, and the protagonist Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) is a gossip columnist, the episodes largely showing the raw material from which she spins her articles for the fictitious New York Star. Moreover, elements and strategies of gossip play a major role in determining how the show is presented. Particularly the way the comedy series uses showing and telling — for example asides and voice-over narration — in presenting its stories is based on principles typical of gossip. Sex and the City can thus be said to be not just based on gossip and to be about gossip, but one can also claim that it functions like gossip in several respects. On the level of story, of narrative mediation and of reception, Sex and the City thus draws on gossip strategies.
Auch wenn wir diejenigen, die auf dem Bildschirm, auf der Kinoleinwand oder der Theaterbühne erscheinen, unter Umständen wie Personen wahrnehmen, für Rezeptionsprozesse jeglicher Art konstitutiv bleibt die Tatsache, daß wir mit ihnen immer nur mittelbar kommunizieren und interagieren können. Grundlegend für die Rede von „para-sozialer Interaktion“, so möchte ich behaupten, ist der im einzelnen weiterhin erläuterungsbedürftige Unterschied zwischen unmittelbarer, zweiseitiger Face-to-Face-Kommunikation und mittelbarer, einseitiger Kommunikation mit Medienfiguren. Um diesen Unterschied wird es mir in den folgenden — vorwiegend begrifflichen — Klärungen gehen.
In seiner Publikation “Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies” hat David Morley das gemeinsame Fernsehen im Wohnzimmer als den Moment bezeichnet, in dem das Globale das Lokale trifft (vgl. Morley 1992, S.270). In meinem Beitrag möchte ich diesen Gedanken Morleys aufgreifen und dahingehend argumentieren, daß der alltägliche Umgang mit Fernsehen einen Aneignungsprozeß darstellt, in dem die Zuschauer die von David Morley als das ‘Globale’ charakterisierten medialen Inhalte, die durch Satellitentechnologie (potentiell) weltweit verbreitet werden, mit der eigenen Lebenswirklichkeit vermitteln. Dieser Vermittlungsprozeß ist auch ein kommunikativer Vorgang: Die Gespräche der Zuschauer über Fernsehen sind das zentrale Bindeglied der Aneignung von Fernsehen, ein herausragenden Katalysator der Fernsehaneignung. Durch sie werden Medien- und Alltagsdiskurse in Verbindung gebracht.
In recent years, there has been a phenomenal rise in the popularity of South Korean television dramas, pop music, movies, fashion and celebrities in East and Southeast Asia. Korean television dramas are a significant component of this cultural diffusion known as the ‘Korean Wave’. Through focus group interviews with female viewers in Singapore, this study seeks to explore how Singaporean women make sense of Korean TV dramas (K-dramas) as female subjects living in the gender hierarchy of their society, and how K-dramas become resources for reflexivity for them.
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