Core Post, Week 12

I find Kackman’s argument about the apparent inclusion of melodrama in ‘quality’ television an interesting approach in analyzing the landscape today. While the idea of a more legitimate medium came at a time when quality serials were on the rise, the notion is much more prevalent and has peaked since the article debut. Network television has since embraced its overt reliance on melodrama as a formal structure with shows like This Is Us, The Good Doctor and the still strong Shondaland serials. Then there are the more popular franchises like Game of Thrones that hybridize fantasy and melodrama to concoct a widely embraced form that privileges outrageous storytelling in what Neil Harris terms “operational aesthetic.” What’s surprising is how successful the show has been in its conscious reproduction of worthwhile narrative spectacle. For Game of Thrones in particular, its melodramatic underpinning is really what fans go crazy for; shrewdly hidden under the guise of fantasy and fandom, the show is able to attract mass audiences, regardless of gender, ardently invested in the more ‘fantastical’ elements. Illegitimate children, incestual relationships and heavy familial crises plague the narrative to reveal the actual appeal is a genre that long predates both book and series. Kackman’s mention of gendered representation in Lost can be applied here as well, as the narrative generously features strong thematics of violence and war, an easy facet to hide melodramatic structure while attracting fanboys.

What’s worth examining is the role streaming has come to play in the narrative structure of shows today. How has the structure of original content on platforms like Netflix and Amazon differed from traditional network serials in relation to genre? More so, what can we infer of the cultural affordances taken from such narratives? A show like The Crown is highly melodramatic in tone but far from the stigma of any sort of aesthetic that resembles the genre. In fact, it’s the more melodramatic moments that are the most pleasurable parts of the series, so how has the cultural attitude toward the form changed? What seems to be the case is the shift in structuring television for niche audiences. Without the pressure of appealing to a broad, network audience, shows are relieved from tapping into an overall zeitgeist and encouraged to filter particular generic conventions that promote a unique aesthetic.