While I'm #grateful that we were given the opportunity to choose to dodge presentations, I am nonetheless interested in what people are working on--I personally find it hard to go through a class without having a sense of how people are ultimately engaging with the work, where the class has taken them, etc.
Maybe folks could post in a word or sentence, however specific or vague, what project you're working on, or what approach you're taking, or whatever seems to satisfy the request to you, should you take it up.
I'm thinking against the implementation of video visitation programs and infrastructure at U.S. jails and prisons.
Im thinking through posthuman subjectivity, and changing modes of address in television as its interface becomes increasingly interactive, and interweaving this with a close reading of the "USS Calister" episode of Black Mirror, where I argue that it privileges identification with the point of view of the virtual characters, and treats their embodied counterparts as merely part of the algorithmic functions that enable their virtual existence, playing close attention to the end of the episode which equates the satisfaction in the narrative closure with mankinds ability to fully dissociate from an embodied reality.
ReplyDeleteI was originally thinking of looking into 'Atlanta' in the context of our discussions around prestige TV, genre, and representation. Then, after seeing last week's episode "Teddy Perkins", I want to focus on how this episode in particular challenges and reconsiders ideas about flow (the ep aired without commercials on FX), genre, and TV 'auteurs'.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to attempt a sort of cross-methodological essay on representations of whiteness (or non-representations if we think of whiteness as something that works by not signaling its presence) and the working class on T.V., using Roseanne as a case study (a rabbit hole that I admittedly have gone down and need to escape from), and some historical texts and Critical Race Theory.
ReplyDeleteGreat thread!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I'm going to approach this methodologically yet, but my unit of study is the show "Spy in the Wild". In this BBC-production, animal robots/animatronics have been created and implanted with cameras, which are then deployed "in the wild" to capture "natural animal behavior" and, in the end, show that animals "are not so different from us". Ouch.
Very interesting projects! While I'm writing a rough draft pilot for the final project, I actually will be writing about TV for my term paper in Global Hollywood. I've been thinking about seasons of television that randomly take place in foreign cities, specifically Italian cities. Right now, I'm thinking about Season 2 of Master of None and Season 3 of Mozart in the Jungle (which just got cancelled!?!?). Both shows randomly insert these life-altering "I am going through some sort of internal crisis so let me escape and find myself in Italy" storylines. However, they also feature non-white, cosmopolitan men entering a relatively ethnically homogeneous country. Also, they both feature an Italian woman whose exotic existence stirs the desires of each leading man. I may also turn my attention to Mozart in the Jungle as its fourth season takes place in Japan - perhaps researching the film/TV cultures of Italy & Japan, using some of this week's readings on global television production, and a close analysis of some key episodes from each season. It's still in its rough stages!
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of jumbled thoughts about Alias Grace and how it constructs and represents Canadian-ness - through Margaret Atwood, World-Famous Canadian Author(tm); AG's representations of dualities and paired oppositions (which run throughout Atwood's work, but which are common in Canadian literature as well - the two solitudes, Canada and/vs the US); the credits, which read like a list of "oh right, they're Canadian"s; and funding & accessibility - it's billed as both a "Netflix Original" series and a CBC show, meaning a good chunk of funding came from the Canadian taxpayer, and while it did air on CBC before it became available on Netflix, now it is only available on Netflix ...
ReplyDeleteI thought I had commented on this before - but I guess it didn't post! I am working on a project where I am conducting a content analysis of the casting breakdowns for television. I am looking to see how the character breakdowns are written and the attributes and descriptions they give to men v. women. I will be looking for this for all identity categories - such a race, gender, sexuality, and disability. It will be interesting to see when the specify gender or race for certain roles, especially for the co-stars and guest-stars.
ReplyDeleteI'm considering writing a paper elaborating on a previous post that I made about my confusion for why the sitcom "The Real O'Neal" was even produced. My attempt will be to theorize that the potential reason for an ethnic European sitcom of this kind was even created in the 21st century is not necessarily because Irishness needs to be negotiated within American society, but to possibly negotiate the future and legitimacy of Whiteness in a continued changing multicultural landscape. Since Irishness (as stated in the post I reference) is an extension of Whiteness, this seems to be a potential logic for a show such as this to have even been around from 2016 - 2017. To elaborate my theorization I think I'll focus on the three kids of the family in the sitcom, but I'm still figuring it out.
ReplyDeleteForever hung up on the new Twin Peaks, I will be revisiting my presentation a bit and thinking more about genre, although arguing something slightly different. The more I think about the show, the more I realize how it subverts the "Quality TV" formula. While the old show was concerned with complex narratives and masculinized melodramatic conventions, this version seems devoted to eliminating its former "prestigious" self, often spiraling into pure silliness and/or nothingness. I hope to show how the new Twin Peaks attracts an elitist type of audience, while paradoxically, criticizing and parodying the generic conventions of Quality TV at the same time. As my argument relies heavily on visual analysis, my plan is to do this via video essay, though I worry about my lack of expertise, so we'll see.
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