TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: TV DRAMA
TV Drama is exceptionally broad, in terms of its range of productions. There are various sub-genres that stem from it.
Series fictional TV dramas embody various technical/symbolic codes that are similar, but often the theme, representation of real world events, people and places can be different.
TEEN DRAMAS:
Are programmes that are targeted at teenagers who will empathise with the characters in the show with age specific situations and anxieties: Programmes such as ‘Skins’ target a younger demographic by having storylines which connect with its audiences. Themes such as teenage pregnancies, bullying, drugs, depression, anxiety, education are just some of the issues explored.
SOAP OPERAS
Are on-going TV dramas that never end. They are designed to convey a sense of real time, so as we watch a soap, it could be the same day or even time as we are watching it. The 30 minutes we watch should be 30 minutes of real time in the space/world of the TV soap. Soaps stem from a literature/theatre/film trend started in the 50/60’s called social realism, also known as kitchen sink drama. These were stage productions/films that depicted the life and troubles of the white working classes in inner city areas. The original and most famous soap is Coronation Street, which has depicted working class life in a fictional area called Whetherfield in the gritty, urban city of Manchester for over 40 years. Walford is the ficticious working class, east end area of London as depicted in Eastenders.
COSTUME DRAMAS
Costume dramas often derive from ‘classic’ novels or plays and offer a set of pleasures that are very often exclusive to a bygone era. These are set in a different time/space to current, contemporary dramas which take place in the present. E.g: 'Oliver' and 'Pride & Prejudice' have the literature traditions from the early 19th century but other costume dramas such as 'Heartbeat' are set in the 1950’s/60’s.
MEDICAL/HOSPITAL DRAMAS
Such dramas explore the audiences’ fascination with trauma and suffering of patients/families in hospital environments. One of the earliest hospital dramas was ‘Casualty’ which had various overlapping storylines set in a fictional London Accident & Emergency department. The success of that has cultivated other shows such as 'Holby City' etc. They are very 'soap like' in their narrative structure as episodes link from one to another with the same staple characters but new characters appear in every episode with different problems/issues etc. Such shows have morality as a key theme as well as interpersonal relationships of the characters, as well as their professional anxieties connected to working in the NHS.
POLICE/CRIME DRAMAS
Instead of the focus on nurse/doctors/patients as in 'Holby City', Police drama such as ‘The Bill’, ‘Holby Blue’ focuses on a Metropolitan London Police Force and their interactions with various criminals and victims, episode by episode, week to week. Very similar in pace and scale to other career specific dramas.
DOCU-DRAMAS
The dramatisation of significant historical events, which have a human interest, celebrity focus or political significance. Recently the BBC created various dramas based upon the lives of torn comedians from a bygone era. Such dramas followed the lives of Steptoe and Son and Tony Hancock as dramatisations of their careers and anxieties as artists. Another BBC drama about Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse embody a dramatic, historical assessment of their political careers.
The key to analysing such TV dramas is on two main fronts:
a) Technical/Symbolic codes in terms of camera angles, movement & position, mise en scene, sound and editing.
b) Also Representation issues – How are people of any age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, regional identity, social grade are represented in the dramas.
- Students will analyse an episode from any TV drama and examine 3 separate scenes from that drama in terms of a) Technical/symbolic codes and b) Representations.
No comments:
Post a Comment