TV: Exam question
“Realism is a vital component of television drama”. To what extent does an analysis of your television close-study products support this view? [25 marks]
A sense of realism is important for most media texts, but when it comes to a television drama, realism with a healthy sense of fiction becomes an attractive combination. I believe that both CSP's, Capital and D83 (Deutschland 83) do this appropriately, each with their own way of doing so.
D83 does realism in a different way compared to Capital; it sends a realistic/relatable main character to a historically known place, to do a larger than life, unrealistic task, using both fiction and real events in its favour to create a pleasurable experience; It helped to appeal to personal Identity, relationship, diversion and surveillance (Blumr and Katz uses and gratifications theory) by doing so, identity through creating a realistic protagonist with ordinary issues (apart from the whole saving the world issue), relationship is quite a normal gratification with TV dramas, so I won't discuss this view for too long. D83 created diversion by creating a 1980's Berlin so realistic that audiences (particularly those of which who actually lived during the time that the events unfolded) got infatuated with the world, and surveillance due to genuine accurate information being absorbed by the audience due to how realistic the show aimed to be. Examples of this realism were given by the creators of the show by stating that almost everything from location and props were realistic due to them having (then) classified information at their disposal for the creation of the show.
Capital is a different case entirely, the genre of television drama that Capital comes from compared to D83 is extremely contrasting due to Capital being a state of the nation drama (a genre designed to tackle real-life issues and during the creation of the show, meaning almost always very realistic), while D83 being a spy thriller drama, meant a substantial portion of the show had to be fiction. Capital focused on the social and economic situations for the characters present in the show for their realism, showing environments and people that Londoners would recognise and be able to compare to in real life e.g. the Khan family was an almost stereotypical example of corner shop owners, while the bankers where old white men, and the foreigners all took up the lower paying/lower status jobs such as a traffic warden and builders. This shows realism to an almost stereotypical extent.
After comparing the realism of the two shows, they are not without their faults when it comes to realism, this is apparent in Capital with their almost overly stereotypical representation of London, society is in a slow process of change, with that change we see POC entering higher paid jobs far more often than shown in the show; D83 on the other hand (as mentioned before) has the ordinary protagonist go through larger than life scenarios e.g. breaking in a generals office in a military base, handling confidential files without a single individual finding out, even though surveillance equipment existed in that period of time.
Even with their occasional faults in realism, both shows clearly take importance to making sure the realism is there, the main reason as to why they would do so, is because, the age of larger than life characters operating in over the top scenarios is over, clearly seen by the substantially gritty and realistic media texts flooding both mainstream and new tech/media companies in recent times, showing the shift in audience needs and wants. Hence I believe both CSPs D83 and Capital go to a significant extent to meet the wanted realism from modern day audiences
A sense of realism is important for most media texts, but when it comes to a television drama, realism with a healthy sense of fiction becomes an attractive combination. I believe that both CSP's, Capital and D83 (Deutschland 83) do this appropriately, each with their own way of doing so.
D83 does realism in a different way compared to Capital; it sends a realistic/relatable main character to a historically known place, to do a larger than life, unrealistic task, using both fiction and real events in its favour to create a pleasurable experience; It helped to appeal to personal Identity, relationship, diversion and surveillance (Blumr and Katz uses and gratifications theory) by doing so, identity through creating a realistic protagonist with ordinary issues (apart from the whole saving the world issue), relationship is quite a normal gratification with TV dramas, so I won't discuss this view for too long. D83 created diversion by creating a 1980's Berlin so realistic that audiences (particularly those of which who actually lived during the time that the events unfolded) got infatuated with the world, and surveillance due to genuine accurate information being absorbed by the audience due to how realistic the show aimed to be. Examples of this realism were given by the creators of the show by stating that almost everything from location and props were realistic due to them having (then) classified information at their disposal for the creation of the show.
Capital is a different case entirely, the genre of television drama that Capital comes from compared to D83 is extremely contrasting due to Capital being a state of the nation drama (a genre designed to tackle real-life issues and during the creation of the show, meaning almost always very realistic), while D83 being a spy thriller drama, meant a substantial portion of the show had to be fiction. Capital focused on the social and economic situations for the characters present in the show for their realism, showing environments and people that Londoners would recognise and be able to compare to in real life e.g. the Khan family was an almost stereotypical example of corner shop owners, while the bankers where old white men, and the foreigners all took up the lower paying/lower status jobs such as a traffic warden and builders. This shows realism to an almost stereotypical extent.
After comparing the realism of the two shows, they are not without their faults when it comes to realism, this is apparent in Capital with their almost overly stereotypical representation of London, society is in a slow process of change, with that change we see POC entering higher paid jobs far more often than shown in the show; D83 on the other hand (as mentioned before) has the ordinary protagonist go through larger than life scenarios e.g. breaking in a generals office in a military base, handling confidential files without a single individual finding out, even though surveillance equipment existed in that period of time.
Even with their occasional faults in realism, both shows clearly take importance to making sure the realism is there, the main reason as to why they would do so, is because, the age of larger than life characters operating in over the top scenarios is over, clearly seen by the substantially gritty and realistic media texts flooding both mainstream and new tech/media companies in recent times, showing the shift in audience needs and wants. Hence I believe both CSPs D83 and Capital go to a significant extent to meet the wanted realism from modern day audiences
Comments
Post a Comment