When I figured out the focal point of Katz and
Liebes’ “Reading Television” article, I couldn’t help but once again roll my
eyes. As some may remember, a few weeks ago I had a very visceral reaction to Prof.
Hayden’s mentioning of studies done regarding Dallas. And if you don’t remember, let it suffice to say that my
reaction is because I feel this show’s content is just plain embarrassing to a
resident of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and probably for most Texans in general.
Getting past my need to run away screaming from the
article and my memories of the citizen diplomacy headaches the show has caused (that
could be a whole other post entirely), I became intrigued – as Katz and Liebes
did – as to why this show during the 1980s reached a global audience and managed to create a fan-base out of that
audience. And, from my anti-Dallas
perspective, why on earth was this show the one that was able to change how we
view the audience in international communication?
One answer from the article that intrigued me was
that global audiences became involved with the show because “it [was] not
considered serious artistically and… because of its perceived distance from
viewers’ reality.” (Katz and Liebes, “Reading Television…”, IC Reader, 377) In other words, the
farther away one is removed from the context of a show or film, the more likely
one is to interact with it. From my own experiences, I believe that this is one
accurate perspective on audience involvement. My grandparents watch a large
volume of Bollywood, Korean, and Middle Eastern films on their Netflix account,
but can only watch one or two European movies every two months. When I ask my
grandfather about their viewing experience with different movies, he is always
goes into more detail on the usually French or German film they just watched
(and typically did not like); for say a Bollywood film, he usually just replies,
“It was so enjoyable.”
The farther away one is from a film’s context, I
would argue the more one is likely to “just feel” instead of critically think. But
this idea of using a medium to experience emotions is not a new one. Though
Aristotle never really provided a clear-cut definition of the term, most people
would understand that theatrical tragedies allow us to have proxies for
emotions that we shouldn’t express in the real world; they allow us to
experience “catharsis”. What if the circulation of media around the globe has
become popular because of a psychological need being fulfilled by foreign film
and television that our own is no longer able to fulfill?
But does such catharsis still have to come through
only tragedies (as one could describe Dallas…
and yes I do mean to invoke the term’s multiple layers of meaning)? Or can
comedies like Big Bang Theory or
historical films like Joyeaux Noël move
their audience so deeply that the whole world becomes a fan base? Now, almost
thirty years on, would such theories as to the popularity of Dallas even be applicable, since the
world has become more globally connected and simultaneously more fragmented in
terms of audience participation? It is harder to get such a mass of people to
watch one show when there are a plethora of channels and genres available to
them because of technology. But it certainly would be interesting to look at
the contemporary ramifications of foreign media on different cultural psyches
and see whether or not we do enjoy them because they allow us to “let go” and
have the “id unbound” (377, quoting Gitlin).
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