Hills’ Defining Characteristics
Hills has split his definition into three parts, the text, the inter-text, and the audience. The text refers to the work itself, the inter-text refers to the media response, and the audience obviously refers to the audience. Despite Hills’ claim that these are three equal parts, I have selected sections from his lengthy definitions in order to attempt a summary of his chapter.
Hills has split his definition into three parts, the text, the inter-text, and the audience. The text refers to the work itself, the inter-text refers to the media response, and the audience obviously refers to the audience. Despite Hills’ claim that these are three equal parts, I have selected sections from his lengthy definitions in order to attempt a summary of his chapter.
Due to stark differences in aesthetic, thematic content, and
historical context, many examples of Cult TV can barely be related to each
other at all. Hills suggests that one defining textual characteristic is that
cult TV “constructs immensely detailed, often fantastic, narrative worlds which
we as viewers can never fully encounter, since much of this detail operates
like a set of clues or hints to a consistent narrative world which transcends
what we learn about onscreen.” Which, we have also seen as a characteristic of
science fiction, fantasy, comics and anime. This aspect is definitely one that
has underpinned the entire pop genres course.
Hills give us an inter-textual characteristic in the form of
specialist magazines, which deal with Cult TV in general, as well as some that
deal with specific titles or perhaps genres within the cult TV realm. In relation
to a news section of an issue of the Cult
Times, Hills has said “Rather than activating certain meanings in the primary
text, then, this emphasis on timely news activates, or rather seeks to activate,
a specific relationship between reader and primary text.” In my opinion, it is
this relationship which truly defines cult TV.
The relationship between the audience and text is what turns
a TV show into a cult TV show. There are a number of ways, but I want to focus
on the two most influential. Firstly, the fans organise themselves socially.
Hills uses the example of appreciation societies, however an official society
is not necessary to be a part of a larger group of fans. Facebook pages, websites,
message boards, conventions, real life groups of people, these all act in the
same way; it creates a distinctive community of fans, who identify themselves
as such. Secondly, a knowledge (often gained through multiple views of episodes
or seasons, out of love for the text) of the characters, continuity,
references, Easter eggs, and production. Some fans are inclined to take this
further by writing fan fiction, producing academic papers, episode guides and
various other related content. Obviously, these pieces of work by fans are then
distributed to others in their network, so the knowledge is shared and spread. Cult
fandom has taken off in a big way since the internet has become more
accessible. This allows fans to communicate with each other despite location,
and contributes to the larger sense of community for groups of fans.
Wilcox & Lavery’s 9 Characteristics
Wilcox and Lavery list nine characteristics of Cult TV. One
of the discussion topics asked if we could relate these to any other TV shows.
I can relate them to a show noone has discussed in all of the reading I’ve done
relating to Cult TV… Arrested Development.
Below are the characteristics, followed by my application of
them to Arrested Development.
1)“Quality TV usually
has a quality pedigree” – Arrested Development was created by Mitchell
Hurwitz (who worked on The Ellen Show, the Golden Girls, and the John Larroquette
Show). Ron Howard (well-known actor from Happy Days, as well as directing
Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Cocoon) executive produced as well as narrated
the series.
2) “Desirable demographics not-withstanding, quality shows must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networks and non-appreciative audiences” – Despite it’s critical acclaim, Arrested Development never got great ratings. The Fox network frequently shuffled its time slot and cut seasons short due to its poor performance.
3) ”Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast” - The series stars Jason Bateman, Portia De Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter as the Bluth family. Regular guest stars include Henry Winkler, Carl Weathers, Liza Minelli, Amy Poehler, and Scott Baio.
4) “Quality TV has a memory” – The entire series is constantly cross referencing itself. Not only does it reflect on past events, but also foreshadows future ones.
5) “Quality TV creates a new genre by mixing old ones” – Arrested Development follows a sitcom format, however rather than a fix-set studio audience setup, it was shot on location and uses multiple cameras, which is more of a documentary approach. It also used cutaway gags, which often utilised visual punch lines, drawing on family photos, security footage, archived film, and flashbacks. The narrator also frequently commented on the characters in a humorous manner.
6) “Quality TV tends to be literary and writer based” – The bulk of the writing was done by creator Hurwitz, however, several other staff writers and guest writers or collaborators were involved also, although all of their contributions would be in the style Hurwitz had created for the show. There is a heavy element of wordplay to a lot of the dialogue, notably, almost everything that comes out of the mouth of character Tobias Funke.
7) “Quality TV is self-conscious” – This can best be summarized by one of the final scenes in the series, where the character of Maeby Funke submits her family’s story to film-maker Ron Howard (that’s right, the executive producer of the show in real life) suggesting it would make a good movie. He replies “No, not a movie… TV show maybe?” Additionally, there are hundreds of pop culture references buried in the show.
8) “The subject matter of quality TV tends toward the controversial” – The show was loosely based around the events of Enron and Adelphia’s accounting scandals, the fictional Bluth Company is under heat for just that. As well as this, the fictional company also comes under fire for building houses in Iraq. There is a few episodes that revolve around two cousins having romantic feelings for each other. The entire series revolves around honesty and morality, or a lack thereof.
9) “Quality TV aspires towards ‘realism’” – Despite the family’s unreal actions, there is realism in the show which is anchored with central protagonist, Michael Bluth. The white sheep of the family, he is the only character in the show that has real feelings and real values. He is almost instantly relatable, despite sometimes not being likeable, yet is the only character who is honest and clear. I find him to be more relatable than any other sitcom character, because he acts like a real person not like a sitcom character – this is something many directors seem to have overlooked.
2) “Desirable demographics not-withstanding, quality shows must often undergo a noble struggle against profit-mongering networks and non-appreciative audiences” – Despite it’s critical acclaim, Arrested Development never got great ratings. The Fox network frequently shuffled its time slot and cut seasons short due to its poor performance.
3) ”Quality TV tends to have a large ensemble cast” - The series stars Jason Bateman, Portia De Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter as the Bluth family. Regular guest stars include Henry Winkler, Carl Weathers, Liza Minelli, Amy Poehler, and Scott Baio.
4) “Quality TV has a memory” – The entire series is constantly cross referencing itself. Not only does it reflect on past events, but also foreshadows future ones.
5) “Quality TV creates a new genre by mixing old ones” – Arrested Development follows a sitcom format, however rather than a fix-set studio audience setup, it was shot on location and uses multiple cameras, which is more of a documentary approach. It also used cutaway gags, which often utilised visual punch lines, drawing on family photos, security footage, archived film, and flashbacks. The narrator also frequently commented on the characters in a humorous manner.
6) “Quality TV tends to be literary and writer based” – The bulk of the writing was done by creator Hurwitz, however, several other staff writers and guest writers or collaborators were involved also, although all of their contributions would be in the style Hurwitz had created for the show. There is a heavy element of wordplay to a lot of the dialogue, notably, almost everything that comes out of the mouth of character Tobias Funke.
7) “Quality TV is self-conscious” – This can best be summarized by one of the final scenes in the series, where the character of Maeby Funke submits her family’s story to film-maker Ron Howard (that’s right, the executive producer of the show in real life) suggesting it would make a good movie. He replies “No, not a movie… TV show maybe?” Additionally, there are hundreds of pop culture references buried in the show.
8) “The subject matter of quality TV tends toward the controversial” – The show was loosely based around the events of Enron and Adelphia’s accounting scandals, the fictional Bluth Company is under heat for just that. As well as this, the fictional company also comes under fire for building houses in Iraq. There is a few episodes that revolve around two cousins having romantic feelings for each other. The entire series revolves around honesty and morality, or a lack thereof.
9) “Quality TV aspires towards ‘realism’” – Despite the family’s unreal actions, there is realism in the show which is anchored with central protagonist, Michael Bluth. The white sheep of the family, he is the only character in the show that has real feelings and real values. He is almost instantly relatable, despite sometimes not being likeable, yet is the only character who is honest and clear. I find him to be more relatable than any other sitcom character, because he acts like a real person not like a sitcom character – this is something many directors seem to have overlooked.
Hills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Texts, Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen & A. Hill. London and New York: Routledge.
Wilcox, R. & Lavery, D. (2002). Introduction, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
No comments:
Post a Comment