{"title":"The Bridgerton effect: Introduction to a Special Issue on Netflix’s TV series","authors":"J. Taddeo","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00089_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00089_2","url":null,"abstract":"This special mini-issue on Netflix’s TV series, Bridgerton (2020–present), highlights the power of period drama television in its interrogation of historical and contemporary issues. The authors represent different disciplines, from literature and history to communications and media studies, and the formal and reflective essays that follow, combine our perspectives as both academics and fans of the period romance genre. Lastly, this issue describes how the ‘Bridgerton experience’ represents the multiple ways in which fans consume this series as it continues to shape our fantasies about the past.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124052387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The history behind Bridgerton","authors":"A. Froide","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00093_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00093_1","url":null,"abstract":"While the Bridgerton () series does not present itself as historically accurate, shows set in the past always lead to historical questions. In this article I argue for using fictional historical series as a tool in the classroom and to engage with the public. Bridgerton is a useful entrée into topics it emphasizes, such as the British aristocracy, fashion and design, courtship and marriage and the British colony of India, as well as those that it ignores: male monarchy, patriarchy, singleness and Atlantic slavery.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123486027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disrupted and deranged: The formless and the abject in Twin Peaks: The Return","authors":"A. M. Thomson, A. Thomson","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00085_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00085_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article intends to explore the formlessness of the Woodsmen as unsettling characters in Twin Peaks:\u0000 The Return (2017). Their lack of, or blurred, humanity and our misunderstanding of their origins, intentions and boundaries is disruptive enough to our senses that there exists a desire to abject them. It is through this abjection that we, as viewers of Twin Peaks (1990–91), experience a loss of self that permeates through the entirety of The Return. Yet, we return to watch the show, as we, as spectators, are drawn to that which confuses and repulses us. The Woodsmen serve as a metaphor for Season 3 in that they aid in our inability to interpret the show in the traditional sense of what a narrative is, could be or should be. Watching Twin Peaks: The Return is an unsettling experience, and the findings and connections drawn through this research serve as one – among many possible – explanations for this uncanniness, of our misunderstanding of a show that exists outside of traditional boundaries. Links will be drawn through this work of David Lynch and Mark Frost along with the theories and philosophies of Georges Bataille and Julia Kristeva, among others, with the intention of responding to the overarching question of why The Return was so difficult and unsettling to watch as viewers.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125413122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tom Robinson, S. Church, Loy Clark Callahan, Lucia Pollock, Lauren Silva
{"title":"‘They’re so predictable … but, I love them’: Analysing the appeal of Hallmark Christmas movies","authors":"Tom Robinson, S. Church, Loy Clark Callahan, Lucia Pollock, Lauren Silva","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00084_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00084_1","url":null,"abstract":"With 60 per cent of American households reporting watching at least one Christmas movie between Halloween and New Year’s Day, the Hallmark Movie Channel has enjoyed a remarkable amount of success. In 2021, the Hallmark channel produced 41 new Christmas movies that drew a remarkable 85 million viewers. The purpose of this study was to identify the different perceptions, attitudes and beliefs of Hallmark Christmas movie fans, by using Q methodology, to determine why people love these movies so much. Our sample was selected from the attendees at the first-ever Christmas Con in 2019, sponsored, in part, by Hallmark. Participants in the study self-identified as true Hallmark Christmas movie fans who were then asked to sort through a group of statements based on the question: ‘Why I love Hallmark Christmas movies?’ The results revealed three factors or groups of like-minded thinkers, the Season’s Greeters, who are the Christmas enthusiasts who watch the movies as a way to celebrate the season; the Rudolphs, who watch to escape the troubles of the world and their busy lives and the Carolers, who watch simply for a wholesome story with happy endings.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125898575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Living with Television, Amy Holdsworth (2021)","authors":"Michael Samuel","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00088_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00088_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: On Living with Television, Amy Holdsworth (2021)\u0000 Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 192 pp.,\u0000 ISBN 978-1-47801-475-1, p/bk, $24.95","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127389938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘You can get it if you really want?’: The use of Caribbean music genres in Death in Paradise","authors":"M. Beattie","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00081_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00081_1","url":null,"abstract":"Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie and filmed on Guadeloupe, British/French co-production Death in\u0000 Paradise (2011–present) frequently uses reggae, amongst other perceived local styles, as its diegetic and non-diegetic music. Reggae is historically a music of resistance, specifically resistance to oppression by White colonial power structures. That a British/French co-production uses reggae to reinforce an elided pan-Caribbean location featuring a White, male, British or Irish DI in charge of a local Black police force can be read as stereotypical. When added to a British/French series such as this, with what can be read as colonialist discourses, the readings can become problematic. This article argues that, rather than simply being part of the series’ banal diegetic nationalism (i.e. the series’ flagging itself as a particular identity/-ties), the use of Caribbean music genres in this context can be read as subverting their original anti-colonialist context and both supporting and exacerbating a (perceived) colonialist reading for the series.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114812642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘So you want to be a #GIRLBOSS?’ Millennial femininity and entrepreneurial selfhood in Girlboss and The Girlfriend Experience","authors":"M. Fradley","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00082_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00082_1","url":null,"abstract":"The cultural politics of The Girlfriend Experience (2016–present) and Girlboss (2017) are symptomatic of intersecting discourses surrounding millennial femininity and neo-liberal enterprise culture. Featuring aggressively individualistic, White, twenty-something female protagonists, both shows interrogate the slender ideological crevice that separates economic libertarianism from social pathology. Girlboss and The Girlfriend Experience critically explore the ontological dissonance experienced by a millennial cohort schooled exclusively in the mythologies of a stubbornly resilient neo-liberal culture. As such, these young women are best understood as ideological avatars that expose the entropic conjunction of gendered individualism and entrepreneurial selfhood in a ‘post’-recessionary United States.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122297296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Resentment and ressentiment as motivating forces in Better Call Saul","authors":"David P. Pierson","doi":"10.1386/jptv_00083_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jptv_00083_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that the philosophical and psychological concepts of resentment and ressentiment serve as compelling motivational forces in the lives and actions of the central characters that comprise the American TV series Better Call Saul (2015–22). For Nietzsche and Scheler, ressentiment involves the internalization of hostile affects that tend to reinforce a sense of powerlessness and feelings of inferiority. Unlike ressentiment, which can linger for a long time, resentment is an active and immediate mode of resistance that supports its stance against the conformist tendencies of passive or reactive forces. Resentment, if properly directed externally, can serve as an empowering and a creative, active force in a character’s life. For Jimmy McGill, resentment functions as a primary catalyst for his eventual transformation into the unethical, yet prosperous, criminal attorney Saul Goodman. Resentment, if directed inwards, can produce debilitating effects such as Jimmy’s older brother Chuck’s incapability to move past his hatred and envy over his younger brother’s past actions and successes as a lawyer. This article illuminates the role and character of resentment and ressentiment as affective forces for characters in television melodramas.","PeriodicalId":191144,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Popular Television, The","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115641097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}