{"title":"Gay as cute: Unpacking cuteness in contemporary gay teen drama series","authors":"Frederik Dhaenens, Ben De Smet","doi":"10.1177/17496020241286786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241286786","url":null,"abstract":"Since the late 2010s, there has been a surge in gay teen drama series that portray their gay male protagonists as cute. This article focuses on four series ( Heartstopper, Young Royals, Love, Victor, and wtFOCK) and examines which formal and narrative practices are used to convey cuteness. It argues that, first, each series participates in the creation of the cute gay boy archetype; second, each series represents cuteness as vulnerable in an ambiguous and, at times, resistant manner; third, cute aesthetics are used to soften the blow when tackling heavy or disturbing issues or to amplify positive emotions.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"212 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142306193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-heating the “First” Thanksgiving: the Thanksgiving episode as settler colonial narrative","authors":"Olivia Stowell","doi":"10.1177/17496020241284207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241284207","url":null,"abstract":"Thanksgiving-themed episodes of cooking television open up questions about the interrelations of food, history, power, and culture. This study addresses such questions through textual and thematic analysis of 46 Thanksgiving-themed episodes of reality cooking competition programmes on US cable TV, exploring how the Thanksgiving episode operates as a site for the deployment of the culinary as a category by which the past is re/created. I argue that the Thanksgiving episode represents history through two frames: “tradition” and “reenactment.” Reading the Thanksgiving episode as a site of history's reconstruction illuminates popular media's involvement in the socio-historical-political machinery of contemporary life.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142233327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Awakening contaminated lands: (Re)mediated landscapes as transcultural TV memory work, a case study of Sky/HBO miniseries, Chernobyl (2019)","authors":"Janet McCabe","doi":"10.1177/17496020241258707","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241258707","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the five-part miniseries, Chernobyl (2019), with its contaminated landscape that deals with a troubled, traumatic history. It takes inspiration from the work of Walter Benjamin and his concept of historical materialism, but principally draws on theoretical paradigms dealing with transcultural memory, to advance a discussion on memory work, (re)mediation of historical events and televisual representation. Specifically the essay explores the strategies through which the Anglo-American co-production between Sky and HBO, the first of its kind, offers a collective remembrance of this man-made ecological disaster from 1986 in 2019, awakened in (re)mediated landscapes.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142152417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Showcasing reality content on the front page: Comparing four services on the Danish video streaming market","authors":"Mads Møller T Andersen","doi":"10.1177/17496020241259734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241259734","url":null,"abstract":"This article is based on a three-year-long content analysis of the use of reality TV content on the front pages of four popular video streaming services in Denmark: DRTV, TV 2 Play, Viaplay, and Netflix. The results give rare insights into front pages that are normally hidden behind logins but also longitudinal perspectives about the services’ changing curation practices. In particular, the two institutions with public-service obligations, DR and TV 2, have VOD services that showcase reality content more prominently than the two commercial competitors in this study. These findings point to how the reality genre’s role has changed over the years, since DR and TV 2 now embrace reality content in a strategy to offer ‘Danish content’ that stands out from what their foreign competitors offer.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141448573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Netflix’s high-end global telefantasy: Conspicuous and virtual localism","authors":"Andrew Lynch, César Albarrán-Torres","doi":"10.1177/17496020241257808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241257808","url":null,"abstract":"Netflix has commissioned and released an increasing number of high-end international series that tap into the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. These follow one of two strategies: (1) local productions that engage with local folklore and myths, or (2) productions centred in the ‘West’, where international talent is brought in to create cosmopolitan ‘global’ TV events such as 1899 (2022). The first strategy brings together local storytelling with a globally appealing packaging. The second strategy risks reducing ‘transnational’ production to a few tokenistic stars and narratives which are ultimately from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141177410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thalia Van Wichelen, Esther De Loose, Alexander Dhoest, Sander De Ridder
{"title":"From #AltErLove to #LoveIsLove: Transmedia formats, audience engagement and sexual diversity","authors":"Thalia Van Wichelen, Esther De Loose, Alexander Dhoest, Sander De Ridder","doi":"10.1177/17496020241247111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241247111","url":null,"abstract":"SKAM (2015–2017) and its Flemish adaptation wtFOCK (2018–2021) use several digital platforms to provide viewers with content, enabling different types of audience engagement. By means of a social media analysis, this study investigates how producers utilise transmedia tools to enhance viewers’ involvement with the depicted storyline and how viewers interact with the provided content on LGBTQ issues. An analysis of Instagram comments and posts illustrates three different ways audience members gather online: Instagram serves as (1) a platform to connect while co-viewing, (2) a safe environment against homophobia, and (3) a collective of television critics. Transmedia formats like SKAM and wtFOCK contribute to inclusive depictions of sexual minorities and generate accessible spaces for LGBTQ individuals and allies to engage with one another online.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"108 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140637757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pleasure’s ascendancy: Against queer youth panic","authors":"Timothy Gitzen","doi":"10.1177/17496020241241996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241241996","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores both US and European streaming shows that feature a protagonist in scenes of queer youth sex, focusing on how the show treats and frames these scenes as constitutive of a broader representational narrative of queer youth sex(uality). By comparing US and European shows, I argue that queer pleasure supplants panic featured in each show by framing the scenes of queer youth sex as destigmatized and even mundane.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140533235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Period Drama","authors":"Shelley Anne Galpin","doi":"10.1177/17496020241236044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241236044","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140317209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Indie TV: Industry, Aesthetics and Medium Specificity","authors":"Tom Hemingway","doi":"10.1177/17496020241236047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241236047","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140317234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Transnational Korean Television: Cultural Storytelling and Digital Audiences","authors":"Julia Stolyar","doi":"10.1177/17496020241236046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020241236046","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140317213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}