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Loving the Characters, Caring for the Work: Long-Term Engagement with TV Serials

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Philosophy of Film Without Theory

Part of the book series: Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy ((PFSP))

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Abstract

The chapter explores the nature of our long-term commitments to particular TV serials. Noel Carroll’s account of sympathy and Robert Blanchet and Margrethe Bruun Vaage’s account of familiarity are analyzed and replaced by the account which centers around the notion of caring for a work. It is suggested that we take pleasure in the cognitive/hedonic rewards the show offers, and are committed to seeing the show through, in order to see the progression of the story; to see if our predictions are correct and to see the final shape of the work. These are the factors that underlie our long-term engagements and only if these are successful in attracting our attention, maintaining our curiosity, and providing satisfaction will we remain with the show, enjoying additional nuances of pleasure brought about by our familiarity with it.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Yvonne Strahovski Interview with Meet Your Emmy (16 August 2018) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s-itPIJ94o

  2. 2.

    Ann Dowd Interview with Peter Travers on Popcorn ABC News (4 July 2018) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGOZn8f5yu4

  3. 3.

    Joseph Fiennes Interview on Good Moring America Digital, ABC (17 August 2018) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJQlWCObGek

  4. 4.

    See in particular Bordwell and Carroll (1996); Plantinga & Smith eds. (1999); Plantinga (2009).

  5. 5.

    The novel was written by Margaret Atwood and was turned into film in 1990, directed by Volker Schlöndorff, with the screenplay by Harold Pinter. In 2017, HULU initiated the first season of the show, and so far, five seasons have been created by Bruce Miller.

  6. 6.

    I will not engage with the difference between sympathy and empathy here.

  7. 7.

    Kozloff’s (1992) distinction between series and serials is commonly accepted, though the difference is much more blurry nowadays. See Mittell (2016); Andrzejewski and Salwa (2018); Bandirali and Terrone (2021). Here I am only concerned with serials; my view on series is presented in (my) Vidmar Jovanović (2021).

  8. 8.

    THMT cast interview with TV Line (May 20 2021) available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIydNDn0OWk

  9. 9.

    I take the notions of character construction, alignment, and allegiance from Smith (1995), to indicate a process whereby a reader comes to individuate and understand who the character is by aligning with her via the clues provided by the work. Allegiance refers to the moral evaluation viewers make of the characters.

  10. 10.

    See Garcia (2016); Vaage (2016) for discussion on the change of allegiance with respect to morally blurry characters in contemporary TV series.

  11. 11.

    On suspense, see Carroll (1984) and Vaage (2016).

  12. 12.

    THMT cast interview with Film Independent (18 June 2020) available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDD_vaQ9RQk&t=616s

  13. 13.

    CNN Entertainment (3 June 2019) available here: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/03/entertainment/the-handmaids-tale-column/index.html

  14. 14.

    It is important to stress this to counter Colin Radford's 1975 account, on which our emotional reactions to fiction are irrational. Research in the cognitive sciences shows that fictional descriptions provide as rational stimuli for emotions as factual ones. See Plantinga and Smith (1999), Nannicelli & Taberham (eds.) (2014); Gilmore (2020).

  15. 15.

    See Lamarque and Olsen (1994) for a humanistic account of literature; Harrison (2019) provides one in relation to film.

  16. 16.

    Consider how the flashback episode in Moira or Janine's story develops opportunities for exploring the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, absent from the novel and the film, centered as they are on the character of Offred. Throughout the serial, various moral concerns and aspects of distinctly human positions (on abortion, surrogate motherhood, infertility, infidelity, friendship, loneliness, death, homosexuality, etc.) are depicted from the perspective of the liberal democratic regime, and that of the Gilead-dictatorship theocracy, thus inviting the viewer to compare and contrast the political, social and psychological circumstances operative in both. The invitation is enhanced by the parallelism in depicting the relevant issues: the befriending of Offred and Emily in E1S1 is contrasted with June’s memories of friendship with Moira, the scenes of childbirth in E2S2 are contrasted with June’s memories of Hanna’s birth, etc.

  17. 17.

    Given my case study, a drama serial THMT, here I am focused on cognitive reward, but, depending on genre, the additional element I emphasize can be less reflective and more hedonic. One can care for the work and feel rewarded by it in light of the entertainment and humor that some shows, such as sitcoms, provide, which is a welcome relief from everyday hardships. I do not have the space to develop this here, but hedonic elements also include a pleasure derived from actors’ performances and other representative, expressive, and formal aspects of the work, which give rise to aesthetic satisfaction and contribute to viewers’ enthusiasm for the work. As an example, consider the aesthetic effect of visual sceneries depicting landscape in Northern Exposure, the use of music combined with biker’s imagery used throughout the Sons of Anarchy, the effects of wardrobe in Sex and the City, etc.

  18. 18.

    I would suggest that for many readers, an interest in Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, the sequel to the original book, can also be accounted for along these lines: readers want to see not just a possible resolution to the problems, but Atwood’s resolution.

  19. 19.

    Arguably, viewer’s disappointment at the particular ending of any given serial or storyline is the strongest when this kind of expectation is unanswered; consider the worldwide disappointment with the Game of Thrones serial.

  20. 20.

    This work has been supported by Croatian Science Foundation under the project number UIP-2020-02-1309. I am deeply thankful to Britt Harrison and Craig Fox for the incentive and encouragement they provided for my consideration of these issues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia

    Iris Vidmar Jovanović

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  1. Iris Vidmar Jovanović
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Correspondence to Iris Vidmar Jovanović .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, Pennsylvania Western University, California, PA, USA

    Craig Fox

  2. Philosophy, University of York, York, UK

    Britt Harrison

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Vidmar Jovanović, I. (2023). Loving the Characters, Caring for the Work: Long-Term Engagement with TV Serials. In: Fox, C., Harrison, B. (eds) Philosophy of Film Without Theory. Palgrave Film Studies and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13654-2_19

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