CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION. GUEST EDITED by NADIA ALONSO VOLUME IV, No 01 · SPRING 2018
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CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION. GUEST EDITED BY NADIA ALONSO VOLUME IV, No 01 · SPRING 2018 PUBLISHED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF EDITORS ABIS – AlmaDL, Università di Bologna Veronica Innocenti, Héctor J. Pérez and Guglielmo Pescatore. E-MAIL ADDRESS ASSOCIATE EDITOR [email protected] Elliott Logan HOMEPAGE GUEST EDITORS series.unibo.it Nadia Alonso ISSN SECRETARIES 2421-454X Luca Barra, Paolo Noto. DOI EDITORIAL BOARD https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/v4-n1-2018 Marta Boni, Université de Montréal (Canada), Concepción Cascajosa, Universidad Carlos III (Spain), Fernando Canet Centellas, Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), Alexander Dhoest, Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium), Julie Gueguen, Paris 3 (France), Lothar Mikos, Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam- Babelsberg (Germany), Jason Mittell, Middlebury College (USA), Roberta Pearson, University of Nottingham (UK), Xavier Pérez Torio, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Veneza Ronsini, Universidade SERIES has two main purposes: first, to respond to the surge Federal de Santa María (Brasil), Massimo Scaglioni, Università Cattolica di Milano (Italy), Murray Smith, University of Kent (UK). of scholarly interest in TV series in the past few years, and compensate for the lack of international journals special- SCIENTIFIC COMMITEE izing in TV seriality; and second, to focus on TV seriality Gunhild Agger, Aalborg Universitet (Denmark), Sarah Cardwell, through the involvement of scholars and readers from both University of Kent (UK), Sonja de Leeuw, Universiteit Utrecht (Netherlands), Sergio Dias Branco, Universidade de Coimbra the English-speaking world and the Mediterranean and Latin (Portugal), Elizabeth Evans, University of Nottingham (UK), Aldo American regions. This is the reason why the journal’s official Grasso, Università Cattolica di Milano (Italy), Sarah Hatchuel, languages are Italian, Spanish and English. Universitè Le Havre (France), Matthew Hills, Aberystwyth University (UK), François Jost, Paris 3 (France), Kristina Köhler, Universität Zurich SERIES is an open access and peer reviewed journal, with (Switzerland), Charo Lacalle, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ISSN and indexed in major international databases. SERIES (Spain), Enrico Menduni, Università Roma Tre (Italy), Manuel Palacio, publishes 2 issues per year. Universidad Carlos III (Spain), Agnes Petho, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Romania), Kathrin Rothemund, Universität This is a joint project by the Universitat Politècnica de Bayreuth (Germany), Guillaume Soulez, Paris 3 (France), Imanol València (Escola Politècnica Superior de Gandia) and the Zumalde, Universidad del País Vasco (Spain). Università di Bologna. CONTRIBUTORS FOR THE PRESENT ISSUE Nadia Alonso (Universitat Politècnica de València), Stéfany Boisvert This journal provides immediate open access to its content on (McGill University), Douglas Chalmers (Glasgow Caledonian University) the principle that making research freely available to the public Dana Renga (The Ohio State University), Jean Sébastien (Collège de supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. It releases Maisonneuve), André Vasques Vital (Centro Universitário de Anápolis). its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. This license allows anyone to download, READERS (ISSUES 1 AND 2, 2017) reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. Tim Anderson, Gabriele Balbi, Pierre Barrette, Stefany Boisvert, The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is Marta Boni, Paola Brembilla, Concepcion Cascajosa Virino, Sabine not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or Chalvon, Emily Chandler, Chiara Checcaglini, Raquel Crisostomo, journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the Samanta Cutrara, Elena Dell’Agnese, Sergio Dias Branco, Nicola journal for every reuse of the papers. Dusi, Audun Engelstad, Sarah French, Esteban Galán, Isadora Garcia Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copy- Avis, Pascale Goetschel, Leora Hadas, Matt Hills, Stella Hockenhull, rights. Authors are welcome to post pre-submission versions, Ariane Hudelet, Dina Iordanova, Anna Irimias, Erlend Lavik, Paolo the original submitted version of the manuscript (preprint) and Magaudda, Ruth McElroy, Aimee Mollaghan, Enrico Nicosia, Eva the final draft post-refereeing (postprint) on a personal website, Novrup Redvall, Ava Parsemain, Steven Peacock, George Revill, Gloria a collaborative wiki, departmental website, social media web- Salvadò, Kevin Sanson, Jessica Scarlata, Wielend Schwanebeck, Sarah sites, institutional repository or non-commercial subject-based Sepulchre, Lucio Spaziante, Julie Anne Taddeo, Susan Turnbull, Ece repositories. Self-archiving can happen only upon the accep- Vitrinel, Anne-Katrin Weber, Elke Weissmann. tance of the submission. The journal has neither article processing charges nor sub- DESIGN AND LAYOUT mission processing fees. Martín Gràfic Cover illustration Javier Pastor INDEX EDITORIAL 5 INTRODUCTION: CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION NADIA ALONSO PRODUCTIONS / MARKETS / STRATEGIES 9 GOING NATIVE: LONG-RUNNING TELEVISION SERIALS IN THE UK DOUGLAS CHALMERS AND HUGH O’DONNELL 21 AGAINST ALL ODDS: THE SURVIVAL OF QUEBEC’S TÉLÉROMANS AS PROXIMITY SERIES STÉFANY BOISVERT 31 HUMOR IN MOHAWK GIRLS: THE DEFT INTERWEAVING OF GENDER AND RACE JEAN SÉBASTIEN DIALOGUE 43 DIALOGUE WITH JAVIER MARZAL NADIA ALONSO 47 DIALOGUE WITH ROGER GINER NADIA ALONSO NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM 51 LAPIS LAZULI. POLITICS AND AQUEOUS CONTINGENCY IN THE ANIMATION STEVEN UNIVERSE ANDRÉ VASQUES VITAL 63 SUBURRA. LA SERIE AS “PATRIMONIO INTERNAZIONALE / INTERNATIONAL PATRIMONY” DANA RENGA EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION: CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION NADIA ALONSO The fiction series has been revealed to be an effective means We could cite various examples of “proximity soap op- of conveying – and possibly influencing – our sense of belong- eras” that have demonstrated the success of this formula ing to a group that shares at least a common language, set with audiences, such as Nissaga de poder and Pobol y Cwm of cultural practices, climate and geographical space (Peris (Moragas, Garitaonandía and López 1999: 19). The first of 2016: 127). Our proposed concept of “proximity series” thus these, with 476 episodes broadcast between 1996 and 1998, refers to fiction produced by local networks with content was one of the most popular series on regional television in related to a political-geographical-cultural reality that is gen- Catalonia; the second is a Welsh soap opera produced by BBC erally smaller than a nation. In such series, the invariably close Wales beginning in 1974, which moved in 1982 to the Welsh relationship of the story with the local reality is offered to channel S4C and continues to be in production today. the audience as a key element and main attraction, with the In these cases – and in others to be mentioned in this intro- objective of conveying a particular set of cultural, social and duction and studied in this issue – language is a basic element political values (Fiske and Hartley 2003). of cultural proximity and a key to audience acceptance of the 05 SERIES VOLUME IV, Nº 1, SPRING 2018: 05-08 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/8391 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION EDITORIAL > NADIA ALONSO INTRODUCTION: CONTEMPORARY PROXIMITY FICTION series (Lacalle 2006; Peris 2015). The use of minority languag- region. The town square with the church in the background in es like Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Catalan or Flemish constitutes L’Alqueria Blanca references the main meeting place for locals the element that most immediately and radically identifies in the towns of rural Valencia. Similarly, the fictitious Dutch the product with a particular region and community. For this town of Meerdijk, the setting for the longest-running and reason, practically all proximity series are produced in regions most famous soap opera in the Netherlands, Goede Tijden, with their own minority languages within the larger nations Slechte Tijden, which combines all the features necessary for of which they form a part, with a strong linguistic identity of spectators to identify it with any number of towns in Holland. their own. One such region is Quebec, the only Canadian prov- According to Peris (2016), landscapes, streets, buildings, or ince with a French-speaking majority, where the most popu- any other background may be used to orient the spectator’s lar television products are locally produced and in French, as sense of familiarity in relation to the story. On numerous oc- noted by Stéfany Boisvert in her article included in this issue. casions, these spaces have historical significance, evoking the Chalmers and O’Donnell make the same observation in their relatively recent past of the region in question. An example of contribution, noting that series produced in Irish or Scottish this is the luxury hotel where wealthy Galician and Portuguese Gaelic represent a challenge to the status of English as the families spend their summer holidays in Vidago Palace, which hegemonic international language par excellence. is both the title and the main setting for the first proximity In addition to language, there are characteristic features series co-produced by Galicia’s regional television network in of local popular culture that facilitate the spectator’s emo- Spain and Portugal’s national public broadcaster. On the other