scholarly journals “Love at first sight” - TV shows: Introduction into anthropological analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 395
Author(s):  
Ivan Kovačević ◽  
Marija Brujić
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Important Form

Television shows are a noted and important form of popular culture. They are subject to anthropological research as much as any other form of pop culture and this has been done in the new Serbian anthropology which had included them in its inventory of researchable phenomena. By researching television shows, an anthropologist researches contemporary society and the meanings and values contained in the shows, as well as through the reception of these contents. The anthropological study of TV shows in Serbia resulted in a number of papers which are mostly about shows produced in Serbia and only in one case abroad (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), studied from the aspect of reception. As it would be expected, most of the attention of anthropologists had been garnered by TV shoes with high ratings, such as "Srećni ljudi", "Porodično blago", "Kursadžije", "Mile protiv tranzicije" and "Moj rođak sa sela".

TV Series in Turkish Foreign Policy: Aspects of Hegemony and Resistance

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantinos Constantinou ◽  
Zenonas Tziarras
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Soap Operas ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Turkish Foreign Policy ◽  
The World ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the ways in which (pop or) popular culture may fall within the context of foreign policy. More specifically, it situates our analysis against such backdrop by delving into how Turkey effectively exports pop culture, propaganda and positive images of itself via the use of television (TV) shows. To that end, notable Turkish soap operas market its ancient glorious past. Admittedly, these telenovelas form a salient cultural product export for Turkey as they reach diverse and far-away audiences – from Latin America to Russia, Central Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, to merely name a few. Paradoxically, the frenzy has even reached places like Greece. Not to mention, Serbia or Israel, with the latter’s phenomenal success accompanied also with some backlash. Therefore, the current study seeks to better understand the magnitude alongside the impact of Turkey’s achievement given how it comprises a multi-million-dollar industry, by partially unearthing what makes Turkish TV series so powerful the world over. Further, this research firstly presents an analysis of the hegemonic efforts before presenting the limitations to its success by thoroughly covering the empirical data while, theoretically framing it.  

scholarly journals Libertarianism in Pop Culture:

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcella Lins
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
And Function ◽  
Tv Show ◽  
Made In

Television drama is an important tool to present hypothetical scenarios and imagine various ways to deal with them, while testing the viability of ethical theories that could guide moral judgements and practical decisions made in real life. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) left an important legacy in Popular Culture captivating viewers worldwide and still being relevant 20 years later. The aim of this article is to revisit Buffy’s Season 4 and analyze it through a libertarian perspective. Over this season, a great number of relevant subjects are discussed, such as the form and function of the state, its relationship with society, the subversion of public authorities and the morality of law and punishment. It is expected that the successful adoption of libertarian ethics and principles to understand this TV show might bring out Libertarianism as a valuable philosophical alternative to be taken into account when looking for solutions to current issues.

Public Service Motivation in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Mastracci
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Service Motivation ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Public Servant ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

In this paper, the author examines public service as depicted in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS). First, she shows how slaying meets the economist’s definition of a public good, using the BtVS episode “Flooded” (6.04). Second, she discusses public service motivation (PSM) to determine whether or not Buffy, a public servant, operates from a public service ethic. Relying on established measures and evidence from shooting scripts and episode transcripts, the author concludes Buffy is a public servant motivated by a public service ethic. In this way, BtVS informs scholarship on public service by broadening the concept of PSM beyond the public sector; prompting one to wonder whether it is located in a sector, an occupation, or in the individual. These conclusions allow the author to situate Buffy alongside other idealized public servants in American popular culture.

History Has Its Eyes on You

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Personal Preference ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Consumer Habits

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.

scholarly journals Representation and Agency of Aging Superheroes in Popular Culture and Contemporary Society

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Kateřina Valentová
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Cultural Expressions ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Many

The figure of the superhero has always been regarded as an iconic representative of American society. Since the birth of the first superhero, it has been shaped by the most important historical, political, and social events, which were echoed in different comic issues. In principle, in the superhero genre, there has never been a place for aging superheroes, for they stand as a symbol of power and protection for the nation. Indeed, their mythical portrayal of young and strong broad-chested men with superpowers cannot be shattered showing them fragile or disabled. The aim of this article is to delve into the complex paradigm of the passage of time in comics and to analyze one of the most famous superheroes of all times, Superman, in terms of his archetypical representation across time. From the perspective of cultural and literary gerontology, the different issues of Action Comics will be examined, as well as an alternative graphic novel Kingdom Come (2008) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, where Superman appears as an aged man. Although it breaks the standards of the genre, in the end it does not succeed to challenge the many stereotypes embedded in society in regard to aging, associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional decline. Furthermore, this article will show how a symbolic use of the monomythical representation of a superhero may penetrate into other cultural expressions to instill a more positive and realistic portrayal of aging.

Rendering LGBTQ+ Visible in Nursing: Embodying the Philosophy of Caring Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 262-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Goldberg ◽  
Neal Rosenburg ◽  
Jean Watson
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Diversity Initiatives ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Health Care Institutions ◽  
Caring Science ◽  
Science Philosophy ◽  
The Media

Although health care institutions continue to address the importance of diversity initiatives, the standard(s) for treatment remain historically and institutionally grounded in a sociocultural privileging of heterosexuality. As a result, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities in health care remain largely invisible. This marked invisibility serves as a call to action, a renaissance of thinking within redefined boundaries and limitations. We must therefore refocus our habits of attention on the wholeness of persons and the diversity of their storied experiences as embodied through contemporary society. By rethinking current understandings of LGBTQ+ identities through innovative representation(s) of the media, music industry, and pop culture within a caring science philosophy, nurses have a transformative opportunity to render LGBTQ+ visible and in turn render a transformative opportunity for themselves.

The use of oral data in legal anthropology: a Senegalese example

1973 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-215
Author(s):  
F. G. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Legal Anthropology ◽  
African History ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Systematic Collection

Oral data are an integral part of the raw material used in anthropological research on social organization. They have also been heavily relied upon in the study of disappearing American Indian societies and, more recently, in the reconstruction of African history. By contrast, with some striking exceptions, they are in danger of being neglected in the anthropological study of law. Oral data have only recently been employed in Frenchsponsored studies in this field. In the English-speaking world, the dominant theme of dispute settlement and its apparent corollary, the case method, may leave little room for the systematic collection and the careful analysis of oral data.

"They're Freaks!": The Cult Stereotype in Fictional Television Shows, 1958––2008

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Present Context

This article analyzes the stereotypical portrayal of cults on fictional television shows and demonstrates the vital role that this popular culture form plays in the dissemination of anticult ideology. Through an in-depth examination of five episodes that aired between 1998 and 2008, it delineates how these shows employed stereotypical cult elements, such as fraud and violence, as well as contrasts in clothing, setting, and lifestyle to differentiate conventional religion from the dangers and delusions of cults. Further, the article reveals how usage of the cult concept is not limited to the present context and documents the historical pervasiveness of the cult stereotype on television since 1958. By highlighting these patterns, this study shows the power and implications of the cult stereotype. It illuminates how these television shows constitute a powerful force in defining and policing the boundaries of religious legitimacy in American culture.

scholarly journals American war movies. David Ayer’s Fury as mythologisation of war and soldiers

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Marcin Kępiński
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Symbolic Language ◽  
War Films ◽  
Hollywood Cinema

Both pop culture and modern Hollywood cinema are mainly intended for entertainment. American war films are not free from this vice. A researcher of culture should shun attempts to find hidden symbols, myths and flashes of meanings from distant traditional culture in such films. Contemporary popular mythologies do not represent the same mythical pattern that Eliade wrote about. Popular culture consists of ideas on various topics, borrowings, quotations and fragments of meanings, all patched together. In my view, however, Fury goes beyond pop culture and entertainment. After all, there is also good American war cinema and films that are not mindless borrowings or calques of carelessly patchworked pieces of pop culture. One can look at them and find certain cultural tropes and motifs known to specialists in humanities, such as an initiation journey, the symbolic language of eternal myths or archetypal figures of cultural heroes, all in a version transformed by popular culture, of course. The aim of my article is therefore to analyse David Ayer’s film from the perspective of a culture researcher who seeks cultural tropes and sources of the war hero myth in this cinematic work.

scholarly journals Repackaging Popular Culture: Commentary and Critique in Community

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tully Barnett ◽  
Ben Kooyman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nerd Culture ◽  
The Big Bang

Contemporaneous with the collision of Science Fiction/Fantasy with the mainstream evident in the success of nerd culture show The Big Bang Theory (2007- ), Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012), the growth of Comic Con audiences and so on, Dan Harmon developed Community (2009- ), a sitcom depicting a study group at a second-rate community college. The show exemplifies a recent gravitation away from the multi-camera, laugh-track driven sitcom formula, alternating between “straight” episodes dealing with traditional sitcom premises, though always inflected with self-aware acumen, and more ambitious, unconventional episodes featuring outlandish premises, often infused with the trappings of genre and geek fandom. The show presents apocalyptic action- and Western-style paintball wars, epidemics that evoke zombie cinema, a Yahtzee game that spirals into alternate timelines, and a high-stakes Dungeons and Dragons game that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy.  Both the straight and the unconventional episodes ultimately serve the same purpose, examining the intersection between nerd culture and everyday life. This essay discusses a number of episodes which exemplify Community’s intersections between everyday life and popular culture, charting the show’s evolving preoccupation with pop culture and intertwining of reality and fantasy. It discusses Community’s self-referentiality as a sitcom, its ambitious and elaborate recreations of and homages to pop culture artefacts, and its explicit gravitation towards Science Fiction and Telefantasy in its third season. Through its various homages to popular culture and ongoing depiction of fan culture, we posit that the show is both a work of fandom and a work about fandom, advocating for the pivotal role of fandom in everyday life and for popular culture as a tool for interpreting, comprehending and navigating life. In this respect, the show contributes to the long history of both the sitcom and Telefantasy as vehicles for cultural commentary.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document