Link the narrative arcs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS) to the #metoo movement. Buffy manages to be the one who saves the world (with the Scooby gang) whilst working her way through a number of relationships with the 'wrong' man. These included the bad boy who can't be saved, the stalked, the good guy who finished last and 'beer goggles'. in the context of metoo – how is Buffy conceptualised in present day through this lens?
I guess there is some way to link Buffy to the MeToo Movement, seems to be a strange linkage. – Joseph Cernik4 years ago
The Vampire Diaries and its spinoffs (The Originals, Legacies) and canonically full of mostly heterosexual relationships, but a significant portion of the show's followers and fans are deeply committed too gay, lesbian, bi and pan ships that have little chance of setting sail or solidifying. Is this because of the show runners? Is this because of the channels it's airing on?
Great topic! Be sure to check a couple typos ("are" instead of "and" in the first sentence). More importantly, though, I would recommend looking at queer-baiting across fandom. Fans have spent decades building huge archives of fan work dedicated to LGBT+ "ships" to compensate for the lack of LGBT+ relationships in mainstream television shows. I would recommend looking into reasons why fans feel so strongly about these ships, and then look at some statistics about LGBT+ representation on tv. Also, can fans ever go "too far" with these ships? The Vampire Diaries is a great series for this topic, but I've seen a similar trend with Supernatural, Game of Thrones, and lots of anime. – Eden5 years ago
Cool topic, I assuming its because the Vampire diaries universe is mainly aimed at teens and young adults, people who are members of the most LGBT+ generation, although their are some gay and lesbian role models in shows like the vampire diaries their arnt many pan or other LGBT+ people or relationships on tv. Which thus leads to fan fiction. If their arnt any role models they hope for some to be introduced or create their own. – BrigetteH4 years ago
Having recently finished watching Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet, I was struck by how my favourite episode was #5 Dark Quiet Death – a standalone episode that featured two completely separate characters. It got me thinking of other examples, like a similarly video-game focused episode of You're the Worst, and countless others.
So thought it would be a great idea to accumulate these into an article, or perhaps even analyse why audiences respond to these episodes (as Dark Quiet Death is the highest-rated Mythic Quest episode on IMDB by far).
Another example that might fit: among the three best-rated episodes of Stargate SG-1 on Imbd, two of them can be considered as standalone episodes: Window of Opportunity and The Fifth Race. The monster-of-the-week episodes of The X-Files might also belong in such an analysis.
There might also be a difference between standalone episodes in more ‘procedural’ TV shows (such as SG-1 or X-Files), where standalone episodes are a regular format), and TV shows where, no matter how good they are, standalone episodes stay an exception. (I haven't watched Mythic Quest, so I don't know in which 'category' it would go.) Could that issue be discussed in the same article or would that fact call for two separate ones? – Gavroche5 years ago
Paranormal television encompasses the genre of "reality" television that focuses on ghosts and other spooky phenomena. Analyze the history and relevance of "ghost hunting" television shows and address a few reasons why the genre's popularity persists. How do these shows mesh reality television with history, travel, and detective/crime genres?
Good topic! You might also explore the way paranormal phenomena and hauntings are presented in cultures across these shows. For example, there is a show called Amish Haunting. There're also shows featuring haunted places in different parts of America, where the ghosts and hauntings take different "shapes." For instance, New Orleans has voodoo and Marie Laveau; New England has Salem and the witch trials; the Southeast tends toward "Southern Gothic" and so forth. – Stephanie M.5 years ago
Centuries ago, people who were "different" in any way–those with visible disabilities, facial deformities or marks, extreme obesity, or other conditions–often found "employment" in circuses and sideshows. They were ridiculed as freaks and shut out from society, and we now look back at their plights as an ultimate example of humanity's inhumanity. We say we are too well-informed, too "politically correct," to parade people around for entertainment any longer.
Yet, we also have reality television. These days, the "freak show" looks more like documentaries chronicling the lives of little people, large fundamentalist families, people who have broken away from extreme forms of religion or cults, and yes, the extremely obese or thin again. We also have documentaries that place miserably failing restaurants, hotels, and other businesses on display, mostly so the hosts can be lauded for saving them and the business owners, who are implicitly understood to be careless or stupid.
Some reality shows are much gentler than others, doing their best to present their subjects with dignity and as real, three-dimensional people. Discouragingly though, the shows that seem to pull in the ratings and the viewers are the same ones that invite viewers to gawk and ridicule.
Why is this? Is the nature of reality TV itself to present the most unusual of humanity at people's expense–that is, is there nothing to be done about it? What does it say about us as humans that we continue to consume and enjoy this entertainment? Discuss.
Some examples you might use:
-The filthiest and most rundown establishments on Hotel Impossible or Restaurant " " -The shower scenes of My 600-Lb Life, which viewers and reviewers often call "the obligatory shower scene" (they're often part of drinking games) -The most extreme or scary-looking cults in documentaries -The controversy and scandal surrounding the Duggar family, including the marriages of grown daughters and resulting spin-off series -Places featured on documentaries like Most Terrifying Places in America, Ghost Adventures, etc.
As someone born with disabilities, and was going to see how how the disabled are portrayed in books and films, i support this topic! On Facebook and many channels on Youtube post these outlandish stories about the unusual or disabled people and ending the story with no possitive outcome. We are then to only feel pity for them before we move on and click on another video showing the same type of content with giving a couple hearts and crying emojis to show our support. – Amelia Arrows5 years ago
Good topic. I was expecting mention of Hoarders!
I'm not sure that the final item in the list at the end of your topic -- about Most Terrifying Places in America and Ghost Adventures -- fit with the other items in the list. The supernatural seems to me like a very different topic. – JamesBKelley5 years ago
Hoarders, yes. :) The paranormal stuff probably doesn't fit, on reflection. I included it because, depending on how people feel about the paranormal, they might malign believers as strange and "haunted" places as gimmick-y or places "normal" people shouldn't be. But yes, Hoarders or Hoarding: Buried Alive would fit much better. – Stephanie M.5 years ago
I really like this topic! There's something about society's fascination with the "other" and how we tend to interact with it in a one-sided relationship -- think circus freak shows. How have reality tv shows and things like YouTube broadened our awareness of the "other" and what work does it do to embrace the "other" into society, or otherwise ostracize it further? Should the focus be on integration/assimilation into society, or can folks with disabilities/abilities be more celebrated for creating their own communities? How can able-bodied people respect these marginalized groups? I'm super interested in this topic, and I would eagerly read a piece about it it. – Eden5 years ago
I am no sport fan, but I do like watching a good half time show. Yet Sunday's game had the female dancers and singers do a lot of sexual suggestive dancing. While I under stand that is the type of dance people do today, I could not help but wonder does this go against feminism? (The fact that the girls are half naked, and are to dance in a way that flaunts their bodies to charge the male audience) Or is it empowering? (Allowing the women to dresss whatever they want to wear and do whatever they want to do.) What do you think?
I think what was empowering was that two women were working together as Latinas. Media portrayals tend to be stereotypical of Latin women which are very offensive. Also female singers are often portrayed as divas who can't play nice with each other. I found it refreshing and loved it!
– Munjeera5 years ago
The Super Bowl is tricky because any attempts it makes to empower women also have to take into account the fact that its primary audience is chiefly male, and plan accordingly. At the end of the day, scantily-clad women sell, and at least these women are star performers whose talents people can appreciate and admire. – Debs5 years ago
The Superbowl doesn't care about feminism - it is merely a tool, a front, used to appeal to the audience. Popular culture has distorted the meaning of feminism to a point where blatantly sexual content is labelled as "empowering" while it is still used to generate wealth for powerful men. In short, the labels on these concepts have been swapped around, but in the end, the goal remains the same: money. – RafayMughal5 years ago
Out of the scope of The Artifice. – T. Palomino2 years ago
At the time I loved the new Star Trek movies. They were exciting, full of space travel, linked to nostalgia and full of "larger than life" characters. However, a re-watch of these was almost as painful as re-watching the Fast and the Furious series; instead of vivid I realised the characters were one-dimensional, stereotyped, almost all white and when I actually took note of the ridiculous 70s dresses of the women, actually quite insulting.
Now this realisation did not occur randomly, this was the result of returning to re-watch the films after completing the TV series Star Trek Discovery – and what I discovered was that the films lived up to the franchise (hated by fans, full of over blown situations and lacking the depth of storytelling in the shows). Now with the launch of Star Trek Picard I am blown away by the commitment to storytelling in both the shows. The focus is on personal growth, the difficulty of sticking to your convictions, taking responsibility for your actions, understanding the complexity of dealing with people (human and alien) and it is committed to showing diversity.
I think there is a lot in the new Star Treks that is showing the way forward for all TV – in a post MeToo world, in a post Black Panther world, it is not acceptable to continue to show narrow stereotyped, outdated and offensive perspectives. We often talk about the power of pop-culture and mainstream entertainment because it does offer a platform to not only reflect the world, but offer paths to change. This is a lot of lauding and pressure to place on a set of sci-fi TV shows, but I think Star Trek has more to teach us, even if it is just a better commitment to storytelling. What do you think?
After the widespread critical success of Breaking Bad, it appears to me that many other shows popped up that carried the same type of quality, not just of filmography and acting, but of writing as well. Take for example, the Walking Dead, West World, Game of Thrones, just to name a few. Few shows can boast the same critical reception of Breaking Bad, but before then, the most well written and high-quality show that comes to my mind was the Sopranos, which even then falls short of the same quality. In my limited observation, it appears that TV shows, which had traditionally been regarded as lower quality and lower complexity than film, theater, or literature, experienced a boom in both the quantity and quality of its TV shows. Does this observation have any merit? Am I making assumption based simply on my own, limited experience with TV? Did Breaking Bad really change the quality of TV the viewers have come to expect? What other, perhaps more minor or hidden effects did the success of the show have on the industry?
"Quality" needs to be defined first, with supportive ideas and objective and measurable examples. Otherwise, yes, you are only making assumptions. – T. Palomino10 months ago
