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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Introduction (To Emotional Expressionism), E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Introduction (To Emotional Expressionism), E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Faculty Publications: Communication
The primary purpose of Emotional Expressionism: Television Serialization, The Melodramatic Mode, and Socioemotionality is to explore the forms, functions, and nuances of emotions in popular, mediated narratives. Clearly, emotions constitute a key means by which audiences experience and make sense of narrative media, in that mediated stories make compelling arguments or take up resonant positions through their emotional methods and meanings. The value of developing an emotional template for screen media lies in generating new analytical and interpretative approaches to narrative aesthetics, especially in terms of their pains and pleasures. As this study seeks to demonstrate, emotional analysis opens up …
Victims, Heroes, And Villains: Imaginary Beings In Contemporary Television Serials, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Victims, Heroes, And Villains: Imaginary Beings In Contemporary Television Serials, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Faculty Publications: Communication
This chapter traces melodrama’s historical triumvirate of characters – victims, heroes, and villains – to examine how they are applied in contemporary television serial dramas. Looking in particular at the examples of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, the author argues that the characterological trio now often exists within singular protagonists who follow a narrative trajectory from victim through hero to arrive, ultimately, at villainy. Collapsing the characterological triad into single protagonists marks a late modern version of melodrama in which the possibilities for heroism are circumscribed, leaving characters able to opt only for victimization or villainy.
Ensemble Storytelling: Dramatic Television Seriality, The Melodramatic Mode, And Emotions, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Ensemble Storytelling: Dramatic Television Seriality, The Melodramatic Mode, And Emotions, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Faculty Publications: Communication
This chapter considers seriality in contemporary television dramas in light of arguments that most popular culture falls within melodrama as modality (to include legal shows, police and detective programs, westerns, and medical series), instead of narrow genres, such as soap operas. The recent success of fully serialized dramas is a noteworthy development, producing highly popular and highly regarded programming. The traditions of melodrama, including its deep commitment to the uses of emotionality, address story worlds and audiences in terms of social relations, in contrast to psychological realism’s more individualized and inward turning tendencies. “Ensemble Storytelling” explores three specific strategies available …
How 9/11 Changed The Movies: The Tony Scott Barometer, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
How 9/11 Changed The Movies: The Tony Scott Barometer, E. Deidre Pribram Ph.D.
Faculty Publications: Communication
In an essay written some years ago on the 1945 film, Mildred Pierce, Linda Williams raises the intriguing question, why does the narrative frequently allude to but refrains from ever specifically mentioning World War II (22)? Williams’ assessment is that certain films are capable of addressing the most significant political events of the era in ways they could not have had they chosen to use direct depictions (24). Released in October 1945, following the end of U.S. involvement in the war, Mildred Pierce coincided with a period of demobilization and the economic and social reintegration of the returning American, largely …