For this task you are required towrite and record a spoken segment of textual analysis (i.e. an audio commentary) for a short (5-6 minute) clip from the following series:Squid Game.
Your audio commentary must be informed by 1 scholarly reading. Itshould present one or two key ideas from this reading and demonstrate through close textual analysis how the clip can be interpreted to support or challenge the author’s point(s).Your script should be around 750 words. Possible features for comment include:
● Mise-en-scene
● Character performance and dialogue
● Camera movement
● Editing
● Lighting
● Sound and music
Use the reading by Glen Creeber (“Shot-by-shot Analysis”) to guide you in analysing these textual features and refer to the Rubric to understand how you will be assessed.
978-3-319-94316-9_12.pdf 12 THE TRANSNATIONAL AND DOMESTICATION: NETFLIX TEXTS 225 challenges television faces in light of Twitter and other social media. Netflix is hardly the first, or only, broadcaster to recognise and react to problems arising from time lags. As Ward notes, other broadcasters, par- ticularly in the UK, where no translation of American texts is necessary, have long recognised and aimed to work against this: Sky Atlantic has worked from 2011 to allow British viewers to watch new episodes of HBO shows almost at the same time as they aired in the United States (2016, 224–6). Thus, the way global time lags affect media discourse and may even increase piracy have been recognised by the industry in general and even motivated the development of the catch-up services dis- cussed in Chapter 5. Netflix takes full advantage of its own technological condition as online platform, but also its corporate model where simul- taneous release does not impede profit or complicate trade with transna- tional partners. As discussed in the next chapter, viewers have generally avoided Netflix’ forays into building an experience akin to social media. Nevertheless, the binge model clearly responds to the conditions of time for popular culture in a transnational networked society. Though social media may not be enough to fully explain the binge model it serves to help understand how viewers may perceive its benefits. Nevertheless, it is only one method through which Netflix employs and promotes transnationalism. A GRAMMAR OF TRANSNATIONALISM The binge model serves to standardise time for transnational viewers by making texts available on the same day. Yet, this publication model is relatively worthless if texts cannot be shared across borders. Of course, imported texts are hardly new to transnational audiences. Nevertheless, transnational texts—whether imported texts on linear television or Netflix’ in-house productions—need to formulate some sort of transna- tional appeal. Bielby and Harrington discuss four strategies in which con- tent is made more viable for export markets: constructing narratives that decentre programmes away from the nation or culture of origin, forms of storytelling, with an emphasis on serial and series storytelling, attempts to appeal to minority audiences, and programming decisions that often privilege international over national revenue. Bielby and Harrington point out that, at the point of their study: 226 M. JENNER …while TV producers do not traditionally create programming solely for the export market, in the current economic climate they are motivated to develop programs and program concepts that speak to both local and global audiences. (2008, 89, italics in the original) Yet, as transnational broadcaster, it is imperative for Netflix to produce texts with a transnational appeal. The transnational market precedes any notions of a national market or the concept of cultural exports. Though all four strategies are employed by Netflix, this study will specifically focus on the first one of these strategies, the way content is created with what Bielby and Harrington call a ‘global-local’ appeal. Arguably, for- mulating this transnational appeal is more important to Netflix than to national broadcasters, for which national audiences remain the primary market. This ‘grammar of transnationalism‘—to invert Mihelj’s concept of ‘grammars of nationhood’—is heavily influenced by an assumed ‘uni- versality’ western cultural value systems claim for themselves, even if this may be marked by a western cultural imperialism and may be understood differently in some regions. As Iwabuchi notes, …the historical process of globalization has not simply produced the Westernization of the world. Its impact on the constitution of the world is much more heterogenous and contradictory. (2002, location 342) Within these heterogenous understandings of western value systems, Netflix, as transnational broadcaster, has to create a transnational appeal. As Netflix’ in-house productions play an increasingly significant role for the company, these need to successfully formulate their own ‘grammar of transnationalism’. Thus, the focus here is necessarily on perceived com- monalities rather than differences. Television has often been accused of playing to ‘the lowest common denominator’ within a national context. This is not easily translated to a transnational landscape. Instead, Netflix invests largely in relatively high- budget programming that conforms to a concept of ‘quality’ mostly guided by HBO in the late 1990s and early 2000s (see Chapter 8). Aside from the dominance of the American market for Netflix, this link- age between ‘quality’ television and American television heavily informs Netflix production. Thus, US programmes outnumber non-US pro- grammes by far. All of Netflix’ in-house productions carry traces of ‘the nation’, whether they are American or originated elsewhere. Whether 12 THE TRANSNATIONAL AND DOMESTICATION: NETFLIX TEXTS 227 through language or cultural specificity, they remain geographically and ideologically bound. The last chapter noted how the decentred media complicates notions of ‘our’ history, culture, nation, ethnic group, art, food, etc. These elements remain important. At the same time, Netflix‘ in-house productions also formulate a ‘grammar of transnationalism’. Unlike domestic broadcasters that seek domestic appeal first and trans- national appeal second, Netflix formulates its transnationalism from the outset. Some strategies are considered here through which a ‘gram- mar of transnationalism‘ expresses this tension between ‘nation’ and transnationalism. One aspect of this is genre. Though ‘quality’ TV often re-invents or eschews genre, Netflix’ reliance on algorithms of genre, as discussed in Chapter 7, means that this often does not apply to Netflix. Instead, it often employs genres associated with ‘quality’ or serious subject mat- ter.3 Examples of this are political thrillers with House of Cards, Marseille (Netflix, 2016–) or Ingobernable (Netflix, 2017–), that all fall into a notion of ‘quality’ TV. The Mexican Club de Cuervos is a parody of tel- enovelas and, at once, addresses a Mexican national audience by drawing on the national media history and a transnational audience familiar with Mexican exports. As Mexico is the most dominant exporter of cultural products in Latin America, this market is significant. It also employs a genre associated with ‘low culture’, but by parodying it positions itself as ‘quality’ comedy, assuming a superiority to it. Another example is British costume drama The Crown, which depicts the early years of the reign of Queen Elisabeth II and her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Aside from genre, the text also works well as an example of how Netflix dis- rupts the idea of history as ‘ours’. The Crown was produced in Britain and features largely British actors. Some of these, such as former Doctor of Doctor Who, Matt Smith or Jared Harris, known from Mad Men or Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Ritchie, 2011), enjoy international recognisability. The series is, of course, not the first film or TV series that dramatises the life of the British royal family and received interna- tional acclaim. In fact, the series often relies heavily on the dramatisation of the family in The King’s Speech (Hooper, 2010), set at the eve of the Second World War, in its address of a transnational audience. Netflix’ decision to produce The Crown may also be framed in the context of the 3 The sitcoms discussed in Chapter 8 are an exception to this, though they are also more nationally bound than other genres. 228 M. JENNER international success of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–5), another period drama that fictionalises twentieth-century British history. As the interna- tional success of Downton Abbey indicates, British history can sell in trans- national territories where British history is not ‘our’ history. The Crown is largely concerned with palace intrigue and the story of a young woman who is trying to assert herself as a public figure and in her relationship with her husband, who struggles with the power his wife holds. This aligns it with Downton Abbey and The King’s Speech, which often focus on more ‘private’ concerns over broader political contexts.4 To relate this analysis back to Couldry, the ‘point of origin’ for The Crown is unclear: a British production, the series was commissioned and is distributed by Netflix. Actors are mostly British, but a historical figure as important as Winston Churchill is played by American actor John Lithgow. Its narra- tive often eschews more controversial aspects of British history (in par- ticular in relation to colonialism) in favour of ‘the personal’, suggesting that its main concern is not to deal with British history for the sake of a British public, but rather to address dramatic preferences of a trans- national audience that prefers British costume drama. In line with this, the series emphasises the visual spectacle of elaborate sets and costumes. Thus, the series is devised in a manner to make its ‘travel’ easier. By fol- lowing conventions of recent British costume dramas, engaging with history without politicising it, genre functions as a central marker of the ‘grammar of transnationalism’. Another example of using genre to drama- tise history within a ‘grammar of transnationalism’ comes from American fantasy drama Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016–). The fantasy elements allow the series to avoid discussing American domestic or foreign poli- tics in the 1980s and even provide an opportunity for revisionist gender politics. The series is American and depicts a specific period in American history. Nevertheless, its version of history is decidedly postmodern and often seems more like a reworking of 1980s Hollywood films. Stand by Me (Reiner, 1986) or The Goonies (Donner, 1985) function as the most obvious reference points. Stranger Things presents visual signifiers of the past, particularly technology, and its fantasy and horror elements high- light the hyperreality of the text: producing signifiers without referents in the real world, as suggested by Baudrillard (1994). The text fits neatly 4 The term ‘private’ sphere is used here to describe private or domestic concerns rather than actual ‘private’ spaces. The subject matter of the texts usually blurs these boundaries in a profound manner, though the conflicts often remain surprisingly domestic in nature. 12 THE TRANSNATIONAL AND DOMESTICATION: NETFLIX TEXTS 229 into conceptions of postmodern texts, presenting intertextuality and ref- erencing a readily available (Hollywood) cinema history. Another refer- ence point is the (also translocal) history of technology. Through this decentring of history, Netflix neglects constructions of a specifically American history. Thus, the idea of ‘our’ nation or history is neglected in favour of more transnational (cinema) history, functioning as an exam- ple of decentred media. Both, The Crown and Stranger Things use genre