Television: Rendering Familiar the Strange

Television is a powerful social force. Through the encoding, preservation and manipulation of “symbolic representations of knowledge” (Livingstone 91), it can enter inaccessible worlds, highlight issues and communicate norms, rules, and ideologies. Building on nature documentaries – a genre that seeks to tame the chaos of wilderness into manageable narrative images – I hope to show how television normalizes what it presents. This paper will explore how these representations of knowledge enable television to assimilate and render familiar the strange. This two-pronged ‘way of knowing’, I argue, develops televisions ubiquity and familiarity while reaffirming its place as a mediator of culture capable of normalizing and investigating the knowledge it displays.

Clip 1: BBC Life - The Venus Fly Trap

Footage of Life, a BBC One documentary of Earth’s varied habitats, reveals how television can ensnare us with the exotic even as it tames and renders it ordinary. Carnivorous plants are rare in the world, yet their unique ability to “hunt” and consume prey has made them objects of fascination. Like the Venus Fly Trap in this clip, television ensnares us through the allure of what John Ellis calls “its ability to bear witness” (31). We are not sure what we are witnessing as soft violins beckon the viewer into the scene, but television quickly informs us (sec 10). Through the narrator’s direct address, the viewer is provided a sense of“liveliness” and “co-presence”, as we are guided into a nature that is “intimate and domestic” rather than “hostile and distant” (Ellis 32). The motion of the camera encircling the Venus Fly Trap reinforces televisions reassuring presence (sec 50), explaining what we see from all angles. It also gives the impression of an ambush, an appropriate image as the prey - a fly - lands on its hunter. The sound effect of a ticking timer (sec 1:12) introduces not only the mechanisms by which the plant captures its target, but also the ways television ensnares the viewer. Heightened anticipationand dramatic music create “feelings of proximity” that evoke liveliness in what we are viewing (Ellis 35). An extreme close-up (sec 2:05) seals a double ensnarement, that of the fly and that of the viewer, who is by now fully caught up in the act of witnessing. Little thought is given to the fact this may be an illusion, as we fail to realize the studio can provide simulacra of place and events (Ellis 32), and frequently does in nature documentaries. Yet by the narrativization of events and direct address, television also provides a space for us to process. As John Ellis writes, television “attempts definitions, tries out explanations, and makes intelligible” (79) so that we are able to integrate and render familiar what we have seen. By explaining the exotic, television tames it, protecting the viewer and giving the impression it has the capacity to manage what is seemingly unmanageable: nature and reality.

Clip 2: Conan O' Brian - American Express Ad

Television can also provide “symbolic representations” of the exotic through advertisements, using figures of “authority” to construct and promote particular products and worldviews. Just as Judge Judy draws from the “symbolic authority of the state” - the courthouse, the U.S flag, and a gavel-wielding judge - (Oullette 224) to promote a neoliberal society, this ad draws on the popularity of a late-night comedian and shared assumptions of economic dynamo that is India, to implicitly legitimize a globalized, economically interdependent world, an image very much in line with the product being advertising: American Express. With opening shots of forts and cultural landmarks, the clip takes the visual form of a documentary, it’s premise a trip to Jaipur, India as Conan searches for the finest materials to make curtains for his new show. A contrast between two cultures - a tall, gangly westerner walking against a current of short turbaned men and robed women (sec 06) - is bridged when in broken Hindi, Conan demonstrates detailed knowledge of fabrics. This humorous act (sec 14), notbelievable on the face of it, reassures us we are in still in the familiar world of comedy. Playing off Conan’s obsession to detail, a subtle characteristic of the humor of his show, television references itself to develop the themes of the ad. Stereotypical representations of India: haggling (sec 46), using a loom to weave fabric (sec 1:06) and elephant ride in traffic to the tune of Bollywood(sec 1:24) are made easier to relate to as Conan entertainingly performs them. While Judge Judy’s “stern demeanor and camera shots from below accentuate her power” and lend authority to her neoliberal resolutions (Ouellette 230), housewives waving (sec 1:24) and a gossip session with the local washing ladies (sec 1:30), lend Conan a similar sort of “authority”, this time cultural. By the time we hear the AMEX slogan “If you are really serious about entertainment, every detail counts” (sec 1:50), the viewer has become “familiar” with India through our familiarity with Conan. Nonetheless, while showcasing its diversity and economic possibilities, this ad creates a picturesque image of India that obscures less glamorous aspects like poverty and caste and gender discrimination, etc., just as Judge Judy “emphasizes individual shortcomings over societal complexities and inequalities” (Ouellette 228). Narrating the exciting origins of silk curtains through Conan O’ Brian, this ad legitimizes an ideology of a globalized world, in which to find the best commodities we must go to exotic places, a story that makes American Express more compelling but is only the half of it.

Clip 3: Modern Family

Television can also normalize certain societal values through the encoding and circulating of “representations of knowledge” that informs how viewers come to know about the world, including their place in it (Livingstone 92). Just as shows like Leave it to Beaver presented normative visions of what constitutes an ideal suburban family in the 60’s and 70’s, current programs like Modern Family attempts to make similar claims. It does so through what Livingstone calls “mediated knowledge” whereby televisions “recognition of the familiar or legitimation of the known” give it the ability to not just to explore the new but alsoto “legitimize the hitherto marginalized” (97). This mechanism is apparent in Modern Family. However, whereas the sitcom family is familiar “because it resembles our own”, reinforcing assumptions and offering the pleasure of the familiar (Livingstone 99), Modern Family is unique because it offers a challenge to these images, as non-traditional portrayals coexist alongside normative reproductions of the typical family.

In this clip, Gloria - married to a divorced older man, Jay - reaffirms traditional expectations of a Latina in the US, as an exotic, hyper-sexualized figure, accent and all (Sec 10). At the same time, her son Manny is portrayed as a near genius, smarter than everyonearound him. Jay’s character often reinforces and contrasts these two competing expectations, as in this clip where he claims he’ll teach them real chess (sec 40). Direct address, is foundational to this text, invoking the discursive elements of the documentary to explain and emphasize certain emotions or behaviors (sec 58, 1:20), adding a patina of realism and“personal” knowledge and justification, which Livingstone says is “routinely excluded from the sitcom genre” (98). Mitchell and Cameron, a gay couple, are, in many ways, also the most traditional. When they fear a man entered their child’s room, we see how they respond with a bat and absolute resolve; only to with fulfill stereotypes with exaggerated gestures and the phrase “If a Spider had broken in here, he would have been in trooouble” (sec 1:53). In all, Modern Family encapsulates well how television can “mediate knowledge” departing from a point of familiarity to embrace and normalize the exotic.

As the world becomes moreconnected, televisions ability to assimilate and normalize will continue to be crucial in creating shared experiences and perhaps even values to which we can all relate to. It is precisely this ability what has made it so ubiquitous, as we keep returning to television to access worlds from which we would otherwise be removed.