A COMPARISON OF POPULAR TV IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH SPEAKING SOCIETIES: Soaps, Sci-Fi, Sitcoms, Adult Cartoons, and Cult Series

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Year:
Pages:276
ISBN:0-7734-3595-6
978-0-7734-3595-7
Price:$199.95 + shipping
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This work is an interdisciplinary collection of essays by Spanish speaking authors
that analyzes television fiction as it is experienced in the Spanish-speaking market.
Comparisons are made to the productions launched in the USA during the Third Golden Age of TV Fiction.

Reviews

“. . . highly original in that it recognizes the importance of transnational dynamics in television, dealing with issues of production, generic categories, and questions of experience in different consumer cultures.”
-Prof. Sabine Coelsch-Foisner
Universität Salzburg


From the Foreword: “ . . .[This book] serves as an excellent road map to a dynamic and rapidly changing field which deserves to be better known in Spain and abroad.”
­-Prof. Paul Julian Smith
University of Cambridge


Author’s Abstract:
In a time when sociology is experiencing an obvious ‘cultural turn’ and the humanities seem to be caving in to what might be seen as a ‘social turn’, a new concern for the subjective experience of everyday life has begun to displace the concentration on canonical literary texts. In this context, the everyday medium of television plays a vital role, the study of which will necessarily be based on both inter- disciplinarity and inter-culturality. This is precisely where this volume comes in, as a bridge of sorts between disciplines and cultures, offering a pioneering approach within the field of television and cultural studies that combines both close textual analysis of content and detailed empirical study of corporate mentalities and viewers’ attitudes.

Crucially, these interdisciplinary bridges are also intercultural. Thus we are given Spanish scholars’ analyzes of US TV fiction but also their accounts of the distinctive reception of that fiction in Spain, as well as interesting case studies of some of the latest TV fiction produced in that country (in turn often based on highly domesticated formulas first tried in the USA). As a result, not the least of the virtues of this collection of essays is that it offers English-speaking readers not only a glimpse into the dark continent of Spanish-language television, but also a salutary view of how Spanish-speakers experience the US TV that, in spite of the remarkable rise of local content, remains so globally visible.

Table of Contents

Foreword:
Professor Paul Julian Smith

Chapter 1:
Introduction. Cuéntame cómo pasó. When ‘Popular’ Culture Entered Academia
José Igor Prieto Arranz and Patricia Trapero Llobera

Chapter 2:
Gimmick TV: Narrative Tricks and US Quality Television Series
Concepción Cascajosa Virino

Chapter 3:
The World of The Simpsons and The Simpsons in the World
María Dolores Narbona Carrión

Chapter 4:
Old Fears, New US TV Fiction: ‘It’ and ‘The Other’
Patricia Trapero Llobera and Martí Martorell Fiol

Chapter 5:
US Cult TV Series in the International Market: Considering the Reception of The X-Files in Spain
Sara Martín Alegre

Chapter 6:
(Re)elaboration and (Re)signification of US TV Drama in Spanish Serial Fiction: The Case of Mujeres
María Isabel Menéndez Menéndez

Chapter 7:
Spanish Sitcom and the Spanish ImagiNation. The Cases of 7 vidas and Aquí no hay quien viva
José Igor Prieto Arranz

Chapter 8:
The Dramaturgy of the Comic Actor on Television. The Case of Aída
Martí Bienvenido Fons Sastre

Chapter 9:
Rebelde: Breaking Old Paradigms and Building New Stereotypes of Fat Young Women in Mexican Soap Operas
Tania Meza Escorza

Chapter 10:
By Way of Conclusion, or Transnational Television Studies in the 21st Century
Marta Fernández Morales

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