Admittedly, most my procrastination from my assignments comes from TV shows. Even for this blog, I’ve been watching The Walking Dead like crazy, and I just can’t seem to stop! (6 seasons in 3 weeks anyone!? & let me say, I would lay down hands to protect my boy Carl over here… yes I know what happens…) But back on track, TV shows is a fairly new phenomenon that has indulged our lives with hours and hours of endless entertainment.
As a female teenager, living in Australia also, I am fairly influenced what to watch by my peers, ads that I may see on social media, or even I may just be following a trending TV show to be on the ‘in’ crowd. The TV shows an individual may watch can actually influence the people they may associate with or may not. For example, younger generations have recently had the trend of Game of Thrones.
It was wildly popular since season 1, and as a generation who are already extremely group minded, if someone was to not watch this show, they may be excluded or they may not want to associate with people who like it. Silly, yes it sounds but it can be one small yet large defining factor that influences their decisions. Millions of people watched the show, breaking records of television – especially the ‘how many main characters can kill in one episode record. As said by Sheffield, writer for the Rolling Stone, “Game of Thrones can blend big and tiny moments like nothing else on TV. Six years after it invented a whole new style of small-screen storytelling” (Sheffield, 2017)
Television shows are globalised worldwide and this means that they are open to various forms of interpretation. A good example of this is the show The Office. Many seem to believe they know your entire personality and life story depending on which version of the Office you watch. The American remake or the original British Version. Jeffrey Griffin wrote a paper, on the Americanisation of The Office, His paper exploring how exactly the ‘quintessential’ British comedy was adapted for an American audience, and how unlike most British to American remakes, it succeeded in the remake, possibly even more successful than the original, with a total of an extra 7 more seasons than the British original, which had 2. (Griffin, 2009) Many believe it could be because it still manages to maintain its key elements of the show, being its fake documentary camera style, edgy humour, lack of a laugh track and including the culture it is from. The Office is a great example of how a TV show can travel the globe, change audiences and yet still remain successful when holding the original values and key elements of the show.
So, while guiltily watching Netflix instead of doing your work, think about how the show you may be watching has travelled the globe and how it can influence the audiences that watch it!
Till next time,
Alex 🙂
References
Sheffield, R. (2017). How the ‘Game’ Changed Everything. Rolling Stone, (1291/1292), pp.50-53.
Griffin, J. (2009). The Americanization of The Office: A Comparison of the Offbeat NBC Sitcom and its British Predecesor. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 35(4), pp.154-163.
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