I will explore the medium of television on this page, defining the basic formula for how television functions and what separates ‘good’ from ‘bad’ television. I will then explore the creation of the soap opera and how it is produced in the Anglo and Spanish worlds. Finally, we will look at the inclusion of minorities into television, and how they are portrayed in soap operas in the United States.
UNDERSTANDING THE MEDIUM OF TELEVISION
The first discipline we will look at is television studies, and how television works. The study of television as an academic discipline is relatively new. Beginning in the early 1990s, scholars begin to look at the socio-cultural effects from television. The leading scholar in defining television as a narrative form is Chris Barker. Barker argues in his book, Global Television, that the medium of television creates identity production and communicates this identity through news and shows: “television is primarily a narrative form, a story-telling form which resonates with an audience, and narratives are the way in which this society speaks to itself, the way in which the individual must live to be accepted here” (Barker 47).
Therefore, television provides media which is reflective of current society – through programs like news and soap operas. Barker contends that there is good and bad television. Good television is where identity production is created and communicated clearly to the audience. An example of this would entail a person watching a soap opera: if the watcher is able to understand the personality of a television character through the character’s actions and encounters – the watcher has been able to summarize how the character acts through watching the life of the character. This is identity production – the main goal of television. An example of bad television would not include any kind of identification between the audience and the character.
The next concept Barker explains is genre in television. Genre represents the “systemizations and repetitions of problems, and solutions in narratives” (Barker 74). Genre acts as mediator to control the tension between differences and similarities inherent in television. Thus, people use genre to balance storylines in television media. Barker continues on how genre is classified in three separate approaches: the aesthetic, ritual and ideological. He states that the aesthetic approach “defines genre in terms of a system of conventions that permits expression within certain bounds,” whereas ritual sees genre as “an exchange between industry and audience on a shared and negotiated terrain,” and finally ideological which stresses “the role genre plays in policing meaning and reproducing ideology” (Barker 75-76). So, the aesthetic looks at how characters and places interact to create genre. Ritual approach would entail viewing how relative the storyline and character is to its audience to create genre. Ideological approach would then classify genre by how the character makes his/her choices and morals. Again, genre is pertinent in classifying how the narrative of the television program is characterized by theme to the audience.
The final concept Barker explores is cultural hybridization. Barker divides culture into two parts – Introverted and Translocal. Introverted culture is when two distinct cultural traditions are kept separate. Therefore, if a character is Caucasian on television, the character is not classified as European or Spanish. The character simply remains White, not belonging to any other culture but one. Translocal culture would then be the opposite, “where two distinct cultural traditions merge” (Barker 198). Thus, if a character is Caucasian on television, the character is classified as British-American, or Spanish-American rather than White – meaning that the character is identified with more than one culture. Hybridization is the name for this phenomenon of culture on TV – where culture is created and/or refined to another culture. Barker explains that television must incorporate cultural hybridization into media for two purposes: 1) to help create identity production and 2) create a greater relativity between the character and its audience:
Television increases the sources and resources of identity production which can lead to a range of hybrid forms of identity; through the defensive production of fundamentalist identities is an equally significant outcome. The cultural impact of television is the consideration of cultural identification, action and influence. Post-traditional identity formation involves the production of multiple identities or identifications many of which have little bearing on questions of national identity (Barker 209).
To conclude with Barker, there are three concepts which make television ‘good’ television. The first is the creation of identity production, where an audience is presented with a character reflective of current society. Second, television must have genres to balance itself. There are three approaches to genre – aesthetic, ritual and ideological which force television to create a connection to the audience by means of the morals and ideals of the characters (ideological), relation between characters and places (aesthetic), and relation of characters in their storylines (ritual). Finally, television must present hybridization to help identify the character by having the characters represent one or more cultures. Barker explains that these three concepts distinguish what is good or bad television.
SOAP OPERA HISTORY IN THE SPANISH AND ANGLO WORLD
Soap operas are programs on television which “in Anglo-American and Latin American television, focus on interpersonal relationships” (Brooks 89). They focus on class, social mobility, freedom, choice, consumption and other themes of modernity. Historian Marla Brooks tracks the evolution of the US soap opera from its inception in 1946 to today’s soap opera. Writer Elizabeth Fox tracks the evolution of the Spanish soap opera in Mexico and Brazil. I felt it pertinent to understand the soap histories these two authors provide to explore how soap operas developed and transformed over time with society.
In Brooks’ The American Family on Television, we read about the first soap operas in the US. The radio had weekly programs on family during the 30s and 40s, but the first televised family came in January 1949 with The Goldberg’s. This soap and later soaps of the 1950s dealt mainly “with the working class, usually illustrating the first generation of Americans, who were always White” (Brooks 3). The 1960s coincided with high divorce rates among Americans. Therefore, soap operas of the 60s and 70s dealt with family dysfunction – sibling rivalry, abortion and divorce. The Mary Tyler Show of the 70s was “one of the first soaps to have a single female protagonist” (Brooks 6). Now, the idea of an expanded family with more or less parental units became commonplace. The 70s illustrated a significant change in the family unit; this decade marks the introduction of a real African-American experience with The Jeffersons. Here we see the introduction of the first minority protagonist and even more compelling, a surreal look at the lives of minorities in the US. On January 11, 1973, An American Family aired. This soap is the first program to tackle controversial topics such as homosexuality, divorce, racism and infidelity. An American Family is also very important as “it is the first time homosexuality is presented with on TV with gay characters” (Brooks 230). By the 90s, “the American experience is no longer limited to a plain black and white experience” as soaps include more than just Caucasian and Black characters (Brooks 230). Television programs begin to have shows with Asians, Europeans, and Indians. Brooks argues in The American Family on Television that soap operas change according to the present social discourse of their time. Next to Brooks, I looked at Minorities in Media by Stephanie Larson to further investigate how minorities were assimilated into television. What we view in Minorities in Media is that until the 21st century – “Blacks, Hispanics and Asians are portrayed as fallible or corrupt characters in news, politics and entertainment” (Larson 57). She argues that even as minorities are presented in television, they are presented with preconceived personalities – stereotypical personalities. Both Larson and Brooks agree: television adopts popular discourse by injecting representative characters into television programming.
Elizabeth Fox looks at Spanish television in her book, Latin American Broadcasting: from Tango to Telenovela. Fox focuses on Mexico and Brazil, the two biggest producers of telenovelas and the timeline of the soaps in their respective countries. Fox states that Mexican telenovelas surface in the 60s when the “Mexican state early on formed a close relationship with private commercial broadcasters to create Televisa, the Mexican media monopoly which kept media and the country’s political leaders linked” (Fox 39). Therefore, soap operas appeared in the 60s as means of propaganda supporting political leaders. Into the 90s, Mexican soaps changed direction and looked more into beauty, and family power since the exit of the military dictatorships (Fox 42). Like Mexico, the “principal development of national broadcasting in Brazil was the relationship that developed between the industry and political leaders” (Fox 54). Brazil began showing soaps in 1964 under TV Globo – the military dictatorship broadcaster turned private company. Like Mexico and the US, Brazilian soaps changed and included societal programs as the years progressed. Fox’s argument suggests that Spanish soap operas have changed due also to societal issues – mainly the transition from military dictators to democracies which have a huge part in cinematography in Spanish soaps. Before, these soaps held mainly political messages – now they are more material, and focused on the family rather than the individual.
TELEVISION CONCLUSION
By looking at the medium of television, we see that it is highly depictive of society, communicates identity through character production, relates to its audience through hybridization, and is largely based off of reality, as international soap operas illustrate. We also have found that there is a criterion to good and bad television. The inherent arguments: television reinforces societal issues through media by narrative (Barker); television matches and projects the popular discourse of its respective time period (Brooks); media displays preconceived representations of minorities (Larson); and finally, Spanish soaps have all emerged from political propaganda to the societal issue of present day (Fox). I hope to further refine these three arguments and apply them to understand the replication of stereotypes in these telenovelas.
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