Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: emotion, engagements and orientation
- Dedication
- Introduction: why study television?
- Part One Theoretical background
- Part Two Case studies
- 6 A Sentimental Journey: writing emotion in television
- 7 ‘There's No Place Like Home’: emotional exposure, excess and empathy on TV
- 8 Emotional Rescue: The Sopranos (HBO 1999–2007), ER (NBC 1994–) and State of Play (BBC1 2003)
- 9 Feminising Television: the Mother Role in Six Feet Under (HBO 2001–6) and Brothers & Sisters (ABC 2006–)
- 10 Researching Emotion in Television: a small-scale case study of emotion in the UK/Irish soap industry
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - A Sentimental Journey: writing emotion in television
from Part Two - Case studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: emotion, engagements and orientation
- Dedication
- Introduction: why study television?
- Part One Theoretical background
- Part Two Case studies
- 6 A Sentimental Journey: writing emotion in television
- 7 ‘There's No Place Like Home’: emotional exposure, excess and empathy on TV
- 8 Emotional Rescue: The Sopranos (HBO 1999–2007), ER (NBC 1994–) and State of Play (BBC1 2003)
- 9 Feminising Television: the Mother Role in Six Feet Under (HBO 2001–6) and Brothers & Sisters (ABC 2006–)
- 10 Researching Emotion in Television: a small-scale case study of emotion in the UK/Irish soap industry
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
If I go to the cinema to watch something and I've not been moved … and laughed out loud, I feel cheated really, to be honest with you, that's part of the experience of going to the cinema and also when I'm watching TV, I'm the most greedy television viewer that you can think of, because I want everything, that's why I write like that, because that's what I want, I want that journey.
(Kay Mellor 13/6/05)In the introduction to Passionate Views: Film, Cognition and Emotion, Carl Plantinga and Greg M. Smith remind us that one of the primary reasons why people go to the cinema is to ‘feel something’ (1999a: 1). Indeed, in an advertisement for FilmFour the voice-over reiterates this notion by promising us that we, as viewers, will ‘be moved’ by moments in the films they have chosen. A movie's ability to move audiences emotionally is crucial to their success, and yet, as Plantinga and Smith point out, it is one of the least explored topics within film studies (1999a: 1). This claim is even more apt for television studies, where a programme's ability to ‘move’ audiences is not critically valued or discussed.
And yet, as Mellor suggests, people often go to the cinema or watch television in order to experience a ‘journey’, one that provides an emotional and intellectual engagement with the story that unfolds. This emotional ‘journey’ is not just what makes a film or television programme successful but it is also, I shall argue, what makes them ‘good’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Media AudiencesTelevision, Meaning and Emotion, pp. 89 - 99Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009