AustLit logo

AustLit

y separately published work icon Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies periodical issue   peer reviewed assertion
Alternative title: Transnational Television Remakes
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... vol. 29 no. 5 2015 of Continuum : Journal of Media and Cultural Studies est. 1987 Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2015 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Television Format Traffic-public Service Style, Albert Moran , single work criticism

'Beginning in 1998, there has been an explosion in the flow of television programme formats worldwide witnessing to the advent of a global television system for programme production and distribution. In fact, this kind of programme adaptation and remaking had a long gestation that reaches back even before the beginnings of regular television broadcasting to the early 1940s. Media scholars were very slow over the subsequent half-century to register what was taking place, let alone inquire into its dynamics and critical significance. If programme remaking was noticed at all, it was understood in high culture terms as confirmation of crassness and materialism operating in commercial television. Critical research added a further charge of media imperialism to describe the supposed national and social outcomes of such a practice. However, since the 1990s, scholarly inquiry has affected a seachange in its engagement with the phenomenon of television programme remaking that was prompted not least by a realisation that its commercial and cultural operations and consequences are more interesting, intriguing, and multi-dimensional than was earlier thought. In this context, three programme format transfers that happened between the UK and Australia in the 1960s are examined. The three sets of programme transfer constitute a rich, engaging area of analysis for several reasons including the fact that they were ‘live’ programme formats whereas their exchange took place in a public service context, the latter being a sector that usually falls under the critical radar. Drawing connections of this kind across an imperial cultural space can make a significant contribution to transnational television history from a comparative Anglophone perspective.' (Publication abstract)

 (p. 684-693)
‘Whose Side Are You On?’ The Slap (2011/2015), Constantine Verevis , single work criticism
'Based on the best-selling 2008 novel by Christos Tsiolkas, the eight-part Australian television mini-series, The Slap (Matchbox Pictures, 2011), generated widespread local interest when it premiered nationally on ABC1 television. An ensemble drama, The Slap follows the repercussions of a fateful moment at a suburban barbecue in multicultural Melbourne when an angry adult slaps a misbehaving child that is not his own (but who, arguably, may have deserved the slap). Promoted with the tagline ‘whose side are you on?’ each of the eight episodes of the series advances the story from the viewpoint of a different character, in the process allowing barely concealed tensions of class, gender and ethnicity to rise to the surface. Upon the release of the series, Tsiolkas noted the specificity of the drama, stating that its approach to multiculturalism ‘reflected the Australia that we do live in’, but the unique programme format attracted international interest, NBC/Universal announcing that it was set to remake the series in the US with Matchbox Pictures' show runner, Tony Ayres, as a co-executive producer. This essay engages critical frameworks of adaptation and translation studies to interrogate various formats of The Slap. It considers not only the cross-cultural remaking of the Australian mini-series for US television, but also the adaptation of Tsiolkas' high profile novel to ‘quality TV’ – in ABC's description, ‘a bold, provocative television drama series that forensically examines the mores and morality of contemporary middleclass life’ (The Slap, Official ABC website). This analysis consists not only of an interrogation of the industrial situations and narrative strategies of the mini-series, but also – and given that Tsiolkas' novel was heralded locally and internationally as a comment upon contemporary (post-conservative government) Australia – an understanding of its reception contexts.' (Publication abstract)
 (p. 769-780)
X