Tag: Erin Hanna

The Anti-heroine: An Emergent Television Character Trope 

Presenter(s): Meg Rodgers − Media Studies

Faculty Mentor(s): Erin Hanna

Panel Session 1SW

Research Area: Media Studies & Television Studies

Funding: UROP Mini-grant, Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Television’s anti-heroes have long raked in high ratings and delivered audiences with devilishly corrupt but ultimately sympathetic viewpoints. Recent exemplars such as Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Dexter Morgan are rarely ethical and far from heroic, which has led to a wide breadth of scholarship about male characters who skirt the boundaries between regular life and outlaw culture. For example, Brett Martin’s Difficult Men and Amanda Lotz’ Cable Guys explore masculinity on television that is predicated on breaking societal norms. What the existing scholarship fails to fully address—and where my research project intervenes—is a thorough analysis of the anti-heroine, a television genre that has grown rapidly in recent years. My research launches from Kathleen Karlyn’s The Unruly Woman, an early examination of women in film and television who use humor to undermine patriarchal authority. Margaret Tally’s The Rise of the Anti-Heroine in TV’s Third Golden Age is the first text to explore the emergence of the anti-heroine. My project extends past Tally’s work to look specifically at how anti-heroines have become a dominate feature of quality television. Quality television is a category that loosely refers to series with narrative complexity, high production values, and characters with psychological depth. My three case studies, Sex and the City, Veep, and Girls, are Home Box Office (HBO) productions. I focus on HBO productions because the single network allows me to draw on consistent industry information, viewership demographics, and critical accolades. The anti-heroines from my case studies might be difficult or even unlikeable—but they do address and challenge traditional femininity (whereas anti-heroes reinforce hegemonic masculinity). Do anti-heroines have more agency over their personal and professional lives than other leading ladies? What underlies America’s fixation with immoral women? These are just a couple of the questions guiding my preliminary research.

The Power of America’s Most Watched Show: How Entertainment Television Can Change Social Behaviors

Presenter(s): Kyle Heiner − Journalism: Advertising

Faculty Mentor(s): Kim Sheehan, Erin Hanna

Oral Session 2C

Research Area: Media Studies and Advertising

This thesis examines the effects entertainment television can have on audiences beyond simply making them laugh, scream, or cry. In an era where the public has become increasingly untrustworthy of traditional broadcast news and advertising, I argue that ideas that prompt social change can be communicated through entertainment television, specifically, America’s most watched shows. In this thesis, I focus on how America’s current highest rated show, The Big Bang Theory, a scientifically- accurate sitcom centered around a group of young male scientists and their new blonde neighbor, can incorporate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into its storyline to promote their message to a majority of Americans. Using theories such as Uses and Gratifications, Parasocial Interaction, and Agenda Setting, as well as analyzing case studies about product placement, public service announcements, and media partnerships, the study suggests that integration with television storylines can increase knowledge and spur action among audiences. Importantly, I argue that episodes that contain a message central to the storyline, ease seamlessly into the narrative, and are open with their external partnership, are the most successful in getting their message across. A ‘spec’ script, which is a speculative screenplay for a series written by someone outside of the production, that illustrates these techniques is provided.