Voice-over Narration in Desperate Housewives


Book Description

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1,7, University of Siegen, course: Serial TV, language: English, abstract: Desperate Housewives is an American comedy-drama serial created by Marc Cherry. After its premiere on October the 3rd, 2004 on "abc" the serial had altogether 111 episodes in six seasons. Desperate Housewives won several awards since its broadcast, like the Emmy, the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Award. In April 2007 the serial was awarded as most popular show with an audience of over 119 million viewers. The fictional setting of Wisteria Lane in Fairview is the home of a group of women protagonists: Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria), Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), Edie Britt (Nicolette Sheridan) and Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany) are the main female characters that are more or less friends. All of them have their own specialties and problems in their lives. The plot of each episode follows these struggles they have to deal with in their family lives in domestic surroundings. But with every episode it becomes clearer that even in beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhoods lots of secrets, crimes and mysteries are buried. The answers to these mysteries are mostly given by another friend of them - Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) - who died in the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives because she committed suicide. Mary Alice Young nevertheless appears in the series - but as the narrator of each episode. Her voice leads the viewer through the happenings and through the plot of Desperate Housewives and structures the series with her pro- and epilogues. The following composition is going to deal with the narration of Mary Alice Young and is based on the presentation to the according topic of Desperate Housewives in the seminar "Serial TV". This term paper will first concentrate on the tradition of voice-over narration and afte




Voice-over narration in Desperate Housewives


Book Description

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1,7, University of Siegen, course: Serial TV, language: English, abstract: Desperate Housewives is an American comedy-drama serial created by Marc Cherry. After its premiere on October the 3rd, 2004 on “abc” the serial had altogether 111 episodes in six seasons. Desperate Housewives won several awards since its broadcast, like the Emmy, the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Award. In April 2007 the serial was awarded as most popular show with an audience of over 119 million viewers. The fictional setting of Wisteria Lane in Fairview is the home of a group of women protagonists: Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria), Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), Edie Britt (Nicolette Sheridan) and Katherine Mayfair (Dana Delany) are the main female characters that are more or less friends. All of them have their own specialties and problems in their lives. The plot of each episode follows these struggles they have to deal with in their family lives in domestic surroundings. But with every episode it becomes clearer that even in beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhoods lots of secrets, crimes and mysteries are buried. The answers to these mysteries are mostly given by another friend of them – Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) – who died in the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives because she committed suicide. Mary Alice Young nevertheless appears in the series – but as the narrator of each episode. Her voice leads the viewer through the happenings and through the plot of Desperate Housewives and structures the series with her pro- and epilogues. The following composition is going to deal with the narration of Mary Alice Young and is based on the presentation to the according topic of Desperate Housewives in the seminar “Serial TV”. This term paper will first concentrate on the tradition of voice-over narration and afterwards on general facts of the voice-over narration in Desperate Housewives. In a final step the narration of Mary Alice Young will be discussed.




Language and Television Series


Book Description

Explores contemporary US television dialogue - the on-screen language that viewers worldwide encounter as they watch popular television series.




Gendered (Re)Visions


Book Description

Basierend auf der Annahme, dass Geschlechterrollen in den letzten Jahrzehnten zunehmend komplexer und differenzierter geworden sind, wird in den Artikeln des Bandes die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in zeitgenössischen Medienprodukten analysiert. Die AutorInnen geben Einblicke in die vielfältigen medien- und genrespezifischen Umsetzungen der Konstruktion, Perpetuierung und Infragestellung von Geschlechterkonzeptionen in audiovisuellen Medien. Dabei betrachten sie das Zusammenspiel der verschiedenen Ebenen, in denen das »gendering« in diesen Medien angesiedelt ist, und nehmen einem zentralen Ansatz des Bandes folgend eine transmediale Perspektive ein.Das Buch soll durch eingehende Analysen populärer Beispiele aus TV-Serien, Filmen und Musikvideos den Blick der LeserInnen schärfen, wie audiovisuelle Medien auf der einen Seite das Bild von »Weiblichkeit« und »Männlichkeit« beeinflussen und auf der anderen Seite gesellschaftlich verankerte Geschlechternormen reproduzieren.




Reading 'Desperate Housewives'


Book Description

'Everyone has a little dirty laundry.' The darkly comic series about the secret lives of the ladies living on Wisteria Lane became an instant breakthrough hit for ABC. 21 million viewers tuned in for the first episode and this figure has steadily grown as audiences from around the globe have switched on to the shenanigans in suburbia. "Desperate Housewives" was subject to a backlash in America, where advertisers on the ABC network were lobbied by Christian groups and Parents' Associations. But the sponsorship withdrawal that resulted did little to dampen the enthusiasm of its legions of fans. Recipient of several awards including the People's Choice Award and Golden Globe for Best Television - Musical or Comedy, "Desperate Housewives" is a hit. "Reading Desperate Housewives" offers a critical response to one of the most talked about shows on contemporary television. Leading scholars and writers dissect the appeal of "Desperate Housewives", tapping into early reactions and controversy. They consider the American sex wars, contemporary feminism, Republican politics and the rise of the Right, gender and femininity, motherhood and marriage - and that Vanity Fair shoot. The book includes an episode guide tracing all those goings-on beyond that white picket fence.




From Happy Homemaker to Desperate Housewives


Book Description

‘From Happy Homemaker to Desperate Housewives: Motherhood and Popular Television’ is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to key debates concerning the representations of motherhood, motherwork and the maternal role in contemporary television programming. The volume looks at the construction of motherhood in the ostensibly female genre of soap opera; the mother as housewife in the domestic situation comedy; deviant, desiring and delinquent motherwork in the teen drama; the single working mother in the contemporary dramedy; the fragile and failing mother of reality parenting television; the serene and selfless celebrity motherhood profile; and the new mother in reality pregnancy and childbirth television. ‘Motherhood and Popular Television’ examines the depiction of motherhood in this wide range of popular television genres in order to illustrate how the maternal role is being constructed, circulated and interrogated in contemporary factual and fictional programming, paying particular attention to the ways in which such images can be seen to challenge or conform to the ideal image of the ‘good’ mother that dominates the contemporary cultural landscape.




The Television Handbook


Book Description

The Television Handbook is a critical introduction to the practice and theory of television. The book examines the state of television today, explains how television is made and how production is organised, and discusses how critical thinking about programmes and genres can illuminate their meanings. This book also explores how developments in technology and the changing structure of the television industry will lead the medium in new directions. The Television Handbook gives practical advice on many aspects of programme making, from an initial programme idea through to shooting and the post-production process. The book includes profiles giving insight into how personnel in the television industry - from recent graduates to television executives - think about their work. The Television Handbook offers chapters on the vigorous debates about what is meant by quality television, how news and factual programmes are responding to interactive technologies, and how formats such as Reality/Talent TV have risen in prominence. It also considers how drama, sport and music television can be discussed and interpreted. The Television Handbook includes: Profiles of TV news and drama producers, editors and TV studio personnel Case histories of important TV genres and series Practical programme making advice Explanations of key theoretical perspectives in television studies




The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture


Book Description

The first sustained examination of the depiction of American suburbia in gothic and horror films, television and literature from 1948 to the present day. Beginning with Shirley Jackson's The Road Through the Wall , Murphy discusses representative texts from each decade, including I Am Legend , Bewitched , Halloween and Desperate Housewives .




Pragmatics of Fiction


Book Description

Pragmatics of Fiction provides systematic orientation in the emerging field of studying pragmatics with/in fictional data. It provides an authoritative and accessible overview of this versatile new field in its methodological and theoretical richness. Giving center stage to fictional language allows scholars to review key concepts in sociolinguistics such as genre, style, voice, stance, dialogue, participation structure or features of orality and literariness. The contributors explore language as one of the creative tools to craft story worlds and characters by drawing on concepts such as regional, social and ethnic language variation, as well as multilingualism. Themes such as emotion, taboo language or impoliteness in fiction receive attention just as the challenges of translation and dubbing, the creation of past and future languages, the impact of fictional language on language change or the fuzzy boundaries of narratives. Each contribution, written by a leading specialist, gives a succinct, representative and up-to-date overview of research questions, theories, methods and recent developments in the field.




A TV Guide to Life


Book Description

Read Jeff Alexander's posts on the Penguin Blog. A couch potato’s book of wisdom— 100% commercial free! Some say that entire generations of Americans are being raised by the television…like that’s a bad thing. Not so, says author Jeff Alexander, long-time television writer, advocate of education by television, and recapper for the popular website Television Without Pity. Here, he offers the ultimate in life lessons as seen on TV. Topics include: • Saved by the Bell: School on TV • Somebody Save Me: Super Powers and Magic Spells • Tell Me Why I Love You Like I Do: Relationships on TV • Making A Living: The Workplace • And more With a smart, snarky style, Alexander guides readers through important lessons gleaned from years of TV reviewing (now in convenient book form!), freeing up a whole new generation to learn other things, like how to cure cancer or solve world hunger…or anything more useful than watching TV (Author’s note: Just joking… there is no such thing).