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Chapter 6. Characterizations: Community with the Characters
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Chapter 6 Characterizations: Community with the Characters Rivaling talk about appearance in its frequency and intensity was talk dissecting and exploring the characters' personalities. As I studied the almost overwhelming variety of examples of this talk, I again was initially struck by the way it demonstrated empirically the polysemy of the television text as described by Fiske (1987). Like talk about appearance, at first glance this talk seemed to support convincingly the notion that it was the viewers who "read" the text, not the text that determined viewer reading. However, as I mulled over example after example, I ultimately came to the conclusion that this talk functioned in the same way talk about appearance, with an important addition. As with the talk examined in the last chapter, talk about characters worked to (1) establish expertise and community; (2) generate a cycle of specific ways of attending to the self and attending to the show; and in so doing, (3) operate hegemonically to reinforce certain ways of being female and not others. In addition, it worked (4) to create a community among viewer and characters that, while it seemed to empower viewers, also concealed ways it naturalized disadvantaging discourses. Once again, the issue of agency was complexly present. As in the previous chapter, I argue that to examine this talk is to uncover the microprocesses of hegemony at work. Polysemy and Realism The most polysemic of the characters proved to be Donna. Consider the variety in these five conversations: DANIELLE: I like Donna too, 'cause like she's down-to-earth and everything G : Oh, yeah? 84 Chapter 6 DANIELLE: -and she like [ ... ] acts like a real person, like, not, not like a TV person. * * * G: What do you think of Donna? JACKIE: I really don't like her that much. [ ... ] She acts like she's like memorizing-she like-just memorize something. [ ... ] It just doesn't seem real. * * * MARION: I think everybody hates her. [ ... ] I can't stand her. [ ... ] She'sjust dopey, and she'sjust goofy, annoyingly so, not charming goofy. * * * MADDY: I guess she's smart. COLLEEN: Yeah, she's smart and nice andG : Uh huh. SANDY: Yeah, nice and kind of funny sometimes. * * * KRISTEN: Urn. I don't know. She seems sort of like, be like naive in a sense. G: Mm-hmm. KRISTEN: They really play her character as being like a naive airhead. You know? It strains credulity, but Donna variously is "like a real person" or 'Just doesn't seem real"; she is "dopey" or "smart"; she is a "naive airhead." The following comments by two groups of viewers with whom I watched the same episode, the one where Donna's dog died, illustrate the polysemy of the text with regard to Donna. The college students made hilarious fun of that part of the episode: David and Donna. NICKY: OhJesus. NEWCOMER: Is the dog going to die? NICKY: Lee- (Laughter) This is like General Hospital. SHERRY: Just call the vet. GRACEY: He has cancer. ALL: Laughter. (Garbled, something about animal rights) NICKY: He's dead. SHERRY: I'm sorry (sarcastic). PATTI: This is ridiculous. ALL: Laughter. NICKY: I think he's dead. PATTI: No longer with us. SHERRY: That's nice. Have the dog die. Characterizations: Community with the Characters 85 Donna crying. ALL: Hysterical laughter. [ ... ] SHERRY: Shouldn't they make sure that the dog stopped breathing? ALL: Laughter. PATTI: Call a doctor. Call a dog ambulance. In contrast, two seventh-graders watched in empathetic silence; in response to questioning during a commercial one made these comments: G: Is there any part of it that interested you? PAM: l'he dog. G: Yeah? PAM: That was the best part. G: What did you like about it? PAM: Urn, 'cause I like animals, so I guessG : Do you? Do you have a dog? PAM: Mm-hmm. G: What kind of dog do you have? PAM: Collie. Initially, the different identities viewers constructed for Donna seemed random, while the dog-dying episode seemed to demonstrate the nottoo -surprising fact that what may interest a seventh-grader may appear risible to a group of college students. My own speculation is that Donna, at that point in the series, was intended in part to keep the youngest viewers interested. The only virgin among the main characters at the time of the study, she interacts more playfully than sexually with her boyfriend, David. As a surrogate for younger viewers, she is the one who asks the stupid questions (Take-Back...