TV: Exam question

TV: Exam question

Question 1 - “Realism is a vital component of television drama”. To what extent does an analysis of your television close-study products support this view? [25 marks]

Realism is an important part of television drama as it adds onto the narrative structure and helps audiences get a better understanding of what is happening as if real life events weren’t included, audiences may struggle to pick up on small conventions and may fail to understand what is trying to be portrayed to them. Too much surrealism could also make TV dramas too fictional and interfere with the narrative structure as if everything is made up, they wouldn’t really have a form to follow and go from.

In capital, realism is used to attract the British audiences. They have included stereotypical characters that you would find around Britain; more specifically London to take on the roles on the street they were focusing on and built their storyline from that. Realism is important because the more real the scenes are, the more tense they get and as tensions rise audience would be more eager and tempted to continue watching to find out what happens next. Realism could be used as a method to keep audiences engaged and to also have them coming back to continue watching the upcoming episodes if left on a cliff-hanger as many TV dramas are.

However, a bit of unrealistic exaggeration is necessary when it comes to TV dramas as that is what builds the story on and keeps it flowing the conflict, drama and tension. If dramas were based solely on realism they may not be as interesting and appealing to audiences as they would already be aware of what happens in real life, there wouldn’t be any suspense or anything for them to look forward to which would make them want to continue watching.

Realism is being used to a certain extent to make the plot more believable, help audience’s get a clear understanding of what is taking place in the scenes and makes them feel more of a closer bond with the characters and feel more empathetic. It also enables them to feel more hooked into the scene and tempts them to continue watching and progress onto more episodes. 

Although television drama relies on a lot of exaggeration and made up content, it still needs to be somewhat believable and relatable as audiences wouldn’t be able to get a clear understanding nor be interested in what’s happening if they aren’t able to related and imagine further which would build up thrill and make them want to keep watching as they would get more into the series and almost feel as if they are in the scene themselves. 

In Deutschland 83, a lot of the content is non-fictional as it is a historical text however even then some of the things shown in at are made up or exaggerated for audience pleasures. In order to make it more interesting for audiences, rather than just showing the historical side of the country at those times, they also included sub-genres such as romance and family to make it more realistic and audiences would also feel a closer relationship with the character by knowing more about them personally. Other than for audience pleasures, some things were made up or exaggerated in Deutschland 83 as the directors and script writers wouldn’t know precisely what happened in those days and the show is made off stories that have been told by historians and people that lived in those days so if there was a good in the storyline that they weren’t sure about, they would’ve made up things to make sure the narrative is clear and flowing without any gaps in it.

The main reason realism is so important in TV dramas is because it creates audience pleasures and helps them get a better understanding of what the director is trying to say to them whilst also enjoying the show with more sub-genres within it to keep them intrigued.