C2- TV: The Bridge Flashcards
Context
-The set episode is the first episode of Series 3 which was broadcast in the UK on BBC Four at 9pm on 21st November 2015.
-The Bridge is an example of a Scandinavian sub-genre of crime drama- Nordic Noir. The drama is set in Sweden, the title refers to the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden and is a metaphor for the collaboration between the two police forces which commenced after a body was discovered in the middle of the bridge in the first epsiode of the frist series.
-The crime drama was a co-production between Filmlance International and Nimbus Film.
-The Bridge followed on from the success of other Nordic Noir crime dramas broadcast by BBC Four including the highly successful The Killing and Wallander. There were four series between 2011-2018.
-Series 3 opens with murder in Malmo of a prominent Danish gender campaigner and owner of Copenhagen’s first gender-neutral pre-school. Swedish detective Saga Noren is assigned a new Danish colleague Hanne to help with the investigation, but their relationship does not get off to a good start with feelings still running high after Saga’s involvement in sending her previous Danish partner Martin to jail for murdering the man who killed his son.
Context: Social and cultural
-The fact that the programme refelcts the changing attitudes towards fender and specifically introduces a discourse into the narrative of this series around gender, identity, and LGBTQIA+ issues.
-The represention of gender in the programme, including thconstruction of Saga’s character, is influenced by changing social and cultural attitudes regarding the role of women in society.
-The binary opposiiton of the Swedish and Danish cultures highlights how issues may be treated differently in different cultures.
-Responses to The Bridge may reflect the social and cultural circumstances of the audience.
Context: Historical
-The Bridge demonstrates that genre conventions are historically relative and dynamic.
-The representations constructed in the programme are affected by the historical context, they subvert and challenge typical representations that have been accepted over time and in doing so reflect the society of the time.
-Different audience interpretations of The Bridge may reflect historical circumstances.
Context: Economic
-The Bridge demonstrates the economic advantages of international co-productions.
-The creation of the Nordic Noir brand meant that programmes could be successfully marketed globally.
-Establishing the codes and conventions of this style of programme builds a loyal fanbase and reduces the economic risk.
Media Language
-Crime dramas have a recongnisable repertoire of elements, these may be a specific to a sub-genre, for example a psychological crime drama. These conventions have evolved over time and developed to reflect social and cultural change and the needs and expectations of audiences. However, these dramas share similarities which place them in the crime genre.
Media language: Narrative
-The Bridge has a flexi-narrative.
- Binary oppositions function as a narrative element including good vs. evil, police vs. criminal as well as, in the case of The Bridge, the cultural differences of Sweeden vs. Denmark, Saga vs. Hanne, the nuclear vs. the non-nuclear family and the illusion vs. reality. The resolving of some of these binary oppositions within the story world may have an ideological significance, for example evil being punished and justic prevailing in a crime drama (Structialism).
-Plot situations are included that are typical of the crime genre. These situations are made slightly difficult in The Bridge due to the incongruencies in Saga’s character.
-Story arc and narrative strands occur in episodes and across the series of crime dramas. In the set episode, as it is the first of a new season, there are several complex, enigmatic narrative strangs, some new and some carrying over from previous series.
-When two people are paired to work together in media products, especially crime dramas, they are binary opposites, this is true for Saga and Hanne.
Representation: General
-There is ideological significance to the way in which representations are constructed in The Bridge which positions the audience to look at social groups and issues in different ways, reflecting cultural shifts. For example, this episode explores the growing contemporary interest in gender and how it is more fluid and changing than in the past and is a subject for discussion.
-The Bridge, through the ways in which it constructs representations, constructs a feminist discourse that challenges sexist, patriarchal ideas, and values.
-The representations in The Bridge are influenced by contemporary attitudes and debates, and consequently audiences are positioned to consider how representations have changed over time to reflect changes in society.
-There are several representations of women in The Bridge which subvert and challenge the more typical representations of women in crime dramas. Whilst the victim is more typically female, in the detectives the representation of women is strong reflecting shifts in society, culture and audience expectations. These women include Saga and Hanne.
Representation: Saga
Saga breaks away from the more typical representation of a detective. She is often compared to the ‘flawed’ detective of film noir but could be more accurately described as ‘different’. Whilst the actor and programme’s creators have avoided attaching a label to Saga, in constructing this character more challenging, complex behaviours are explored. She is described on the BBC website for the programme as ‘a hardcore investigator who is socially challenged’. All aspects of this character are pared back to the minimum including her clothing, dialogue, and relationships with others. She responds very literally to situations and in conversations which creates humour at times. Interestingly, whilst her representation is constructed as a powerful female, there are characteristics of Saga that are more masculine, suggesting this has helped her to survive in a patriarchal world. Her passive expression has become iconic and is shown in close up particualrly when she is attempting to process several peices of information and inter-relationships with colleagues. Saga’s construction allows the programme to explore a character who des not conform to social norms, but in doing so effectively represents a particular under/mis-represented social group. Saga struggles with social situations, she knows how she should behave, but finds this challenging, for example when she attempts to make small talk with Hanne. She also lacks empathy and does not read sensitive situations well; she thinks rationally and says whatever occurs to her at the time with limited awareness of it’s appropriateness. However, she is shown to be vulnerable and afraid at the end of this episode when confronted with her past in the form of her mother.
Representation: Other female representations
-Hanne thomsen is another example of a strong female character who is also a positive representation of an older woman who is well-respected, experience and good at her job. Like the other women in The Bridge, she is not objectified, her clothing is functional and her grey hair and seirous expression aid in constructing her representation. She also expemplifies the cultural differences between Sweeden and Denmark, as described by a BBC article, “From their first meeting hostilities begin to mount with Hanne showing her prejudices bodering on contempt for Swedish political correctness”. She can barely disguise her disdain when interviewing Anker’s wife at the idea of a gender-neutral pre-school, she describes her as “a bit Swedish”.
-Lise Friis Anderson is powerful in a different way, she is middle class, the wife of a weathly businessman. Her views are right-wing, and she is an opinion leader through her blog displaying her views of what constitutes a family which is in direct contrast to those of Helle Anker. She has no qualms in teaching her daugther to react with violence when bullied.
Representation: Men and masculinity
-Representation of masculinity in The Bridge challenge the idea of inequalities of power between men and women. The repsentations are not typical of crime dramas as the female characters are active and central to the narrative.
-Whilst Hans is in a hierarchially powerful position, he does not use this in an opressive way and is understanding and supportive of those who work for him, traits that could be said to be more typically feminine. He has an equal relationship with his partner Lillian who is a storng woman. He is also a positive representation of age.
-Henrik is portrayed as a flawed, vulnerable character with issues.
-It is the men, rather than the women who are presented in domestic roles, Henrik cookes and cleans and appears to be nurturing his children, a role usually given to female characters. Lise has a male cleaner, Rikard who fulfils a domestic role.
Media industries
-Television os a global industry
-There are now the means in place in the television industry to distribute products worldwide.
-Nordic Noir has gained global propularity regardless of the language barrier. Contemporary audiences are more accepting of sub-titles and BBC Four has been at the forefront of establishing Non-English-Language programmes as part of their schedule. Crime dramas including The Killing and The Bridge have become an important element of BBC Four’s brand identity with trailers reinforcing it as the home of Nordic Noir.
-The BBC Four Service License, issued in April 2016 states “BBC Four’s primary role is to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music and culture”. Part of it’s remit is to “offer international and foreign language feature films and a range of foreign language dramas and documentaries… Foreign language output should regularly be subtitled, including in peak-time, to allow people from around the world to be heard in their own vocies”.
-The Bridge was originally broadcast by SVT in Sweden and DR in Denmark. The settings, cas and crew taken from both countries reflect the economic context in which The Bridge was produced and helped to shape the programme. The UK broadcaster was BBC Four.
-The main distributor was ZDF Enterprises, and The Bridge was distributed to over 150 countries worldwide.
-A range of marketing strategies including posters, trailers and a website were used to attract and maintain audiences focusing on factors such as in the UK, the BBC Four branding connoted recognition of quality, the team of detectives establishing a sense of community and an ensemble, but in some of the marketing products with Saga in the forefront, the character of Saga as the troubled anti-hero, the Swedish/Danish setting with the iconic image of the Oresund Bridge, the Radio Times used a front cover image of Saga in her recognisable overcoat with the anchor ‘Hot Scandinavian dramas for cold winter nights’.
-There were international remakes of The Bridge illustrating it’s success, these included the Anglo/French production The Tunnel and the US version The Bridge set on the US-Mexican border and produced by the FX network.
-Alongside the increasingly global nature of television there has been a rise in the number of international co-productions. These are attractive as the collaboration means that the economic responsability can be shared and the more contributors, the bigger the production budget.
The way in which a programme is funded can influence production, for example to qualify for funding production companies usually have to guarantee that they will film in a particular location, employ crew members from a particular country (both Swedish and Danish crews were employed in the production of The Bridge) and work in collaboration with other international companies.
-The Bridge was co-produced by Filmlance International, an independant Swedish production company and by the Danish company Nimbus Film. It also recieved financial support from European publich service broadcasters. The third season also recieved funding from The Copenhagen Film Fund and Creative Europe MEDIA.
Audiences
-The prgoramme attracts the more niche, less mainstream BBC Four audience who are targeted through their expectations based on the brand identity of the channel. In broadcasting Nordic Noir, BBC Four established that sub-titled stories could reach a British audience. ‘BBC Four’s primary role is to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music and culture. It should provide an amibitious range of innovative, high quality programming that is intellectually and culturally enriching’.
-The programme may attract an inherited audience who will be familiar with other Nordic Noir dramas braodcast on this channel, for example The Killing and Wallander.
-The Bridge also offers a range of pleasures for the fans of crime drama (Uses and Gratification theory), the programme has typical codes and conventions of crime dramas but an element of escapism and diversion through the different characters, setting and culture. Audiences will gain pleasure from following the investigators as they attempt to solve the crime.
-Loyal audiences will have become familiar with the character of Saga, this the start of Series 3 and they will have expectations of how her character will behave and may develop based on the other series.
-Different demographic factors, for example nationality. The programme constructs an idea of the cultural differences between Sweden and Denmark where, for example, the Swedish characters are seen to be more politically correct than the Danish. Danish and Swedish audiences may feel that The Bridge confirms longstanding views and reaffirms the seperate cultural identities. Conversely, some may feel that this is unfair cultural stereotyping.
-Cultural capital, for example an understanding of the conventions of film noir or of other Nordic Noir dramas will enhance the viewing experience of the audience.
-Gender, for example women may be empowered by the construction of positive female representations in The Bridge.
-Audiences who are interested in crime dramas that offer a different cultural experience are likely to have a positive response to the programme.
