Subversive suburbia : L’effondrement du mythe de la banlieue résidentielle dans les séries américaines

oleh: Gérald Billard, Arnaud Brennetot, Bertrand Pleven, Amandine Prié, Donna Spalding Andréolle

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Groupe de Recherche Identités et Cultures 2012-11-01

Deskripsi

This text draws upon the comments exchanged during the round table lead by five authors during the Grand Public evening event of the conference “Les séries télévisées dans le monde [Televised Series in the World]” (Le Havre, June 15th, 2011). New American TV series offer an increasingly depreciated view of residential suburbs, translating into an inversion of the collective esteem of these emblematic places of the American Way of Life. This reversal is visible through multiple conflicts, tensions, and deviations that suburban characters from TV series are confronted with today. In the image of Wisteria Lane, where the smart rows of houses, well-kept alleys, and impeccable lawns hardly dissimulate masses of betrayals and murders of all sorts, the suburb has transformed into a theater of illusions, inhabited by people with tormented destinies or perverted personalities: from the chemistry teacher forced to cook amphetamines to pay for his chemotherapy (Breaking Bad, AMC, 2008–) to the mother who sells marijuana (Weeds, Showtime, 2005–2012), or the Hells Angels tossed back and forth between arms trafficking and family life (Sons of Anarchy, FX, 2008–), from polygamous subdivisions (Big Love, HBO, 2006–2011) to the golden prison of an abandoned housewife (Mad Men, AMC, 2007–), the peaceful and idyllic image of the suburb seems more degenerated than ever, letting show through the moral failure of a society led astray by a residential normalcy that is just as contrived as illusory.