The broken mirror. Metafiction in anglosaxon tv series

Authors

  • Alberto Nahum García Martínez University of Navarra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4185/10.4185/RLCS-64-2009-852-654-667

Keywords:

Television, TV-Series, Metafiction, Reflexivity

Abstract

This article examines how, coming from different aesthetic and generic directions, a representative portion of Anglosaxon television series build up their stories by means of breaking –at different levels– the illusionist mirror that characterizes traditional fiction. In this way, they are –implicitly or explicitly– reflecting on the conventions of Realism. The article begins by exposing some theoretical issues about the concept of metafiction. Featuring examples collected since 2001, there follows cartographic research into all the possibilities that metafictional tv-series can harbor: a manipulative narrator, the juxtaposition of diegetical worlds, television as thematic seed for innovative stories, the hybrid game of self-consciousness and, lastly, the direct appeal to the audience’s attention as the major reflective device used by contemporary anglosaxon television series up to now.

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Author Biography

Alberto Nahum García Martínez, University of Navarra

Alberto Nahum García Martínez is a Professor Contracted Doctor in the Faculty of Communication of the University of Navarra.

He currently teaches Audiovisual Communication.

He has been Visiting Scholar at Fordham University (New York), Visiting Professor at the University of Stirling (Great Britain) and has published his works in academic journals such as Communication and Society, Social History, Sequences, Scope, Zer, Análisi, Trípodos and Post Script.

He has co-edited the bilingual Landscapes of the Self. The Cinema of Ross McElwee / Landscapes of the self. Ross McElwee's cinema (2007) and is the author of El cine de non-fiction en Martín Patino (International University Editions, 2008). His research activity has two axes: the concept of realism in the audiovisual world and the analysis of on-line television information.

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Published

2009-02-20

How to Cite

García Martínez, A. N. (2009). The broken mirror. Metafiction in anglosaxon tv series. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (64), 656–667. https://doi.org/10.4185/10.4185/RLCS-64-2009-852-654-667

Issue

No. 64 (2009)

Section

Miscellaneous
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