Constructing ethno-national differentiation on the set of the TV series, Fauda

Abstract

Cultural industries, television among them, are industries that exemplify harsh working conditions and precariousness. Recently, there has been greater attention paid to the specific experiences of ethnic and racial minorities in the creative industries in general and on television specifically. However, the study of minorities in television has generally focused on content analysis and not on the daily experiences of workers in the precarious television labor market itself. This paper offers an in-depth examination of the work process and conditions of ethnic-national minority (Israeli-Palestinians) versus majority creative workers (Jewish Israelis) in a television production, using observations conducted on the set of the Israeli TV series, Fauda ("Chaos" in Arabic) as a case study. Our study's conclusions emphasize the way groups' experiences reproduce social hierarchies based on ethnicity, nationality, and gender.

‘We are merely furniture’: Palestinian actors and actresses react to rationalization and racialization processes in the Israeli TV market

“…This line of study has been apparent recently in television studies (Lavie and Jamal, 2019). For example, Wolock and Punathambekar (2015) focused on race and ethnicity in post-network American television to explain how industry professionals' misreading of South Asian Americans' position led them to articulate a post-racial logic through a predominantly 'national' imaginary of the racialized other.…”

“…Fauda's appeal is based on its so-called 'authenticity', which is manufactured by rationalization/racialization processes of otherness and concepts of complex and well-produced TV (Jenner, 2018;Saha, 2018) while also enhancing its lure for Middle-Eastern and Israeli subscribers who long to watch TV regarded as local (Wayne and Castro, 2020). 2 Fauda is one of the products which, considering these processes, created an opportunity for actors and actresses from a racialized ethnic minority, such as Palestinian-Israeli citizens of Israel, to enter the Israeli TV market in considerably larger numbers than usual (Lavie and Jamal, 2019). As such, the study of this group of professionals will enable us to understand the consequences of rationalization/racialization processes on this group's self-identity and feelings of wellbeing versus precarity in the cultural industries, and it will also offer a different and deeper angle for the study of ethnic and racial minorities on television.…”

“…Nevertheless, there is still a lack of empirical engagement with the work done by minorities in general, and ethnic and racial minorities in particular, in the cultural industries and television (Hesmondhalgh and Saha, 2013). 3 Moreover, there are only a few studies that concentrate on minority actors and actresses on television (Lavie and Jamal, 2019). It may be that although actors are regarded as celebrities who enjoy public fame, they are not considered as sufficiently important creators in the TV industry either by the leaders of the industry or by academics.…”

“…Palestinian-Israeli TV actors and actresses, who belong to a national and ethnic minority subject to Zionist discrimination in Israel, must work under the conditions that allow them the readiest access to the Israeli TV industry. This means accepting the Israeli stereotype of Arabs and Palestinians as predominantly terrorist or criminal (Lavie and Jamal, 2019). 1 However, recent writings (Gates, 2018) have called to move beyond a simplistic reading of minority creative workers’ subversion of stereotypes and advance to a more nuanced analysis, taking into consideration the resistive power these stereotypes engender.…”

Netflix original series, global audiences and discourses of streaming success

“…(Kashua, 2018) Even if one is willing to presuppose that Fauda's depiction of the conflict is acceptably realistic as dramatic television, a generation of empirical audience reception analysis indicates that Raz's claims about Arab viewers are reductive. In addition, ethnographic research conducted on the set of Fauda reveals that working conditions in the Israeli television industry reproduce the hierarchical relationships characteristic of Israel society more broadly, as members of the ethnic-national minority (Israeli-Palestinians) remain structurally disadvantaged in relation to members of the Jewish-Israeli majority (Jamal and Lavie, 2020;Lavie and Jamal, 2019).…”