HBO’s Treme and the Evolving Story of Hurricane Katrina

Editorial

“…The next two essays pick up on similar themes of political awakening and individual agency, of re-presenting historical events and working through trauma and mourning in relation to the HBO series, Treme (2010–2013). Like other series created by David Simon, Treme, set in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, blends the worlds of fiction and real life to provide a polemic on social injustice and economic inequity in contemporary America in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in modern US history (see Andersen, 2018; Gendrin et al, 2017). The first article by Katie Moylan explores this mingling of dramatic and factual material in and through the textual strategies of the series as it unfolds over four seasons.…”

“…In the second contribution, Chandler Harriss takes his object of textual scrutiny the character, Harley Watt and how his portrayal by the musician and political dissident, Steve Earle, uses trans-textual referencing to connect Treme with the tradition of US counterculture and other strategies used for social commentary. Music, musicians and musical performance are at the heart of the series, as well as the culture of New Orleans (see Chapter 5 in Andersen, 2018), but Harriss takes this argument further to consider how Treme operates as a protest text in much the same way as the songs of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan did before it. Furthermore, the way in which Harriss looks at the collapse of the fictional character into the real-life performer, not only beyond the text but embedded within it, offers an intervention into the field of Star Studies brought to television.…”