Israeli drama: constructing the Israeli ‘quality’ television series as an art form

Abstract

The current study focuses on the social construction of definitions of quality in the field of the television drama series in Israel. By doing that, this work challenges Pierre Bourdieu’s claim that since artifacts of ‘popular culture’ industries are not regarded as ‘autonomous’, according to the autonomy-of-art ideology, they cannot be consecrated as works of art. Bourdieu’s thesis was challenged before, but the television field has not yet been extensively studied from this point of view. My study of the broad empirical corpus, including television reviews and interviews with acclaimed Israeli television creators, reveals that artistic quality and commercial appeal show less tension than Bourdieu had suggested. Furthermore, my findings indicate that the autonomy-of-art ideology can be reconfigured to accommodate commercial (e.g. capitalist) considerations. Within this reconfiguration, the ‘quality’ television series can be redefined to include elements of ‘autonomous’ art, such as authenticity, innovation and the input of ‘genius’ creators, alongside such capitalist requirements as profitability.

Nairobi-based middle class filmmakers and the production and circulation of transnational cinema

“…Like Karuana, Nairobi-based filmmaker Jennifer Gatero also described herself as middle class and articulated her class standing through modes of her screen media viewing: "I, myself am middle-class … I watch DVDs, I have cable TV, or I have Netflix, a lot of people I know have Netflix, so we've moved out of local TV" (interview 2015). , Scholars have argued watching 'quality' television is a new form of distinction (Lavie 2015), meaning watching 'quality' televisionas Karuana and Gatero see themselves as doingcan be status giving. This link between class position and taste in art (in this case television) is in line with a Bourdieusian understanding of taste.…”

Trapped in Reality: Justification and Capitalism in the Discourse of Reality TV Creators in Israel

“…3,4 Reality TV tends to be regarded as "trash" compared with other TV genres-especially drama series, which are often labeled artistic. 5 This, as we shall see, is a distinction made by the television industry itself. Our interest lies in the self-image of leading reality TV creators in Israel and how they justify working in a field that dismisses their creative output as inferior.…”

Critics, politics and cultural legitimation: An exploratory analysis of the Turkish film field

“…Second, the political position being taken with a cultural product, as evidenced by the plot, the selection of actors and the alignment of the director, may influence its legitimation more directly in the Turkish case than in the other contexts studied so far. As Lavie and Dhoest’s study (2015) demonstrated, unlike in the case of Flanders, politically subversive content elevated the status of cultural products in Israel, where the political and cultural field has been more polarized than in Flanders. A historical perspective would likewise show that the sociopolitical processes in Turkey have shaped the film field quite directly as films, film makers and critics were expected to contribute to the construction of a ‘national culture’ after Turkey’s modernization and its struggle to break away from the Ottoman past began.…”

“…While universal themes are hailed in the Flemish context, social and political subversion add value to cultural products in Israel. This ‘courageous’ content can be about various sociopolitical issues: capitalism, socioethnic inequalities, male chauvinism, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and so on (Lavie, 2015). We consider this finding highly relevant for our analysis, given the sociopolitical turmoil and polarization Turkey witnessed in recent decades.…”