“Just Being Us”—Secrecy, Authenticity and Identity in<i>The Americans</i>

García-Martínez, A.N.; Castrillo, Pablo

doi:10.1080/10509208.2020.1747354

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…In the seventy-four episodes preceding the climax and finale, The Americans creates a pattern for viewers interested in knowing what it is like to live the life of a spy, whereby they will need to engage in an act of imagination as part of the game. Many of the scenes stimulate empathic imagination as characters move constantly in environment of double meanings and play acting in the series (García and Castrillo 2020). This is probably one of the main ways in which the spectator's activity becomes a pleasurable aesthetic experience, understood in a broad sense that includes cognition in this case related to the spies' life experiences.…”

Section: The a Mericans S06: The Clima X Of A Whole Serialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

Pérez

2022

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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This article draws on concepts from cognitive psychology to explore the significance of the narrative climax, focusing on the final climax of the series The Americans as a case study. Two aspects of the aesthetic experience are considered: the special intensity that climaxes elicit, and the diversity of the cognitive content they generate, which can include both aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties. The climax is experienced in a state of absorption triggered by a set of strategies of temporal prolongation related to the main suspenseful moments and plotlines, to character engagement, and to the multiplot structure, involving the content of the narrative itself (narrative absorption) and the aesthetic qualities that define it (artifact absorption). The source of this absorption during the climax lies in the interplay between emotion and cognition in a temporal process that may last for a whole series. To demonstrate this idea, this study identifies key narrative comprehension processes, drawing on the explanatory potential of mental model theory to clarify the importance of memory and interrelated inferential processes. The aim of this research is to contribute to explanations of the role of the climax in serialized television and other artistic works.

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Section: The a Mericans S06: The Clima X Of A Whole Serialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

Pérez

2022

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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Reimagining the Cold War: Capitalist realism, anti-communism and nostalgia in twenty-first-century TV and streaming series

Knewitz

2022

Journal of Popular Television, The

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This article analyses three contemporary TV and streaming series that reimagine the Cold War era of the 1980s in a nostalgic mode: the docudrama Chernobyl (2019), the science fiction series Stranger Things (2016–present) and the spy thriller The Americans (2013–18). It argues that these productions rely on nostalgia and retro aesthetics in the service of an anti-communist imaginary and what Mark Fisher has called ‘capitalist realism’: the perception that capitalism is the only viable system of economic and political organization and, more crucially, that a coherent alternative to it has become unimaginable in our current, allegedly post-ideological, historical moment. The series present us with a past in which the future was still open – when there were still alternatives to the paths now being taken, which are now foreclosed. As these series depict all ideologies as anachronisms, their nostalgic mode serves to continually reaffirm the capitalist belief system and to symbolically annihilate any socialist or communist alternatives, yet, at the same time, also reflects resistance to the contemporary neo-liberal order.

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Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

López¹

2020

Preprint

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<div><div><div><div><p>The aim of this study is to identify precisely how certain cognitive-emotional processes drawn out over time, propitiated by certain properties of the work, configure the aesthetic experience of a climax. I have chosen as my object of study a case in which the temporal prolongation of the work is evident: serial narration for the screen. Therefore, this article will progress from the description of two case studies: firstly, Bron/Broen, Season 1 (Hans Rosenfeldt, 2011-present), to focus on the climax of a whole season; and secondly, The Americans, Season 6 (Joe Weisberg, 2013-2018), where I will examine a phenomenon of greater temporal scope and explore the final climax of a whole serial. The main conclusion is that the climax in a series is the culmination of the artistically crafted convergence of prolonged temporal processes, which is key to the aesthetic experience and appreciation of the work. The first active ingredient of that convergence has been identified here as the set of strategies of temporal prolongation related to the main suspenseful events and plotlines, the second active ingredient is the set of prolonged temporal processes of character development, the third and final ingredient is the multiplot structure, which contributes both to the prolongation of the suspense and to enhancing the complexity of the characters. This convergence is an event in the spectator’s mind that is marked by emotional and cognitive intensity, to the extent that it can increase the degree of narrative absorption previously achieved. All this suggests that the aesthetic experience of the climax plays an important role in the aesthetic experience of the series as a whole, as the elements introduced in the climax, and their appreciation, may prove key to the viewer’s overall appreciation of the work.</p></div></div></div></div>

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“Just Being Us”—Secrecy, Authenticity and Identity inThe Americans

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

Reimagining the Cold War: Capitalist realism, anti-communism and nostalgia in twenty-first-century TV and streaming series

Aesthetics of the Narrative Climax in Contemporary TV Serials

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