What’s better than a TV series to relax after a long day? Omnipresent in our daily lives, this entertainment, a pure product of popular culture, clears our heads at the same time as it (sometimes) fills our heads. Without us realizing it, series and their characters shape our representations of the world, according to a recent study, carried out at the Neoma business school and published in the Journal of Marketing Management.
Like films, series reflect a specific vision of society. But they have an advantage: that of being able to repeat this vision over and over again, episode after episode. Gradually, viewers end up developing “a bond of emotional attachment with the characters,” explains Sophie Raynaud, co-author of the study. How, for example, not to get attached to the band of Friends ? In 30 years of broadcast, the cult sitcom has been watched by several generations, fed up with the adventures of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler and Joey. Among these stereotypical characters, one caught the attention of Sophie Raynaud: that of Phoebe, the eccentric and idealistic musician.
A repeated and therefore stereotypical vision
In the series, Phoebe is first presented as an environmental activist, vegetarian, anti-consumerist and defender of the animal cause. A behavior that is all in all commendable, but which will be portrayed negatively through three “repetition patterns”. Initially, his character traits are regularly the subject of comments, most of the time negative (his vegetarianism would be restrictive or even ridiculous). This is what Sophie Raynaud calls the “reproduction” mechanism, which gives “bones” to the character and allows them to be identified.
Then, his ecological activism will be associated with other characteristics, during a “superposition” mechanism. This is the case when Joey implies that she’s not patriotic because she doesn’t eat turkey at Thanksgiving. The objective here is to make his character more complex by giving him “flesh”. Over the course of the episodes, Phoebe will change: she starts eating meat and going to department stores. This “evolution” gives it “skin” – in other words, nuance – but also makes it “consensual”, or even makes it appear “inconsistent”, notes Sophie Raynaud.
For worse or for better
Ultimately, by wanting to make his characters more realistic, Friendsbroadcast for the first time from 1994 to 2004, unintentionally conveyed a negative image of sustainable consumption. However, “one of the main obstacles to changing behavior and therefore to the ecological transition is our representations,” insists Sophie Raynaud. But if “fiction can confirm our stereotypes”, it can also “disprove” them, she says. And the doctoral student cites the famous American director and producer Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, The Bridgerton Chronicles, Inventing Anna…).
In all his series, the main characters are constructed in such a way as to be “destigmatized”. In Grey’s Anatomywomen, particularly black women, are gradually gaining access to positions of responsibility. And in The Bridgerton Chronicles“the first season highlights a young white woman who corresponds to beauty standards, the second a woman of Indian origin and the third a curvy woman”, illustrates Sophie Raynaud.
Be careful not to overdo it
The co-author of the study invites advertisers, public decision-makers but especially cinema professionals to use stereotypes to move society in the right direction. Why not by conditioning certain funding on the promotion of virtuous messages? But be careful not to do it in a too visible or caricatured way: Sophie Raynaud takes the example of Disney’s “social washing”, which “wanted to be inclusive in a too brutal way, without respecting the narrative or the construction of the characters”.
