Melodrama in Media
By: Joseph North
Elisabeth Anker’s thoughts on Melodrama
- Pervasive cultural mode
- Segregates into camps of absolutes
- Does not allow for complexity and doubt
- Expands beyond pop culture and spills into politics
Media Stories - Anker’s Views
LeBron James leaves Cleveland (2010)
- “Melodrama moralizes all problems and conflicts”
- “Empathetic victimization”
- “The principle that, by virtue of suffering, one becomes good”
-Elisabeth Anker
Melodrama throughout the Obama-Romney Election (2012)
- “Melodrama employs emotionality to provide unambiguous distinction between good and evil through victimization, heroism, and villainy”
- Elisabeth Anker
The 2012 presidential election exemplifies Anker’s assertion that melodrama has graduated from a film or literary genre to a “mode that structures the presentation of political discourse”. Additionally, the presidential election featured a plethora of videos similar to the 9/11 video that James Baker narrates.
Linda Williams’s Thoughts on Racial Melodrama
- The “key to racial divisiveness” lies in the difference in “raced” perceptions.
- Melodrama’s omnipresence in America’s culture has deeply ingrained race images in people’s minds.
- The media can and does melodramatize the black vs white conflict.
Oscar Grant (2009)
Summary:
Oscar Grant was shot by a police officer in the Bay Area subway station in California. The white officer claims to have accidentally shot Grant but much controversy arose after an eye-witness released a camera phone video of the incident.
Oscar Grant (continued)
Similar to the Rodney King incident that Williams references in her book Playing the Race Card, the shooting involving Oscar Grant created much uproar in the Bay Area in California.
Williams asserts that it was not the Rodney King video itself that provoked the riots, but instead the ultimate response (or lack thereof) to the video that caused the “race riots”. The same can be said in the case of Oscar Grant. Melodrama has already portrayed the victimization of the black male, so the video itself was not provoking. The minimal sentence (less than a year) however, did unsettle many African-Americans.
Trayvon Martin (2012)
Trayvon Martin (continued)
The Trayvon Martin case, like the Oscar Grant case, evoked much emotion from African-Americans. Again, this emotion arose not because of an act itself, but because of the events and reactions that followed. This continues to reinforce a sense of hopelessness, a feeling that breeds melodrama.
Additionally, LInda Williams’s Playing the Race Card allowed me to realize the unnecessary and unwarranted emphasis that the public places on the appearances of those involved in a case such as George Zimmerman’s. The notion that George Zimmerman, or even Trayvon’s innocence could be determined by facial expressions and demeanors plays into the melodramatic constructs which have been perpetuated throughout American culture.
A Justified Melodramatic Approach
Sandy Hook
Jerry Sandusky
Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary
The assassination of elementary school children by a young man with a inconclusive motive requires a melodramatic approach. There is no grey area. A melodramatic approach allows people to rally as a group in efforts to cope with the tragedy that is the murder of 26 adults and children.
Jerry Sandusky
I firmly believe in the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. However, overwhelming, seemingly concrete evidence cannot be blatantly ignored. When evidence about Jerry Sandusky’s inappropriate actions and Penn State’s silent dismissal of his actions arose, I find it completely acceptable to scold the university and Jerry Sandusky in a melodramatic fashion.