Beth Johnson

Shameless television: gendering transnational narratives

Abstract The UK television drama Shameless (Channel 4, 2004–2011) ran for eleven series, ending with its 138th episode in 2011. The closing episode did not only mark an end, however, but also a beginning – of a US remake on Showtime (2011-). Eight series down the line and carrying the weight of critical acclaim, this article works to consider the textual representations and formal constructions of gender through the process of adaptation. Paying close attention to the structural elements of recaps, voiceovers, and final sequences of Shameless’ first series, while drawing on the work of feminist narratologists and transnational TV theory, we argue that the examination of gender in narrative reveals differing cultural values between the UK and US.

Don’t Look Back in Anger: Manchester, Supersonic and Made of Stone

This chapter provides analysis of two recent rockumentary texts—The Stone Roses: Made of Stone (Dir. Shane Meadows, 2013) and Oasis: Supersonic (Dir. Mat Whitecross, 2016). Thinking through the form and structure of the visual and sonic compositions, as well as the content, it considers the ways in which both texts use the revival culture of the present to look back at the past (1980s and 1990s), and situate the bands at their heart as authentic, Mancunian creatives. It also considers the female-centred stories and sociocultural alignments between the bands and the directors. In addition, the chapter suggests that while the place of Manchester is situated as an important and somewhat mythical starting point for the music that the bands produced, that the outlooks and outputs of the bands were, and remain, much broader and inclusive than white, working-class, English, male ‘scenes’.

Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain

This collection is a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary British television drama and its representations of social class. Through early studio-set plays, soap operas and period drama, the volume demonstrates how class provides a bridge across multiple genres and traditions of television drama. The authors trace this thematic emphasis into the present day, offering fascinating new insights into the national conversation around class and identity in Britain today. The chapters engage with a range of topics including authorial explorations of Stephen Poliakoff and Jimmy McGovern, case studies of television performers Maxine Peake and Jimmy Nail, and discussions of the sitcom genre and animation form. This book offers new perspectives on popular British television shows such as Goodnight Sweetheart and Footballers’ Wives, and analysis of more recent series such as Peaky Blinders and This is England.

This Is England : Authorship, Emotion and Class Telly

This chapter considers the significance of social class and gender in relation to authorship and emotion, situating these tenets as key critical contexts for interpreting This Is England’86 (Channel 4, 2010), This Is England’88 (Channel 4, 2011) and This Is England’90 (Channel 4, 2015). Though widely recognised as texts ‘authored’ by Shane Meadows and Jack Thorne, I suggest that the significant creative contribution and improvisation of working-class actor Vicky McClure, amounts to co-authorship.

Getting On: Ageing, Mess and the NHS

This article examines the feminist foundations, style and performances of key writer-stars Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan in the British Broadcasting Corporation sitcom Getting On (2009–2012). Paying close attention to the ‘life experience’ of these women, it aims to think through the multiple, acute politics of representation that the show offers up, suggesting that sex, class and age operate as key emotional loadstones. Examining the hierarchical interactions between medical staff, this article also argues that the minutiae of social exchanges made visible in the sitcom reveal the sickness of the National Health Service to be connected to new managerialism and male privilege.

Realism, Real Sex and the Experimental Film: Mediating Eroticism in Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye

Andrew Repasky McElhinney’s Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye (2003) begins with a grainy, close-up image of a woman giving birth. Over this image is narrated an account not of the life, but of the myth of Georges Bataille. It ends with his death in 1962, a year before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, as if there were something uncanny about the relative proximity between the two events. This deliberate ‘uncanny’ misconception is a signal that Bataille haunts McElhinney’s scene, but is not part of it. As Freud notes: ‘the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar’ (Freud, 1990, p. 340). Bataille is ob-scene (in the sense of being off screen), even though his life is referred to and the film takes the title of his most famous novella, Story of the Eye (Bataille, 2001b), the ‘Ur’-text of a considerable portion of avant-garde pornography or intellectual erotica.

Masochism and The Mother, Pedagogy and Perversion

Erika’s contract: If I beg, tighten my bonds, please. Adjust the belt by at least two or three holes. The tighter the better. Then, gag me with some stockings I will have ready. Stuff them in so hard I’m incapable of making any sound. Next, take off the blindfold, please, and sit down on my face and punch me in the stomach to force me to thrust my tongue into your behind. For that is my dearest wish. Hands and feet tied behind my back and locked up next door to my mother but out of her reach behind my bedroom door, till the morning. Don’t worry about my mother, she’s my problem.