Brett Mills

Fox Tots Attack Shock: Urban Foxes, Mass Media and Boundary-Breaching

On June 7, 2010, UK media outlets reported that 9-month-old twins living in East London had been rushed to hospital following a “suspected fox attack”: the babies had been seriously injured. This story received sustained coverage for several months, and became the focus of debate over the behavior of urban foxes, and how they and humans should coexist. Using textual analysis to unravel the various discourses surrounding this moment, this paper discusses how the incident became such a prominent “media event.” Alongside the contexts of the “silly season” and a period of political transition, we argue that this incident breached a series of spatial boundaries that many societies draw between people and the “natural world,” from the “safest space” of a childs cot, to the categorizations made about animals themselves. We discuss the consequences of such boundary breaches, pointing to a deep confusion over the assignment of responsibility for, and expertise about, the figure of the “urban fox.”

Television wildlife documentaries and animals' right to privacy

This article examines the BBC wildlife documentary series Natures Great Events (2009) in order to investigate the ways in which such texts engage with (or ignore) debates about animal ethics, in particular, animals’ right to privacy. Through analysis of the ‘making of’ documentaries that accompany the series, it shows how animals’ right to privacy is turned into a challenge for the production teams, who use newer forms of technology to overcome species’ desire not to be seen. The article places this analysis within the context of broadcasters’ concerns over environmental issues, acknowledging that wildlife documentaries can play a vital role in engaging citizens in environmental debates. However, it is argued that the ‘speciesism’ which affords humans a right to privacy while disavowing other species such rights is one of the tenets upon which humanitys perceived right to maintain mastery over other species is itself maintained; that is, in order for wildlife documentaries to ‘do good’ they must inevitably deny many species the right to privacy.

Being Rob Brydon: performing the self in comedy

Through analysis of the writer, actor and comedian Rob Brydon, this paper aims to examine the performative role afforded to the comedian. The paper argues that the comedian occupies a space which, while drawing on representational processes similar to those for stars and celebrities is, in fact, of a sort all of its own. It is suggested that the fact that comedians can perform as themselves – even in texts which are quite clearly signalled as fiction – means that versions of themselves can multiply across texts, resulting in a version of the self which, while seemingly repeatedly confessional, may instead be nothing more than a performance. In showing how versions of Brydon recur across a range of texts and genres this article demonstrates the complexity of comic performance, and suggests that the specificities of comedy offer a ripe site for the field of celebrity studies.

The animals went in two by two: Heteronormativity in television wildlife documentaries

This article examines British television wildlife documentaries in order to outline the ways in which limited representations of animal behaviour recur. It focuses on representations of animal sexuality, monogamy and parenthood, and suggests that how such activities are repeatedly represented draw on normalised human notions of such behaviour. This is demonstrated through comparison of these representations with literature from zoology and ethology, which shows that a considerably wider variety of animal behaviour has been documented. The article suggests that the discourses of sexuality, monogamy and parenthood are interrelated and interdependent, with the validity of each supported by the existence of the others. It is argued that how animals are represented in such documentaries matters, partly because normalised discourses must be drawn on in order for programmes to make sense of the behaviour they present, but mainly because animal behaviour is commonly used as evidence for ‘natural’ forms of human behaviour.

My house was on Torchwood! : Media, place and identity

Using life writing, this article examines my responses to seeing my house on television — during an episode of Torchwood filmed around Cardiff. The article explores the intersections between personal history, ideas of home and televisual representation. It focuses on the ways in which personal knowledge affects readings of programmes; the relationships between tourists and residents; the emotive nature of responses to representations; and televisions role as a recorder of locations. In doing so, the article attempts to bring together the personal and emotive nature of culture with ideas of identity, the medias role in society, and cultural and social change.

A Special Freedom:Regulating Comedy Offence

This chapter examines how British television comedy is regulated. It demonstrates the tensions that exist between the needs to protect audiences from shocking or offensive material, and the need for comedy to break taboos and be surprising. In doing so, it explores the kinds of topics that British audiences often find problematic when related to comedy, such as race and disability. In order to show how these regulations work in practice, the chapter examines two case studies from the BBC motoring show Top Gear. For one of these examples audience complaints about comic content were upheld, whereas for the other they were rejected. By comparing these two cases it is argued that comedy often has a ‘special freedom’, able to do and say things that more serious forms are often denied. However, there are still limits to this freedom.

Analysing stand-up comedy

Comedy is a diverse, vibrant and multifaceted phenomenon. Its ubiquity is demonstrated through the different forms and styles it adopts and the variety of functions it fulfils. Scholars across a range of disciplines, from sociology and psychology to biology and English, have provided significant insights into this complex and pervasive form of expression that permeates everyday life and mediated discourses. Although a number of different disciplines take comedy as their subject matter, the opportunities afforded to the inter-disciplinary study of comedy are rarely, if ever, capitalized on. Comedy scholars seldom consult other scholars from outside their own specific fields. This became self-evident when the three of us informally discussed the lack of literature on ‘how’ to analyse stand-up comedy at the Comedy, Society and Popular Narrative conference at Liverpool John Moores University in November 2009. Each of us explained how we might go about analysing stand-up comedy from our own approaches – Sharon Lockyer from a sociocultural perspective, Brett Mills from a humour theory approach and Louise Peacock from a theatre and performance standpoint. It was through such discussions that the benefits of inter-disciplinary approaches to studying comedy were revealed. These

Make Me Laugh: Creativity in the British television comedy industry

Abstract The three-year (2012–2015) AHRC-funded research project Make Me Laugh: Creativity in the British Television Comedy Industry worked with writers, producers, directors and other industry personnel to map the productions they work on and follow their labor as they move from one job to another and strive to maintain a career. This article draws on interview material from this project to investigate the ways in which comedy workers negotiate the maintenance of their creativity within economic, cultural and industrial contexts such as policy, funding, and the whims of broadcasters and production companies. It argues that while such contexts are evident for all cultural production, there are specifics of the comedy sector because of humor’s relationships with the social role of broadcasting. It therefore highlights the specificity of comic creative labor, contributing to ongoing Humor Studies debates focused on the particularities of comedy as a category.

‘If this was a human…’: Pets, vets and medicine

The television documentary series The Supervet (Channel 4, 2014–) follows the eponymous Noel Fitzpatrick as he carries out experimental surgery on animals seemingly beyond help. This article examines the series in order to explore how this programme depicts animal medicine. Drawing on animal studies approaches, it argues that the programme foregrounds the humans rather than the animals, and, in its focus on surgery, legitimizes humans’ dominance of other species. In doing so, it argues that television’s representational strategies struggle with offering depictions that are not human centred.

Old Jokes: One Foot in the Grave, Comedy and the Elderly

One Foot in the Grave ran from 1990 to 2000 on BBC1 and so can be seen as indicative of British television comedy in the 1990s. A total of 42 30-minute episodes were made, and the programme became a massive hit, its ratings increasing over its first two series so that by 1993, it was regularly being watched by 16 million viewers in the UK (Lewisohn 595). The programme concerns the trials and tribulations of Victor Meldrew, who, in the first episode, is forcibly retired from his job as a security guard when he is replaced by an electronic box. The series explores the ways in which people attempt to fill their lives, and find something useful to do, when forced out of work. Because Victor is an older person, the programme is often referred to as being about retirement, but the motivation behind the majority of its narratives arises because Victor does not wish to be retired and desires to be a productive member of society. The series can therefore be understood as an examination of changing labour patterns and treatment of older people, and the relationships that exist in contemporary labour markets in which ‘people aged 50–65 face widespread age discrimination from employers’ (Walker and Naegele 5).