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Haunted television : trauma and the specter in the archive
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Wheatley, Helen (2020) Haunted television : trauma and the specter in the archive. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 59 (3). pp. 69-89. doi:10.1353/cj.2020.0030
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0030
Abstract
On television, the ghost enables a revisitation of traumatic histories and a revelation of injustice beyond death, in genres as diverse as the ghost drama and the public information film. In these texts, the ghost brings about awareness and acceptance of past trauma, or avoidance of the repetition of the mistakes of the past. However, if television haunts us – not only in Sconce’s sense of a form of ‘occult liveness’ (2000) but in its ability to reanimate the dead – then the recent resurfacing of Jimmy Savile, a dead television celebrity and serial rapist, might be seen as a more troubling and problematic form of televisual haunting. This article explores the ideas that television itself can be ‘haunting’, that television companies and their archives might become haunted, and that the production of programming, from documentary to drama, can sometimes act as a form of exorcism, or at least a working through, of the traumas and hidden histories that the spectral figure represents. It explores the discourse of haunting that permeates the reception of Savile’s posthumous image, and thinks about what viewing Savile as a spectre reveals about the television archive. The article not only looks at documentary programming about Savile and his crimes, but also thinks about how dramas such as National Treasure (Channel 4, 2016) and the Sherlock episode The Lying Detective’ (BBC1, tx. 1/8/17) are haunted by his spectre.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > Film and Television Studies | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Savile, Jimmy, 1926-2011, Television archives, Ghosts -- On television, Shock -- On television, Sex crimes -- On television, National Treasure -- Channel Four (Great Britain), Sherlock -- British Broadcasting Corporation | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies | ||||||
| Publisher: | University of Texas Press | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0009-7101 | ||||||
| Official Date: | March 2020 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 59 | ||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 69-89 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1353/cj.2020.0030 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Publisher Statement: | "This is a pre-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available through the University of Texas Press." | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
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