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193BROADCAST F ICT ION: H E R O E S

BROADCAST FICTION:9

In this chapter we use the series Heroes as an example of an American-based fictional television series. We will examine Heroes using avariety of key concepts, exploring issues such as:

� genre� codes and conventions� representation� institution� audience.

Figure 9.1 Heroes

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Stokes suggests that it is a basic human characteristic to tell stories about our-selves, about the world and about the people and phenomena that we encounter.Stokes suggests that ‘Narrative also conveys the ideology of a culture, and it isone of the means by which values and ideals are reproduced culturally’ (Stokes2003: 67).

Television drama fiction programmes are at the heart of the broadcasting schedulesand are heavily dependent upon real and fictional narratives, for example, it wouldbe interesting to conduct an analysis across a day or a week’s peak-time viewingon television to see what proportion of the programmes are fictional or factual.Drama fiction is, however, an expensive genre and as audiences become moresophisticated, drama fiction requires greater and greater investment. This isperhaps one of the reasons why many of our most successful fictional dramas andnarratives are American and particular companies, such as HBO (part of TimeWarner), have become associated with ‘high quality’ television fiction such as Sexand the City, The Sopranos, or Six Feet Under. These types of programmes arepopular with audiences and often attract publicity for the channel that broadcaststhem.

However, there is a difficulty when it comes to analysing these types of pro-grammes, in that we often choose those that we particularly enjoy and end upproducing an analysis that is little more than ‘why I like xxx’. We need to be ableto distance ourselves from our favourite fictional programmes, separate the ‘fan’bit of ourselves and instead subject the programmes to critical scrutiny.

This involves looking at a range of issues, for example:

� Knowledge, application and evaluation of film and media language (e.g.the analysis of image, sound and music; mise-en-scène, sets and settings;visual techniques [editing, camera positioning, lighting, etc.]; generic conven-tions; non-verbal codes [basic semiotics]; iconography, etc.)

� Issues of audience (audience positioning; target audience; the programme’sassumptions about the audience; possible audience readings and evaluations;conditions of reception); your own reading and evaluation of the text, and themajor cultural and subcultural influences upon this)

� Issues of representation (e.g. of gender, race, nationality, region, heroes,villains, historical periods, etc.). Debates around the fairness, accuracy, func-tion and purpose of particular representations

� Narrative issues (e.g. study of specific narratives; comparison of differentnarrative structures and techniques; major differences between film andtelevision narratives; types of television fictional narrative – soaps, series,serials and single narratives; influence of genre on narrative; influence ofconditions of viewing; narrative openings and closures; use of character andactors in narrative; techniques of audience engagement and identification)

� Institutional issues (influence of film/broadcasting institutions upon texts;differences within film and broadcasting institutions, e.g. Hollywood vs. non-Hollywood; public service vs. commercial broadcasting; influence of finance,

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marketing and distribution upon the production and reception of texts.Debates around aesthetic value, profit, public-service values etc.)

� Questions of, and debates around, values and ideology.

Below is an example using the American fictional television drama series Heroes(series 1).

Heroes premiered in 2006 on NBC in America and in 2007 in the UK on the digitalSci-Fi channel. When the series transferred to BBC2, it attracted audiences ofover 4 million. (Excerpts from the series can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/episodes.)

Heroes can ultimately be seen as a science fiction programme (hence its premierin the UK on the digital Sci-Fi channel) which follows the generic conventions offilms such as Men in Black or X-Men and television series such as Buffy theVampire Slayer, The X-Files or The Twilight Zone.

Codes and conventionsHeroes is a complex, carefully constructed multimedia product that relies on avery sophisticated audience that is able to ‘read’ the variety of signs, codes,conventions and references contained in each episode. It is a prime example ofbricolage, where the signs or artefacts of one or more styles or genres areborrowed to create something new. At the same time, part of the series’ attractionis that it contains some basic, ‘mythic’ narratives familiar to many science fictiontexts, i.e. the fight between good and evil (although it is not always clear who isgood and who is evil), ‘ordinary’ people being put into extraordinary situations (forexample, where they have to save New York City from an apparently 9/11-typecatastrophe), the conflict between authority, order and anarchy (although again itis not clear on which side of this conflict the various ‘heroes’ are) and the fear ofconspiracies and a too-powerful (secret) government organisation.

Science fiction iconography is used as part of the title sequence which occursseveral minutes after the show has started in the form of a total eclipse of theearth whose relevance (if any) is not explained. There is also a quick flash of lightthat is again unexplained but ominous. This is usually accompanied by a voice-over saying mock-mystical phrases such as ‘Is it evolution that takes us by thehand?’ The premise of the series, that ordinary people develop super-humanpowers, perhaps through evolution, is also a key characteristic of the sciencefiction genre.

Each episode is usually made up of a number of short scenes that may (or maynot) be interconnected as they follow the storyline of the various ‘heroes’. Theseries is very dependent upon the comic book, science fiction genre with short,sharp scenes that seem to replicate the image of a comic book. There are severaloverarching story lines all going on at once that are somehow interconnected butthis connection is usually not clear to the viewer and is one of the programme’smain sources of engagement and suspense.



One difference between Heroes and a comic book is that it is not possible to peekat the end to see how things work out. This means that the viewer is in a constantstate of uncertainty, waiting to see what happens next, which story line will befeatured in the next scene, and how the (complex) narrative will develop.

Each scene is short, lasting approximately 2 minutes, and usually ends with somekind of climax. The mise-en-scène, whatever appears in the actual film frame, is carefully constructed to reinforce a continual ominous sense of threat oruncertainty. Most scenes seem to take place indoors where the lighting is low, thespaces appear cramped, and the shots are often multi-angle head and shouldershots that give little information to the viewer but rather focus on the characterand what he/she is thinking or feeling. This helps create an almost continual senseof claustrophobia and underlying danger. Speech is also often jumbled and con-fused, which increases the sense of confusion and disorientation in the viewer.The music used is low-key and ominous, although there is also a modern ‘spacy’feeling to it. The music, the lighting, the use of slo-mo, non-diegetic sound andmulti-angled filming all contribute to give a sense of ‘otherworldliness’ to thecharacters and their activities, especially when using their ‘powers’ (see, forexample, where Peter jumps off a New York building and is caught by his ‘flying’brother Nathan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/episodes/1.shtml).

Special effects are an important part of the way the series is constructed andmade to appeal to its audience. There is even a spin-off weekly series calledHeroes Unmasked (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/heroes/unmasked/) which isbroadcast on BBC2 after each episode. This explains how the series has beenmade, the actors chosen ‘after a worldwide search’ and the special effects created.It is a little ironic that this show demonstrates the falseness of what we see andshows us how the use of stunt artists, post-production editing and the insertionof computer-generated imagery (CGI) help create the illusion of the action we seeon our screens. Rather than destroy the illusion, this series seems to add to thewhole ‘mystic’ of Heroes by emphasising how clever and cutting-edge it is.

Heroes is a difficult text to analyse as it confuses the traditional roles of ‘hero’,‘villain’ etc. and it is therefore hard to apply the structure suggested by Propp (seeChapter 2, p. 55). However, the notion that we discussed early that ‘conflict iscentral to the functioning of narrative not least because it is conflict that invitesus, the audience, to take sides’ (p. 55) is an important element in driving thenarrative of Heroes forward.

RepresentationMost of the main characters in Heroes are male with a range of young/old,black/white, good/evil characters. The characters appear to be more complexthan the female characters with more ambiguous traits. Nathan, for example,appears to be very protective of his brother Peter, but this may be due to thedamage Peter could do to Nathan’s political aspirations. Matt is a failed policemanwhose marriage is not working out and who steals some diamonds.



The central character of Mohinder is, like his father, an Indian university professorand could perhaps be seen as part of a general stereotype of people of Indian-descent being hard-working, intelligent and at the cutting edge of new technology.The scenes where Mohinder returns to India are perhaps some of the least realisticof the series. (The whole series is shot in television studios in Los Angeles.)

The two Japanese characters, Hiro and Ando, are shown in a slightly comical wayas they try to adapt to life in America and in particular to Las Vegas and New York.The scenes of their lives back home in Japan show them as stereotypical ‘companymen’ working in large impersonal offices (although Hiro is eventually revealed asthe son and heir of the man who owns the company – who is himself a rathersinister character). Both Hiro and Ando are depicted as very innocent.

There are several male characters who, in varying degrees, are seen as bad and/orevil: Isaac the artist who paints the future but only when under the influence ofdrugs; DL, Niki’s husband who is an ex-criminal but tries to look after his son whenNiki is in jail; Mr Bennet (he doesn’t seem to have a first name); Claire’s father,whose intentions, whether good or evil, are unclear; and Sylar the serial killer,responsible for some gruesome murders. The male characters seem to have moredepth and variety to them. They are allowed freedom of action, both good andbad, which does not seem available to the female characters.

There are two main female characters in the first series, both blond, white, youngand attractive. Niki has an alter-ego (her dead sister called Jessica) and betweenthem they are both violent and sexual. Niki is shown early on in the series as an‘internet stripper’ (note, not a porn artist) and Jessica is responsible for some ofthe most bloody and gruesome killings in the series. Niki is shown as trying to liveas a single mother focused on her son’s welfare.

The other main female character, Claire, is shown as a young teenager/cheerleaderand seems to spend most of her on-screen time wearing a cheer leader outfit andrunning a lot. Although attractive, the character is not overtly sexual. Claire isshown as being concerned about her ‘real’ parents as well as the welfare of heradopted mother.

A secondary character, Issac’s one-time girlfriend Simone, is played by a blackactor and is again young and attractive. She is killed early on in the first series.

Both Claire and Niki as female action heroes can be seen as positive repre-sentations, although overall the range of female characters and actors is ratherlimited compared to the male characters. The female characters are portrayed astrying to maintain ‘ordinary’ middle-class American lives despite the problemscaused by their super powers.

There is a good racial mix in Heroes with American negroes, a (mysterious) Haitian,Indians and two Japanese characters. It is interesting to consider why these char-acters were included: is it to reflect the racial diversity of United States; is it totry to appeal to a racially diverse television audience; is it political correctness; oris it for dramatic effect? It is also worth considering the extent to which thesecharacters do (or do not) conform to racial stereotypes.




Figure 9.2 Hiro in Heroes


It is also interesting to consider that if the science fiction films from 1950s (TheInvasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) or It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955))were supposed to represent a fear of communist invasion and Star Trek in 1960swas supposed to be a metaphor for America’s involvement in Vietnam, what (ifanything) is the underlying representation of Heroes?

InstitutionIt is important to remember that Heroes is the carefully constructed product of amajor multi-national television company, NBC, owned by the US-based consumergiant General Electric (GE). This means that the Heroes series have had a lot ofmoney invested in them and that consequently NBC anticipates making a lot of money as a return on its investment. General Electric own a whole range ofproduction companies and television stations in America as well as Universal filmstudios and theme parks (http://www.cjr.org/resources/).


ACTIVITY

Apart from the main 12 characters listed on the Heroes website, list theother important characters and try to decide in what ways they arepositive or negative representations. For example:

� How would you categorise the character of Claude?� Are there any differences between the male and female characters?

If so how do you account for this?� Are there any social groups that are obviously missing from Heroes,

for example, the elderly, gays or native American Indians?

ACTIVITY

Access the General Electric home page and analyse how the companypresents itself. For example, it has various web pages dedicated to‘values’ such as community and citizenship: ‘Every day, the people of GEseek to improve the world in which we live.’ Why do you think thecompany focuses on this rather than telling us about its products?

continued


It is also important to remember that Heroes is being promoted by NBC as abrand, something that has a strong identity through its name and logo or slogan.Establishing Heroes as a brand is important financially for NBC because it allowsthe company to sell many other products under that brand name. The name Heroeswill become not only associated with the television series but also with the wayin which the series is viewed, understood and interpreted by television viewersacross the world.

The main NBC Heroes website is sponsored by Nissan (see http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/) and offers a shopping facility that includes Heroes branded items suchas DVDs, T-shirts, watches, a calendar, graphic novels and a lunchbox. The graphicnovels can be downloaded from the website as well as being published in hardback.There is currently a second series of Heroes as well as a spin-off series Heroes:Origins. With its changing cast of characters, potential back-stories and unre-solved story lines, Heroes should run for several series. If Heroes is a success incountries like the UK, then NBC can increase the price it charges for each seriesas the BBC will not want to lose the programme. (This is similar to other successfultelevision programmes where another television channel has ‘poached’ the series


On the UK page of its website (http://www.ge.com/uk/) it asks ‘Whatcan GE do for you?’ and then says: ‘GE people worldwide are dedicatedto turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that helpsolve some of the world’s toughest problems.’

Again, try to suggest reasons for this approach to marketing the com-pany. Do you think these statements are supported by the informationcontained in the website?

ACTIVITY

One of the most successful brands to develop out of a television seriesis Star Trek, first broadcast in 1966. Using Star Trek or another exampleof your own choice, investigate how the brand has been developed andwhat products are sold under the brand heading. You might considervideos and DVDs of the television series and films, toys, books, clothingand other items. A good way to start is to look for commercial websitesfor the brand and then see if there is a shopping or store section (see,for example, http://store.startrek.com/page/collectibles/).


from the original broadcaster by paying more for follow-up series, examples includeThe Simpsons, Lost and The Sopranos.) There are also computer and mobilephone games being developed around the Heroes brand.

The fact that the series was created by NBC means that there was a considerableamount of financial investment available for the making of the programmes,especially if we consider that Heroes is an ‘untested’ product rather than a directcopy of other successful programmes within an easily definable genre. This meansthat NBC were perhaps taking a risk with the making of Heroes but that also theycould invest heavily in the promotion and marketing of Heroes to try to ensurethat the risks were as small as possible.

The sponsors Nissan will also have made a financial contribution to the makingand marketing of the series; their logo and adverts feature strongly on the web-sites and Nissan cars are used by various characters in different episodes.

It would be hard for many other, smaller television production companies to emu-late this amount of investment in the production and marketing of a new untestedseries like Heroes. Even the BBC, with far more resources than many independenttelevision companies, would be unlikely to take such a risk and is much happierbuying something that is a proven success in USA, although this in itself is noguarantee of success in the UK. The BBC also knew that the series was wellreceived when premiered in the UK on the Sci-Fi channel and in fact benefitedfrom ‘word-of-mouth’ recommendations from those who had seen the series onthe digital channel. The Sci-Fi Channel (coincidentally?) is owned by NBC,enabling them again to promote their product in a new country and again lessenthe risk of losing money on a new series. It would be interesting (but difficult) to know when the BBC made the decision to buy the series, how much it paid for it, and whether it has also purchased the second (or subsequent) series. Some people argue that there are too many American programmes on Britishtelevision and that organisations like the BBC should be developing home-grownprogrammes.

The BBC website has an online Heroes game and a podcast for the ‘Official RadioShow’ broadcast on BBC7 as well as a download facility for mobiles to getcharacter profiles, wallpapers and other material sent to your mobile phone (at acost, of course). This enables the BBC to also make some money out of the series.


Website Activity 9.1: Audience research into Americanprogramming.


AudienceAlthough when Heroes was first broadcast on BBC2 it attracted over 4 millionviewers, its audience is now around 2.5 million. BBC3’s broadcast of Heroesattracts just over 1 million per episode and follows on from the previous episodejust shown on BBC2. In effect digital viewers are being allowed to see the nextepisode one week early. Episodes are also repeated again late at night on BBC2.This means that each episode is broadcast at least three times a week, plus anepisode of Heroes Unmasked, and seen by an audience of over 3.5 million. Byshowing each episode first on BBC3, the BBC is using Heroes as a means ofattracting viewers to its digital channels. You may wish to conduct some researchamongst your peers and colleagues to find out when, where and how audiencesaccess and consume a programme like Heroes, for example:

� Do they watch it online?� Do they watch it on BBC3 or BBC2?� If they watch on BBC2 or BBC3, do they watch it alone? With family? With

friends?� Do they watch the same episode more than once?� Did they watch the series when it was first broadcast on the Sci-Fi channel?� What first made them decide to watch the series?

Increasingly, fans, in both the UK and America, communicate with one anotherthrough the web where there are several official and unofficial Heroes websites.

Originally fan-based websites were seen as a way of empowering audiences whohad been previously ignored by mainstream culture. These unofficial websitesenabled fans to develop a sense of community and common interest as well as


ACTIVITY

In 2007 there was considerable scandal around the use by televisioncompanies, including the BBC, of premium telephone lines as a meansof generating extra income (see p. 187). However the BBC, like the othertelevision companies, needs to generate extra income, especially as thelicence fee is lower than the BBC would have wished.

Outline the main argument for and against the BBC earning additionalincome through activities such as downloads for mobiles. You might alsowish to consider what other commercial activities the BBC undertakes,for example, books and magazines relating to successful BBC series suchas Dr Who, The Clothes Show, etc. Consider the arguments for andagainst these types of activities by a ‘non-commercial’ organisation.


exchanging ideas, gossip and information about characters and narrative devel-opment. It was often claimed that these websites helped generate a sense offellowship and support for fans who may have otherwise felt isolated and/ormisunderstood.

Today, however, fan-based websites are officially sanctioned and controlled andare an important part of the marketing and attraction of programmes like Heroes.Television companies recognise the importance of these websites and the oppor-tunity they provide to encourage viewers to participate in the programme beyondmerely watching it on television.

The official websites (such as http://www.9thwonders.co.uk; http://www.heroes360.co.uk/mainsite) are carefully constructed to enable fans to have theopportunity to become more deeply involved in the brand, its characters, nar-ratives, insider ‘gossip’ and future developments. For example, it is possible tosee trailers for the next series of Heroes at http://heroes-spoilers.blogspot.com.This helps to ensure that audiences are ‘hooked’ on the programme, will remainloyal to subsequent series and continue to purchase the merchandising.

These official websites also give the show’s authors and producers the opportunityto develop a more personal and intimate relationship with their (worldwide)audience. One of the recent postings from the show’s creators says:

I’m sorry that I can’t answer all of your questions per-sonally but I will be looking over all of them in the nextday or so. It is fans like you that will make this show asuccess. I need each and every one of you to keepwatching and telling all of your friends to watch as well,and we will do everything in our power to make this thebest show on television and to honor friends like you.


ACTIVITY

Access the blog at http://blog.nbc.com/heroes/2006/09/thanks_to_all_the_fans.php and consider the way in which the show’s creators try to create a sense of personal engagement with their audience. Forexample, how do they talk to their fans? What are the issues that arediscussed? Who initiates these? Do you think this works?

“

”


Hill and Calcutt (2001) argue that sites like these are typical of the ways in whichfandom operates. By using websites to create a sense of community, the pro-ducers are enabling fans to construct particular identifies for themselves andactively participating in the creation of certain types of meaning for popular culturaltexts. Increasingly, the media companies are taking over the idea of fan-basedwebsites and turning them into promotional vehicles.

Fan-based websites originally offered a distinctive way of engaging with popularmedia texts, whether through expressing one’s own personal views, giving infor-mation or entering into discussion with other fans. However, increasingly thosethat participate in the blogs and other web-based activities are viewed as beingmanipulated by NBC and other mainstream media companies.

There are many other Heroes-related websites. Most of them, like http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/board, are hosted by media companies that are tryingto sell merchandise to Heroes fans. However, it is still possible still to use the web to subvert the programme, for example, the YouTube parody at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVV2ft4-2xk.

Some of the popularity of long-running television series is their familiarity andsense of continuity, although it is difficult to think of Heroes offering reassuranceor comfort. It is, however, useful to think about how audiences are positioned interms of a programme like Heroes. For example, who are we supposed to identifywith, be sympathetic to? Do male members of the audience identify with the maleheroes and female members with the female heroes? Do the opinions of your peers


ACTIVITY

Run a Google search for fan-based websites for the show Heroes(for example, http://www.buddytv.com/Heroes.aspx or http://www.conservativecat.com/mt/archives/2007/05/heroes_on_tv.html) and tryto categorise the types of responses that are shown. For example:

� Are they all positive?� Where in the world do they originate from?� Are they predominantly from males or females?� What are the main topics of discussion?� Do you think these messages are censored or moderated in any way?

If so by whom, using what criteria?

Conduct some research amongst your peers, do many of them use thesetypes of sites? If so, why?


and colleagues influence the way you view the programme or its characters? Doesthe idea of a hero inevitably invite our admiration?

And finally . . .It is worth spending a little time to think about the ideological messages containedwithin the Heroes series. Questions to consider include the following:

� To what extent can the programme be seen to promote American values?� What is the significance of the threatened destruction of New York and the

way that it can be seen to refer the events of 9/11?� What is Heroes saying (if anything) about authority, social order and America’s

place in the world?� Why, for example, if the ‘heroes’ are a worldwide phenomenon, does everyone

end up in America?� What messages (if any) are we the audience being given about the role of

individuals in society and the role of a large, anonymous government agency?� In what ways does Heroes promote a positive (or a negative) representation

of ‘the future’ and, in particular, evolution?

Further reading

Creeber, G. (ed.) (2004) Fifty Key Television Programmes, Arnold.Hill, A. and Calcutt, I. (2001) ‘Vampire hunters: the scheduling and reception of

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in the UK’ in Rayner, P., Wall, P. and Kruger,S. (2003) AS Media Studies: The Essential Introduction, 2nd edn, Routledge.

Stokes, J. (2003) How To Do Media and Cultural Studies, Sage.


Website Activity 9.2: Marketing of another TV series/film.


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