Timed Essay 4

Long form television dramas lack originality; no matter which country they are made in, they all use intertextuality in the same way.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

In this essay I will be looking at whether long form television dramas lack originally no matter what country they’re made in. The two TV dramas I will be looking at for this question are Stranger Things and Deutschland 83.

The theory of post-modernism suggests that everything is a reinvention of something else and that we live in a post-modern society. Stranger Things cannot be considered truly original as it follows and features codes and conventions of the two genres it is based on: horror and sci-fi. Many tropes from those two genres are used in Stranger Things and can be traced back to films such as Alien and ET. Deutschland 83 also cannot be considered truly original as it features codes and conventions from the spy thriller genre and films such as The 39 Steps. Most genres were established in the 1920’s and 30’s so it is impossible for media to not fall upon tropes of these genres.

Intertextuality is usually about paying homage to a text within another text. In the case of Stranger Things and Deutschland 83, they are used to appeal to a secondary target audience who will remember these texts. Stranger Things uses intertextuality to pay homage to the shows that the creators grew up on, such as ET and The Goonies whilst Deutschland 83 uses intertextuality to reinforce the ideology of the time period and to create a different perspective. This is done as the east are usually presented as bad and the west as good, but the show uses intertextuality to switch that perspective. In general, Deutschland 83 doesn’t have much intertextuality, at least not as much compared to Stranger Things so it is much harder to spot. The intertextuality that is featured in the show may not even be recognised by American/British audiences as the audience may not have enough background information on the East/West conflict.

In conclusion, I agree that no matter what country they are from, television dramas will always lack originality as we live in a post-modern society, however tropes can be used in different ways that can be considered original. I disagree with the part of the statement that says “they all use intertextuality in the same way”, as Stranger Things uses it for nostalgia and Deutschland 83 uses it to reinforce and change perspectives/create a different reading of the events.