Television Drama in Israel: Identities in Post-TV Culture

by Itay Harlap

Overview

Israeli television, currently celebrating fifty years of broadcasting, has become one of the most important content sources on the international TV drama market, when serials such as Homeland, Hostages, Fauda, Zaguory Empire and In Treatment were bought by international networks, HBO included. Offering both a textual reading and discourse analysis of contemporary Israeli television dramas, Itay Harlap adopts a case study approach in order to address production, reception and technological developments in its accounts. His premise is that the meeting point between social trends within Israeli society (primarily the rise of opposition groups to the hegemony of the Zionist-Jewish-masculine-Ashkenazi ideologies) and major changes in the medium in Israel (which are comparable to international changes that have been titled "post-TV"), led to the creation of television dramas characterized by controversial themes and complex narratives, which present identities in ways never seen before on television or in other Israeli mediums.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501328916
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/05/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Itay Harlap teaches television studies and film theory at Sapir Academic College, Israel, and at the The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University, Israel. His articles have appeared in Jewish Film&New Media, Misgarot Media [in Hebrew], Mikan [in Hebrew], Critical Studies in Television, and GLQ, A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Harlap is among the founders and organizers of the “Fiktzia” annual conference on Israeli television studies.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements

1. Half a Century of Israeli Identities Through Television
Before Television
Television Aleph (A), or the Period of Single-Channel Consensus
Television Beit (B), or the Period of Channel 2's Dominance
Television Gimel (C) or Israeli Post-Television

2. Bringing Back the Nation: BeTipul's Male Warrior
Trauma, Zionism, and masculinity
Dan Halutz and the trauma of the victimizer
Menachem Yerushalmi and the working through of trauma
Uri Kahana and the trauma of heterosexual masculinity

3. It's Not TV, It's BeTipul: Rethinking 'Israeliness'
BeTipul: Text and context
'BeTipul is symbolic of Israeli society'
'BeTipul is a controversial series'
'BeTipul is not regular television'
'BeTipul is produced by talented creators'
'BeTipul is psychologically profound'
Conclusion, or The Text Also Speaks

4. Bad Television/Good (Post) Television: Aging and Masculinity in Nevelot [Eagles]
Old Age and the Bad Object
Television as Bad Object
Nevelot as Good Object

5. Small-Screen Trauma: Seriality and Post-Trauma in Parashat HaShavua and Waltz With Bashir
Shaul the Dreamer
Between Parashat HaShavua and Waltz With Bashir
Second Season, Tenth Episode, Last Scene

6. 'Black Box': Memory, Television, and Ethnicity in Zaguri Imperia
Twenty Years On: Sh'chur and Zaguri
From 'Dancers Dancing in the Snow' to 'Habibi Diali'
'All But the White Foam': Television and Memory
Conclusion, or 'What's the Moral of the Story?'

7. The New Normative: Gay Fatherhood on Israeli Television
From Criminals and 'Sick People' to Gay Fathers
Normative Gay Parenting on Israeli Broadcast Television
Ima VeAbbaz (Mom and Dads)

8. Conclusion and Some Observations on Israeli Reality TV

References
Television
Film

Editorial Reviews

[Harlap] does an excellent job of exploring the historical and cultural contexts that have led to the popularity of these drama series, and the ways in which they have explored pertinent and often painful issues such as trauma (including cultural trauma) and victimisation, Israeliness, ageing and masculinity, and gay fatherhood ... The book offers an insightful analysis ... relevant for researchers and students beyond the Israeli context as well.” —European Jourbanal of Communication

“This is a stylishly written, readable and persuasive analysis of a selection of contemporary Israeli television that will be of considerable interest and value to students and researchers alike. One of the main strengths of the book is that it engages directly with programmes, via coherent and conceptually informed case studies that bring new material into the scholarly domain and combine close textual analysis with a discussion of Israeli society and culture.

A second major strength of Dr Harlap's writing is that, although tightly focused on contemporary Israeli TV drama, he adopts critical, conceptual and theoretical frameworks that connect directly with the wider field of Television Studies: for example, 'post-TV' – indeed, 'post-Israel' -, cultural and psychological notions of trauma and the politics of representation.

This book is an important contribution to the growing field of Israeli Television Studies, whilst several of the case studies – the chapter on representations of gay fatherhood, for example – pick up on representational and political issues that will resonate beyond Israel.” —Stephen Lacey, Emeritus Professor of Drama, Film and Television, University of South Wales, Wales, UK

“Television Drama in Israel is a brilliant study of the collapse of the Zionist ideal of the “New Jew” as it is represented in five Israeli TV dramas. Through an insightful analysis of both themes and structures, the book shows how the Jewish masculine, Ashkenazi heterosexual hero is replaced by repressed identities of Arab-Jews, LGBT, or an effeminate protagonist. Arguing that this transformation reflects, as well as effects, Israeli society's new Post-Zionist era, the book utilizes an intricate study of personal and collective traumas to impressively expose new perceptions of victims and of perpetrators as they are represented in Post-TV dramatic articulations.” —Hannan Hever, Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature and Comparative Literature, Yale University, USA

“Itay Harlap's book provides a fresh and detailed analysis on core themes in Israeli culture through what has until now been an under explored perspective- that of Israeli television productions. It is therefore an important and illuminating contribution to the fields of both Israel and Television Studies that researchers will find as a valuable text in their courses.” —Nurith Gertz, Professor Emerita of Film and Literature, The Open University of Israel, Israel

From the Publisher