The TV viewer as detective: approaches to the contemporary television experience from HBO’s True Detective

Authors

  • Bruno Souza Leal
  • Felipe Silveira Borges

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30962/ec.1399

Keywords:

Narrativa, Série, Telespectador, Televisão, Ficção

Abstract

From the study of the first season of True Detective, this paper analyses the image of the TV viewer as a detective in search of meanings and relations present in the stories watched. The HBO show, which is guided by unreliable narrators, summons a viewer interested in "drilling" and rewatch the story, to use the terms coined by Jason Mittell (2009). Throughout the paper, we reflect on the extent to which this viewer posture, which parallels the suspicious reader predicted by Paul Ricoeur (2010), constitutes a critical movement beyond the series or is exhausted in a metanarrative pleasure. In the case of True Detective, the very possibility of a speech to contain a truth is put at stake, in what can be its main contribution in regard to the performance of the television viewer-detective.

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Published

24-12-2017

How to Cite

Leal, B. S., & Borges, F. S. (2017). The TV viewer as detective: approaches to the contemporary television experience from HBO’s True Detective. E-Compós, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.30962/ec.1399

Issue

Section

Televisão