"Bold and Beautiful"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses soap operas and focuses specifically on "Bold and Beautiful." It describes the generic features of the soap opera format and then looks at their narrative structure. Finally, the paper discusses the relationship between the narrative structure and the genre or soap operas. The paper presents examples from "Bold and Beautiful" from March 24, 2008, Episode #5274.

Table of Contents:
Step #1: Generic Features of Soap Opera Format
March 24, 2008, Episode #5274
Step #2: Narrative Structure of the Soap Opera Format
Step #3 Relationship between Genre and Narrative

From the Paper:

"In John Fiske's essay ("The Codes of Television") he is talking about the CBS documentary with General Westmorland (Vietnam era general running the war for the U.S.) in which extreme close-ups are used for emphasis. Writing in the New York Times (and quoted by Fiske) Alex Jones explains "the extreme close-up can be especially damaging when an interview is carefully scripted and the cameraman is instructed to focus tightly on the person's face at the point when the toughest question is to be asked."
"The same genre of camera close up is used in soap narrative, albeit there is noting damaging about the result. In fact, it plays into the hands of the director and writers to have the camera zoom in tightly on Brooke's face as she is making her stand against Taylor. Immediately after Brooke makes her strongest protestation, the camera goes very tight on Taylor, whose head is nodding slightly but not in agreement; she nods because she understands where Brooke is coming from, and what she (Taylor) can expect to be confronted with for at least this episode, and likely one or more - or dozens - in the foreseeable future."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aristotle (1967). 'Poetics,' in The Great Critics: An anthology of literary Criticism, Third Edition, Eds. James Harry Smith and Edd Winfield Parks (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), pp. 25-61.
• Casey, B., Casey, N., Calvert, B., French L., & Lewis J. (2002). 'Code; Convention; Drama; Genre; Narrative; Reality Television; Representation and Soap Opera,' in Television Studies: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge), pp. 27-29, 42-43, 71-76, 138-142, 196-198, 198-202, and 222-226.
• CBS-TV. (2008). The Bold and the Beautiful. March 24, 2008, Episode #5274.
• Eco, U. (1994). 'Interpreting Serials,' in The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), pp. 83-100.
• Fiske, John (1987). 'The Codes of Television,' Television Culture (London and New York: Methuen), pp. 1-13.

More papers on "Bold and Beautiful":

• Comparison Essay # 7191 : "Disease and Beautiful Women in Art"
• Analytical Essay # 31927 : "O Youth and Beauty"
• Essay # 50685 : "Boston Architecture"

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