Misfits‘ industrial context is key to understanding some of the issues Anne addresses. It’s shown on E4, a free-to-air sister channel to terrestrial broadcaster Channel 4.  Targeted at a youth demographic, it primarily showcases US Teen TV alongside Friends reruns and reality formats. E4’s distinct brand identity feeds off Channel 4’s status as the younger, edgier terrestrial channel, with a reputation for quality UK drama and US imports.  Alongside ensemble teen drama Skins and teen boy sitcom The Inbetweeners (whose remake is currently at pilot stage with MTV), Misfits demonstrates a successful shift in recent years to E4 commissioning original British programming.  It’s a niche channel, but it makes a lot of noise. Ratings for The Inbetweeners third season beat out programming on terrestrial channels, Skins has won an audience award BAFTA (the UK Emmys) and last year Misfits won the BAFTA for drama series to gasps of surprise and delighted cheers.

E4’s brand identity is key to the tone that Anne notes in Misfits.  It’s a bit cheeky, a bit snarky, it prides itself in not taking things too seriously.  The ironic tone of E4’s continuity announcers and promotions – particularly of its US imports – presents its programming through a framework of peculiarly bombastic phrasing (“chuffing”, “ruddy hell”, “telly box”) and light mockery.  This allows US Teen TV’s glamorous melodramas to retain their escapist emotional pleasures, yet reframes them within the channel’s pose of ironic detachment in order to assimilate them into E4’s ‘insincere’ British youth TV flow.

It’s British shows operate by drawing from yet distinguishing themselves against US Teen TV.  Their combination of excess and the everyday, surrealism and reality, is drawn from British television’s legacy of social realism and anarchic comedy. This is set against the escapist pleasures, gloss, melodrama (and perhaps underlying conservative ideologies) of shows like 90210, Glee and One Tree Hill, the contrasts serve the UK shows’ poses of authenticity (Look how casually we do drugs! Watch us walk around in our dorky knickers!).  Whilst US Teen TV can happily air in daytime slots, E4’s British youth TV usually airs at 10pm (though later when transferred to Channel 4), enabling the language and depictions of sexuality that Anne notes.

I think that Misfits gets away with its content because it is nearly always framed as blackly comedic, through its play with representations and its witty dialogue, together with the suspension of disbelief that its genre elements bring.  It somehow manages to be sincere and snarky all at once, and we care oh so much about these characters.  Partly, this is creator and writer Howard Overman’s distinctive dialogue and tone, which he is finding difficult to transfer to the more generic arena of BBC quirky detective series with recent misfires Vexed and an adaptation of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently.  Partly it is the excellent performances from virtual unknowns (though with major roles in Spring Awakenings and Channel 4’s Red Riding amongst them) and the chemistry of the group, who hate each other but secretly might care a tiny bit.

Nathan may be rude and lewd, perpetually self-aggrandising (to the others disgust), but Robert Sheehan is so effortlessly charismatic, you would follow him anywhere.  Kelly may be a ‘Chav’ – a role Lauren Socca has fine tuned in social realist dramas The Unloved and Five Daughters – but Socca makes the frustrations behind the tough mouth clear, and hilarious. Compounded by her power to hear others thoughts – and what they think of her, a person society brands and dismisses – Kelly is kind of caring, kind of smart but still an unrepentant gobby cow. Though compared to the boys’ powers (Invisibility! Rewinding time!) the girls have kind of a rough deal – don’t even get me started on the punishment of the sexualised young woman by giving her a power that basically amounts to fighting off rape when touched. 

Anne’s difficulty with placing both the location, the langauge and the context is interesting, as what is universal here becomes very culturally specific when consumed abroad.  This cultural discount is arguably what is driving US remakes, in preference to imports.  (I’m interested in the channel brand identity mash-up that will occur with MTV’s remaking of E4’s British Teen TV in service of their own push for ‘authenticity‘). Misfits is often tagged ‘ASBO superheroes’, and the orange jumpsuits of community service make a handy uniform for our reluctant gang, more likely to accidentally kill someone than save them.  ASBO (Anti-Social Behavioral Order), like Chav, is a very British bit of slang to derogatorily mark a character as part of the undesirable underclass.  The pleasure of Misfits is its presentation of our outcasts, the apathetic can’t be bothered generation, suddenly handed great power and responsibility and generally, just messing it up. How very British.

Note: This is the first of a two-part series addressing the reception of British television series

Last month, I was in need of a new show.  Upon the recommendation of Lainey Gossip and my Twitter feed, I decided on Misfits, a show about which I knew very little, save the following:

1.)  It is British.

2.) It is about teenagers.

3.) I couldn’t obtain it through strictly legal means.

So I did what many a technologically savvy, underpaid, ethically muddled media studies scholar has done before me: I found it on the internet.  It’s widely available on YouTube, via BitTorrent, and through other streaming sites of dubious legality; suffice to say I watched the first season (six episodes) in its entirety.

For those unfamiliar with Misfits, it follows the lives of five British teens of unspecified age, all of whom have been sentenced to perform public service after committing various small crimes (the specifics of which are revealed over the course of the season).  During the first day of their service, a massive electric storm forms over the city, striking the five teens, their supervisor, and, as we later learn, hundreds of others in the city.  The bestowed each of its victims with specific powers.  For our main characters, it is clear that their powers stem from personality traits before the storm: an intensely reserved character can become invisible; a hyper-sexed female is suddenly able to cause anyone she touches to desire immediate sexual intercourse. But this is no made-for-TV X-Men: the dialogue is tart and whip-smart, the plotting is clever, and the acting is spot-on.  Misfits is superbly entertainmening, no matter how you classify it.

Within five minutes, I realized I was profoundly clueless about this show, particularly in terms of industrial and cultural context.  My cultural blindess was straightforward: the intensity of the accents made me feel an immediate need for subtitles (unfortunately, the pirates failed to provide any for me).  I didn’t know the slang, I didn’t know how old these kids were supposed to be, or if this was an accurate portrayal of community service.  I didn’t know what city (or what type of city — suburban? Exurban?) this was supposed to be.  I didn’t know that the “boot” of a car was the trunk, to what part of anatomy the word “fanny” referred, or what a “chav” was.  I didn’t know if the slight differences in accents should indicate something about the characters’ class or immigration status.  How was that supposed to influence the way that I read and understood the narrative?  I consider myself a moderately cultured person (I’ve lived in France; I’ve travelled through Europe) but that didn’t mean I could pick up on the messages that most of the intended audience — that is to say, Brits and members of the “commonwealth” — would receive as a matter of course.

The industrial blindness was even more striking, especially as a scholar of media industries, invested in the specifics of production and distribution.  Yet for various reasons (in large part related to my choice of dissertation topic), my knowledge is almost wholly limited to Hollywood.  The little logo on the corner of the screen said “4,” so I knew this wasn’t a BBC program.  Bumpers as the end of the show promised new episodes of Glee, offering a modicum of insight into the type of audience the channel was courting.  But what about the nudity, sex, lewd humor, and profusion of profanity?  And the repeated use of the “c-bomb” — one of the few remaining “sacred” words in American vernacular?  Did Misfits air on a premium channel, a sort of HBO?  If not, how did the producers get away with it?  I know that France allows nudity on television in everything from yogurt commercials to sitcoms, but this was no simple smattering of breasts: the narrative was crass and obscene, albeit hilarious.  And who wrote the show?  Was the showrunner known for other series?  Did any of the actors have star images that might influence the way that viewers would receive their performances?

Faye will address many of these questions in her post tomorrow, but for now I want my lack of knowledge to stand as a testament to the ignorance of an otherwise well-versed industry and cultural studies scholar.  As media content becomes increasingly fluid — deracinated from its original flow and “intended’ reception through global and digital flows of information — it’s imperative that we think through what such “cluelessness,” for lack of a more appropriate word, means.   How much am I missing when I watch Misfits and other non-American television, and how much does it matter?  How has bittorrenting, streaming, and other novel means of obtaining non-domestic media made this question particularly pertinent today?  Finally, what are the implications — both for the show’s potential future in America, and for Americans’ future citizenship in the global mediascape?