When we associate future and series, we obviously think of Black Mirror. This anthology series projected a dystopian and sadly often realistic future world. Social credit, surveillance, connected brain… She’s seen it all and more. The small screen is the mirror of our time, but is it capable of transforming society to create a better (or worse) world? This is one of the questions addressed on March 24 at Series Mania during the conference “Soft power and audiovisual: how series shape the world of tomorrow”. Does fiction have the power to transform the world?
One thing is certain, many series have opened up debates on subjects that have remained ignored until now. Female sexuality and relations between women in Orange is the new Black which offers lesbian, bisexual and trans heroines. For its part, the feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale, adapted from the novel by Margaret Atwood, presents a distorting mirror of reality that is ultra-relevant to the point of seeing its codes taken up by a certain number of feminist movements after its release. Remember that the series was broadcast a few months before the release of the word of victims of sexual violence as part of #metoo. She put a big spotlight on the struggles that remain to be fought for women’s rights.
“With soft power, it’s about real change”
We also think of the blockbuster Westworld who has developed an almost prophetic reflection on artificial intelligence and its potential dangers for civilization. Its broadcast came a few months after the warnings of Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk on the threat of killer robots, that is to say artificial intelligence applied to armaments. It imposed a philosophical debate on robots, pushing fiction into nightmarish lands.
“The ambition of series is not only to pose as the mirror of the world, explains the philosopher Sandra Laugier during the conference, but to transform society with series like Our boys, The handmaid’s taleand even Lupine. They make it possible to awaken consciences and modify their way of seeing the world. With the soft-power, it is about real change”. Fictions that manage to anticipate the future don’t just represent the world, they show what society should be and sometimes it works. “In the United States, we have observed a real awareness of transidentity over the past five years, an awareness that television has undeniably enabled”, confirms James Poniewozik of the New York Times at Series Mania.
Apart from the forerunner Orange is the new black (2013), we think of the wonderful series Transparent (2014) by Joey Soloway, which offers a delicate look at the trans coming out of a father with his three children and his wife, in Pose (2018), created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals, which explores Ball Culture in 1980s New York, and more recently Euphoria (2019), by Sam Levinson, and We Are Who We Are (2020), by Luca Guadagnino (Call me by your name). All these series have created fertile ground for public reflection on the question of gender identity, whether in the United States or in Europe. They not only explored the difficulties that trans people can encounter, through their coming out or their transition, they proposed role models – like Jules in Euphoria or Laverne Cox in Orange is the new black– of which transidentity is almost no longer a subject.
Can the playoffs elect a president?
If the series do not change consciousness overnight, they provide knowledge and arguments that allow the public to progress. “With a good series, there is always something to improve,” insists Sandra Laugier. And by dint of seeing series offering different, complex and rich heroes and heroines, showing diversity in all its meanings (there is still a long way to go), these questions are no longer debated.
In the political sphere too, fiction has had a nose. The West Wing (To the White House in VF), by Aaron Sorkin, anticipated the arrival of Barack Obama a year before his election through the character of Matt Santos in the last two seasons. In 2004, the screenwriter of the series spoke on many occasions with David Axelrod, political adviser to Obama for the senatorial elections. And the series got it right. Another example is even more striking. The current President of Ukraine performed in servant of the people, broadcast between 2015 and 2019, a history professor who, against all odds, became head of state. The question arises: what if the playoffs could elect a president?
Zelensky servant of the people
For servant of the people, Volodymyr Zelensky relied on a certain idea of leadership. “In a country where corruption reigns, the idea is that real political power does not come from the fact that you are strong but on the contrary that you have to face the same hardships as your fellow citizens”, explains James Poniewozik. And in fact, Zelensky prolongs the fiction.
Far from going into exile or withdrawing into a residence, he shares the experience of the danger and deprivation of his people. “This is the message he used to rally Ukrainians and the rest of the world,” continues the American journalist. “He is a politician who is also an actor, producer, director, who perfectly masters the codes and vocabulary of fiction, which he uses to describe a reality”, notes for his part Thibaut de Saint-Maurice. , researcher at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, to AFP. Looking at recent series, we can already imagine what the world will be like tomorrow, but we’ll let you make up your own mind.