Taking TV Series Seriously

Abstract

TV series are gaining increasing attention in current research. However, their aesthetic potential for visualizing ethical issues and both forming and facilitating collective inquiry into democratic values has not yet been fully appreciated. Because of their format (weekly/seasonal regularity, home viewing) and the participatory qualities of Internet usage (tweeting, chat forums), series allow for a new form of education by expressing complex issues through narrative and characters. This education is both political and moral. This topical issue elucidates the power, diversity, and richness of TV series and their moral and political purpose. TV series provide common reference points, which populate ordinary conversations and political debates. They become shared representations of moral reasoning and feelings. They arouse ethical reflection in their viewers – in the spirit of philosophy. Taking TV series seriously means investigating the intentions of media creators, reconsidering the public’s capabilities, and exploring how TV series structure our understanding of the world and our experiences of it. It seems that we have not yet taken the measure of the role that TV series play, and can play, in educating and constituting “publics,” in transmitting and sharing values, in creating awareness of terrorist or environmental threats, and in social inclusion and the integration of diversity in terms of gender, race, and sexuality. It is clear that the global distribution of US series (from ER, 1994–2007, to Game of Thrones, 2010–2018), as well as an increasing number of mainstream series produced in the EU (The Bureau, 2015–2020, Money Heist, 2017–2021) and in Asian countries (Delhi Crime, 2019, Squid Game, 2021) – to mention only the most spectacular ones – has made it possible to draw attention to a number of important social, political, racial, health, and security issues. An increasing number of scholars in philosophy, history, media studies, sociology, and political science are therefore taking an interest in TV series. Yet, TV series often remain marginal to their main research agenda: used as simple illustrations, they are not seen as serious objects of analysis. As of today, the existing research on TV series has focused on their modes of production, formal features, or reception – always separately. Most publications on TV series and philosophy take them as an opportunity to illustrate existing philosophical theses, debates, or ideas. The ambition of the present issue is to demonstrate the intellectual and philosophical ambition of TV series themselves, as works of art. Over the past fifty years, the relationship between cinema and philosophy has been explored by key scholars.1 It has evolved into acknowledging film as philosophy rather than seeing film as an “object” for philosophy;2 into analyzing film as sustaining an immanent ethics, thus following Cavell and his characterization of moral perfectionism through Hollywood film.3 TV series, which have taken over films in