Il linguaggio audiovisivo, gli studi di genere e la critica dei modelli culturali occidentali: il caso della serie televisiva «Top of the Lake» (2013)

Abstract

Cultural and Gender Studies represent by now a fundamental instrument in the analysis of audiovisual language, both for the cinematographic and the television one, as shown by the growing academic attention for serial productions. This article intends to carry out a theoretical survey on Gender Studies underlying their use in the audiovisual language. The specific subject of our survey is the TV series «Top of the Lake» (2013) signed, among others, by the New Zealand director Jane Campion. The series has turned out to be particularly interesting in terms of modification of the cultural and gender imaginary related to the woman and to the binomial male/female. The «Top of the Lake» TV series creates and offers the audience a sophisticated critique of the traditional visual codes normally associated to the gender, in order to hinder all passive identification processes to the characters represented on the screen. This case of study proves to be not only an interesting mix between authorship and mainstream language, but it’s also particularly appropriate for a gender analysis, as it shows the ability of audiovisual language to convey a problematic representation of prevailing social models. The work of Jane Campion, in harmony with the feminist theory, takes advantage of the television serial format in order to reflect, in a new revolutionary way, on the links between masculinity and femininity in the contemporary Western culture, showing how audiovisual representation can be a privileged dimension in the construction of meaning and collective consciousness.