Diversity in contemporary TV series. A critical analysis of incorporation and immunization processes

Abstract

The article investigates how the media representations of diversity have changed in the last few decades. Nowadays the question of otherness no longer seems to have a marginal role but, on the contrary, has fully entered into the mainstream and it’s at the centre of audiovisual narratives. Diversity (be it religious, cultural, gender-related, or specifically associated with the colour of the skin, or with disability) is, indeed, placed more and more into the foreground, in some cases as the cornerstone of representations that envisage, eventually, a reconciliation of conflicts, or, in other cases, as a complex element that make relationships complex and remains open to ambiguity and interrogation. Through the case study of a popular contemporary television series, this article analyzes how diversity can be more or less made complex, even within mainstream discourses and contexts. The analysis of the processes of incorporation, normalization and questioning diversity suggests a use of the audiovisual language in the formative context not only in order to educate to differences, but also to deconstruct the discourse itself that, often through the politically correct, tends to neutralize the real subversive effect inherent in the institutional instances.