TV Series (Jul 2018)
Diplomatie culturelle et mépris de la culture populaire. La réception critique de Muhteșem Yüzyıl en Roumanie
Abstract
From 2005 to 2012, a flagrant difference existed between the successful audience ratings of nationally produced telenovelas and the silence of the Romainian media (daily newspapers, cultural magazines or televised reports) to comment on this success. When broadcasts of the Turkish series Suleyman magnificul [the Turkish title, Muhtessem Yüzyil (The Magnificent Century)] began in 2012, the national media came out of its silence. Absent any concertation, they all immediately directed a sort of cultural diplomacy against the telenovela narratives as well as against TV viewer enthusiasm for the show. Journalists and critics, although admitting the absence of major homemade narratives and heritage fictions, revealed a latent intrinsic nationalism coming from the elites towards popular culture in Romania and the ambiguous inclusion of Romania into the zone of western Europe or the Balkans.
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