Out of the Box
Television, Documentary Fiction, and the Art of Healing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6032585 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stefanie Hofer (0000-0002-8692-1665, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-73 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American imago (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0065-860X • E-ISSN: 1085-7931 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/aim.2017.0002 |
| OpenAlex | W2608575076 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
Reflecting on her own healing from the trauma of losing her husband during the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech massacre, the author explores how viewers can use television as an individualized tool for emotional strengthening. Television can give the freedom to explore post-traumatic feelings at one's own pace, assisting the ability to achieve control of emotions. In the essay, the author explores her repulsion toward fiction, caused by the need for moral witnessing, and how the HBO documentary fiction, Treme , challenged that response to trauma. The show entailed many features of moral witnessing, and its fictional components allowed viewers to access the inaccessible—the trauma caused by Hurricane Katrina—without risking exploitation of personal memories and intrusion of privacy. Ultimately, Treme paved the way for the author's return to fiction as a source of pleasure
Aesthetics · Art · Feeling · Hurricane katrina · Intrusion · Media studies · Pace · Pleasure · Psychoanalysis · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Modern American Literature Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |