Fragments of Yugoslav Socialist Modernity of the 1970ies in the TV-series Theatre at Home
Keywords:
TV-series,
television,
socialist modernity
Abstract
The object of analysis is a TV-series "Theatre at home", which had a long TV-life (three seasons in 1970ies and two in 1980ies) and was one of the most popular series in the socialist Yugoslavia. The series covers daily life in an ordinary Yugoslav family, based in Belgrade, and the plot is built around the humorously articulated tensions and conflicts between the main protagonist and his mother in law who lives with him, his wife and their son. The material analysed includes the episodes of the three seasons broadcasted during the seventies (1972, 1973, 1975), written sources (newspaper articles about the TV show and its main protagonists and archival documents related to the author of the show Novak Novak) and secondary literature related to the development of Yugoslav RTV. Relying on theoretical and methodological propositions of Lilla Abu Lughod on the relationship between production, distribution and consumption of TV-serials and broader processes as building of a nation, modernization or urbanization, I try to show how the TV-series "Theatre at home" simultaneously described and proscribed how the socialist modern life in Yugoslavia should look like, thus serving as an implicit tool of social pedagogy. At the same time, it offered an opportunity for the audience-consumers-citizens to engage with the "real" achievements and manifestations of the socialist modernity represented in the series, which thus came to be continuously re-evaluated and historically situated.
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References
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Abu Lughod, Lilla. 2004. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television i Egypt. The University of Chicago Press.
Ahmed, Aaliya, Malik Zahra Khalid. 2012. Construction of Contemporary Women in Soap Operas. Global Media Journal - Indian Edition 3(1): 1-9.
Ang, Ien. 2007. Television Fiction Around the World: Melodrama and Irony in Global Perspective. Critical Studies in Television 2 (2): 18-30.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
Banić Grubišić, Ana. 2013. Antropološki pristup medijima – kratak pregled (s posebnim osvrtom na igrani film). Antropologija 13 (2): 135-155.
Barnard, Ian. 2006. The Language of Multiculturalism in South African Soaps and Sitcoms. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 1 (1): 39-59.
Bhabha, Homi. 1990. „DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation“. In Nation and Narration. London: Routledge.
Čale Feldman, Lada i Ines Prica (ur.). 2006. Devijacije i promašaji. Etnografija domaćeg socijalizma. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Calic, Maire-Janine, Dietmar Neutatz, Julia Obertreis (eds.). 2011. The Crysis of Socialist Modernity: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970-ies. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG.
Chakrabarti, Dipesh. 2002. Habitations of Modernity. Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cvijetićanin, Tijana. 2010. Čiji "Rođak sa sela"? Ideološko čitanje jednog medijskog teksta. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 58 (1): 57-68.
Daković, Nevena, Aleksandra Milovanović. 2015. Socijalistički family sitcom: Pozorište u kući. Zbornik radova FDU 27: 183-203.
Dakovic, Nevena, Aleksandra Milovanovic. 2016. „The Socialist Family Sitcom: Theatre at Home (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1972–Republic of Serbia 2007)“. In Television Beyond and Across the Iron Curtain, Kirsten Bönker, Julia Obertreis and Sven Grampp (eds.), 124-147. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Dimitrijević, Branislav. 2012. Utopijski konzumerizam: nastanak i protivurečnosti potrošačke kulture u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji (1950-1970). Rukopis doktorske disertacije. Beograd: Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu.
Dimitrijević, Branislav. 2016. Potrošeni socijalizam. Kultura, konzumerizam i društvena imaginacija u Jugoslaviji (1950-1974). Beograd: Fabrika knjiga, Peščanik.
Duda, Igor. 2005. U potrazi za Odmorom i Blagostanjem: O povijesti Dokolice i Potrošačkog društva u Hrvatskoj 1950ih i 1960ih. Zagreb: Srednja Europa.
Đurić, Dubravka. 2011. Kratak Uvod u studije televizije. Treći program 150: 9-17. Beograd: RDU - Radio-televizija Srbije.
Đurković, Miša. 2005. Prva petoletka: domaće televizijske serije i transformacija sistema vrednosti u tranziciji. Sociološki pregled 39 (4): 357-381.
Erdei, Ildiko. 2004. "The happy child" as the icon of socialist transformation: Yugoslavia's Pioneer Organization. In Ideologies and National Identities – The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower (eds.), 154 – 179. Budapest, New York: CEU Press,
Erdei, Ildiko. 2006. „Odrastanje u poznom socijalizmu – od ’pionira malenih’ do ’vojske potrošača’“. U Devijacije i promašaji, etnografija domaćeg socijalizma, Lada Čale Feldman & Ines Prica (ur.), 205-240. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Gavrilović, Ljiljana. 2011. Bafi ubica vampira: superheroina, ali ne u Srbiji. Etnoantropološki problemi 6 (2): 413-428.
Ginsburg, Faye, Lila Abu-Lughod, Brian Larkin. 2002. Media Worlds. Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Grandits, Hannes (ed.). 2010. Yugoslavia’s sunny side: a history of tourism in socialism (1950s-1980s). Budapest and New York: CEU Press.
Ilić, Miodrag. 2006. Rađanje televizijske profesije. Beograd: Clio.
Kovačević, Ivan, Marija Brujić. 2014. "Ljubav na prvi pogled": TV serije. Uvod u antropološku analizu. Etnoantropološki problemi 9 (2): 395-415.
Kovačević, Ivan, Marija Brujić (ur.). 2013. Antropologija TV serija. Nova srpska antropologija. Knj. 10. Beograd: Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta Univerziteta u Beogradu i Srpski genealoški centar.
Krstić, Marija. 2009. Srbi, narod najluđi – humoristička serija „Kursadžije“ Grand produkcije. Etnoantropološki problemi 4 (1): 87-105.
Krstić, Marija. 2009a. "Kursadžije" – terapeutska uspavanka? Analiza popularne domaće humorističke serije. Antropologija 7: 137-152.
Lučić-Todosić, Ivana. 2001. Od trokinga do tvista, Igranke u Beogradu 1945-1963. Beograd: Etnološka biblioteka.
Malešević, Miroslava. 2012. Iskušenja socijalističkog raja - refleksije konzumerističkog društva u jugoslovenskom filmu 1960ih. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 60 (2): 107-123.
Marcus, E. George. 1995. Ethnography in/of th World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95-117.
Marković, J. Predrag. 1996. Beograd između Istoka i Zapada. Beograd: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika.
Marković, Predrag. 2011. "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" – Yugoslav Culture in the 1970ies between liberalisation/westernisation and dogmatisation. In The Crysis of Socialist Modernity: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970-ies, Marie-Janine Calic, Dietmar Neutatz, Julia Obertreis (eds.), 118-133. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG.
Matošević, Andrea. 2011. Pod zemljom. Antropologija rudarenja na Labinštini u XX stoljeću. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku i Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli.
Mihelj, Sabina. 2013. „The Politics of Privatization: Television Entertainment and the Yugoslav Sixties“. In The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World, Anne Gorsuch and Diane Koenker (eds.), 251-67. Indiana University Press.
Mihelj, Sabina. 2013a. „Television Entertainment in Socialist Eastern Europe: Between Cold War Politics and Global Developments“. In Popular Television in Eastern Europe During and Since Socialism, Anikó Imre, Timothy Havens and Kati Lustyk (eds.), 13 -29.London: Routledge.
Novaković, Slobodan. 1984. „Kad je vladala komedija ili Četvrt veka beogradske humorističke škole na malom ekranu“. U Iz istorije Televizije Beograd ,Vasilije Popović i dr., 35-59. Beograd: Televizija Beograd.
Pušnik, Maruša (ed.). 2010. Remembering Utopia: the Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia. Washington D.C.: New Accademia Publishing, LLC.
Senjković, Reana. 2008. Izgubljeno u prijenosu: Pop iskustvo soc kulture. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Simeunović-Bajić, Nataša. 2016. Reprezentovanje urbanih heroja rata u popularnoj TV seriji "Otpisani". Etnoantropološki problemi 11(1): 47-61.
Trifunović, Vesna. 2009. Konceptualizacija gubitnika i dobitnika tranzicije u popularnoj kulturi. Etnoantropološki problemi 4 (1): 107-121.
Trifunović, Vesna. 2009a. Tipizacija privatnika u periodu prve tranzicije: primer domaćih serija. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 57 (1): 135-146.
Trifunović, Vesna, Jovana Diković. 2014. "Mile versus transition": Socila Changes and clashes of values through the prism of a television show". Glasnik Etnografskog isntituta SANU 62 (2): 141-153.
Velimirović, Danijela. 2008. Aleksandar Joksimović, Moda i identitet. Beograd: Utopija.
Vučetić, Radina. 2012. Koka kola socijalizam. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
Zivkovic, Marko. 2007. ‘Mile vs Transition’ – a Perfect Informant in the Slushy Swamp of Serbian Politics? Social Identities 13 (5): 597-610.
Abu Lughod, Lilla. 2004. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television i Egypt. The University of Chicago Press.
Ahmed, Aaliya, Malik Zahra Khalid. 2012. Construction of Contemporary Women in Soap Operas. Global Media Journal - Indian Edition 3(1): 1-9.
Ang, Ien. 2007. Television Fiction Around the World: Melodrama and Irony in Global Perspective. Critical Studies in Television 2 (2): 18-30.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
Banić Grubišić, Ana. 2013. Antropološki pristup medijima – kratak pregled (s posebnim osvrtom na igrani film). Antropologija 13 (2): 135-155.
Barnard, Ian. 2006. The Language of Multiculturalism in South African Soaps and Sitcoms. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 1 (1): 39-59.
Bhabha, Homi. 1990. „DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation“. In Nation and Narration. London: Routledge.
Čale Feldman, Lada i Ines Prica (ur.). 2006. Devijacije i promašaji. Etnografija domaćeg socijalizma. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Calic, Maire-Janine, Dietmar Neutatz, Julia Obertreis (eds.). 2011. The Crysis of Socialist Modernity: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970-ies. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG.
Chakrabarti, Dipesh. 2002. Habitations of Modernity. Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cvijetićanin, Tijana. 2010. Čiji "Rođak sa sela"? Ideološko čitanje jednog medijskog teksta. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 58 (1): 57-68.
Daković, Nevena, Aleksandra Milovanović. 2015. Socijalistički family sitcom: Pozorište u kući. Zbornik radova FDU 27: 183-203.
Dakovic, Nevena, Aleksandra Milovanovic. 2016. „The Socialist Family Sitcom: Theatre at Home (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1972–Republic of Serbia 2007)“. In Television Beyond and Across the Iron Curtain, Kirsten Bönker, Julia Obertreis and Sven Grampp (eds.), 124-147. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Dimitrijević, Branislav. 2012. Utopijski konzumerizam: nastanak i protivurečnosti potrošačke kulture u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji (1950-1970). Rukopis doktorske disertacije. Beograd: Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu.
Dimitrijević, Branislav. 2016. Potrošeni socijalizam. Kultura, konzumerizam i društvena imaginacija u Jugoslaviji (1950-1974). Beograd: Fabrika knjiga, Peščanik.
Duda, Igor. 2005. U potrazi za Odmorom i Blagostanjem: O povijesti Dokolice i Potrošačkog društva u Hrvatskoj 1950ih i 1960ih. Zagreb: Srednja Europa.
Đurić, Dubravka. 2011. Kratak Uvod u studije televizije. Treći program 150: 9-17. Beograd: RDU - Radio-televizija Srbije.
Đurković, Miša. 2005. Prva petoletka: domaće televizijske serije i transformacija sistema vrednosti u tranziciji. Sociološki pregled 39 (4): 357-381.
Erdei, Ildiko. 2004. "The happy child" as the icon of socialist transformation: Yugoslavia's Pioneer Organization. In Ideologies and National Identities – The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower (eds.), 154 – 179. Budapest, New York: CEU Press,
Erdei, Ildiko. 2006. „Odrastanje u poznom socijalizmu – od ’pionira malenih’ do ’vojske potrošača’“. U Devijacije i promašaji, etnografija domaćeg socijalizma, Lada Čale Feldman & Ines Prica (ur.), 205-240. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Gavrilović, Ljiljana. 2011. Bafi ubica vampira: superheroina, ali ne u Srbiji. Etnoantropološki problemi 6 (2): 413-428.
Ginsburg, Faye, Lila Abu-Lughod, Brian Larkin. 2002. Media Worlds. Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Grandits, Hannes (ed.). 2010. Yugoslavia’s sunny side: a history of tourism in socialism (1950s-1980s). Budapest and New York: CEU Press.
Ilić, Miodrag. 2006. Rađanje televizijske profesije. Beograd: Clio.
Kovačević, Ivan, Marija Brujić. 2014. "Ljubav na prvi pogled": TV serije. Uvod u antropološku analizu. Etnoantropološki problemi 9 (2): 395-415.
Kovačević, Ivan, Marija Brujić (ur.). 2013. Antropologija TV serija. Nova srpska antropologija. Knj. 10. Beograd: Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta Univerziteta u Beogradu i Srpski genealoški centar.
Krstić, Marija. 2009. Srbi, narod najluđi – humoristička serija „Kursadžije“ Grand produkcije. Etnoantropološki problemi 4 (1): 87-105.
Krstić, Marija. 2009a. "Kursadžije" – terapeutska uspavanka? Analiza popularne domaće humorističke serije. Antropologija 7: 137-152.
Lučić-Todosić, Ivana. 2001. Od trokinga do tvista, Igranke u Beogradu 1945-1963. Beograd: Etnološka biblioteka.
Malešević, Miroslava. 2012. Iskušenja socijalističkog raja - refleksije konzumerističkog društva u jugoslovenskom filmu 1960ih. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 60 (2): 107-123.
Marcus, E. George. 1995. Ethnography in/of th World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95-117.
Marković, J. Predrag. 1996. Beograd između Istoka i Zapada. Beograd: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika.
Marković, Predrag. 2011. "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" – Yugoslav Culture in the 1970ies between liberalisation/westernisation and dogmatisation. In The Crysis of Socialist Modernity: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1970-ies, Marie-Janine Calic, Dietmar Neutatz, Julia Obertreis (eds.), 118-133. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG.
Matošević, Andrea. 2011. Pod zemljom. Antropologija rudarenja na Labinštini u XX stoljeću. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku i Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli.
Mihelj, Sabina. 2013. „The Politics of Privatization: Television Entertainment and the Yugoslav Sixties“. In The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World, Anne Gorsuch and Diane Koenker (eds.), 251-67. Indiana University Press.
Mihelj, Sabina. 2013a. „Television Entertainment in Socialist Eastern Europe: Between Cold War Politics and Global Developments“. In Popular Television in Eastern Europe During and Since Socialism, Anikó Imre, Timothy Havens and Kati Lustyk (eds.), 13 -29.London: Routledge.
Novaković, Slobodan. 1984. „Kad je vladala komedija ili Četvrt veka beogradske humorističke škole na malom ekranu“. U Iz istorije Televizije Beograd ,Vasilije Popović i dr., 35-59. Beograd: Televizija Beograd.
Pušnik, Maruša (ed.). 2010. Remembering Utopia: the Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia. Washington D.C.: New Accademia Publishing, LLC.
Senjković, Reana. 2008. Izgubljeno u prijenosu: Pop iskustvo soc kulture. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Simeunović-Bajić, Nataša. 2016. Reprezentovanje urbanih heroja rata u popularnoj TV seriji "Otpisani". Etnoantropološki problemi 11(1): 47-61.
Trifunović, Vesna. 2009. Konceptualizacija gubitnika i dobitnika tranzicije u popularnoj kulturi. Etnoantropološki problemi 4 (1): 107-121.
Trifunović, Vesna. 2009a. Tipizacija privatnika u periodu prve tranzicije: primer domaćih serija. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 57 (1): 135-146.
Trifunović, Vesna, Jovana Diković. 2014. "Mile versus transition": Socila Changes and clashes of values through the prism of a television show". Glasnik Etnografskog isntituta SANU 62 (2): 141-153.
Velimirović, Danijela. 2008. Aleksandar Joksimović, Moda i identitet. Beograd: Utopija.
Vučetić, Radina. 2012. Koka kola socijalizam. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
Zivkovic, Marko. 2007. ‘Mile vs Transition’ – a Perfect Informant in the Slushy Swamp of Serbian Politics? Social Identities 13 (5): 597-610.
Published
2017-08-30
How to Cite
Erdei, Ildiko. 2017. “Fragments of Yugoslav Socialist Modernity of the 1970ies in the TV-Series Theatre at Home”. Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 12 (2), 537–563. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v12i2.9.
Section
Scientific Articles
Copyright (c) 2017 Ildiko Erdei
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