1000 ways to die: a televisual template for commodifying tragedy and vilifying the deceased

• Scott M. Walus ^[1] ; Connor D. Wilcox ^[2]
  1. [1] Eastern Illinois University

     Eastern Illinois University

     Township of Charleston, Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] Kent State University

     Kent State University

     City of Kent, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Southern communication journal, ISSN 1041-794X, Vol. 85, nº 5, 2020, págs. 316-326
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Whereas sorrow and eulogizing typically accompany death, the television program 1000 Ways to Die transforms tragedy into palatable, commodified spectacle. The show shirks the traditional conventions of screen death and strings together bingeable televisual narratives of misfortune by borrowing from the historical lineage of death on television news, “mondo” films, and Internet clips featuring actual deaths. These mediated representations maximize the spectacle of death and invite schadenfreude while minimizing its tragic and human components. The gaze-inducing images of death reduce individuals to a “grotesque body” as opposed to a person. Additionally, by villainizing the deceased and constructing them as antagonists responsible for their own deaths, death itself becomes the text’s hero and restorer of karmic order.