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The Cultural Politics of the Greek crisis An AHRC-funded networking project at the University of Birmingham
greek crisis
The politics of Greek television fiction: Crisis, comedy and Greekness OCTOBER 2, 2015
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The following piece is based on a preliminary engagement with a number of cultural products of Greek television fiction during the years of the Greek debt crisis. My main interest lies in the ways that fictional programmes address the recent multifaceted financial crisis, documenting in a way the cultural experience of a nation in crisis, while at the same time constituting a valuable platform for the evaluation of ideological processes taking place within the media in times of tension. I argue that, just like all other forms of media, fiction too has been experiencing the effects of the economic crisis, both as an industry but also in terms of its content. In the following lines, I present some initial observations arising from a study of television texts which deal with the Greek crisis as their subject matter (in subtle or more explicit manners), focusing on their comedic character and the type of humorous tactics that they are employing. The concept of national identity appears to be a recurring theme in all these comedic texts, partly because of television fiction’s particular association with national thematics, but also because of the recent crisis’ invigorating effects on national discourses. This blog post is particularly concerned with the ways that the crisis has been portrayed in programmes of Greek television fiction with an emphasis on comedy, and could be described as part of larger doctoral project taking place at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication in University of Gothenburg, Sweden. If we were, therefore, to connect this short piece with the research questions of “The Cultural Politics of the Greek Crisis” project and broaden its scope by including the issue of how Greek popular culture and television fiction are responding to the Greek economic crisis, the following examples could provide an indicative spectrum of the ways that crisis discourses have infiltrated Greek television fiction. Piso sto Spiti ( ), a family comedy originally broadcast between 2011 and 2013 by Mega Channel, tells the story of a Greek family who becomes indebted to a German woman named Angela. The programme, which aired between 2011-2013, bases its comedic character on the extensive use of national and cultural stereotypes, depicting the Greek characters as cunning, lazy, prone to doing things “under the table”, while Angela (unsubtly connected by name to the German Chancellor Merkel) embodies the German stereotype of the rigid supporter of order and discipline. The programme’s numerous references to people, events, economic terms and processes that the Greek people became familiar with during the years of the crisis reinforces the comedic tone of a programme where the crisis enters the domestic sphere and becomes a (rather unsolvable) problem for an average Greek family. A different comedic framing is observed in the surrealist black comedy (according to Greek TV critics) To Kato Partali ( ), which reveals another way that fiction registers the cultural experience of a period of transition and tension. The story in this programme also broadcast by Mega Channel since 2014 is about the adventures of a former “golden boy”, his snooty sister and her (gay) best friend in a strange village of the Greek periphery whose residents make them feel anything but welcome. Through a series of mysterious events and funny behaviors, the main characters become familiar with life outside the city walls. The programme’s comedic character is founded on the uncanny atmosphere of the village and its residents, as well as the difficulty of the three main characters to adjust to rural life after being used to a lifestyle characterized by luxury and over-spending. As a result, the genre of comedy is used to build a metaphor for the crisis-hit Greece negotiating the tension between urban and rural life, but also illustrating the absurdity of the years of the crisis. As a final stop in this short report of the functions of comedy in fictional representation of the Greek crisis, the more recent Ethniki Ellados ( ) written by Giorgos Kapoutzidis provides Greek television with a programme full of references to a society in deep existential crisis, touching upon many social issues in a mature and thought-provoking way. Xenophobia, the rise of the extreme right wing party of The Golden Dawn, homophobia, the question of child adoption, and corruption are only some of the issues that Ethniki Ellados introduces. By basically using comedy as a bait, Kapoutzidis, who is the creator of some of the most recent successful comedies of Greek television, manages to incorporate themes that are not easy to talk about. In addition to that, Ethniki Ellados embraces a discourse of empowerment, supporting a fight against social injustice by giving voice to –otherwise invisible- social groups and promoting a discourse of unity, as the title of the programme suggests. All in all, it appears that comedy could be addressed as a generic frame which initially legitimizes the crisis as an entertaining and laughable matter, while at the same time reflecting on several aspects of contemporary Greek society. In other words, fiction too has been responding to the crisis by producing versions of the social reality resulting in texts with significant yet understudied ideological value. Crisis has indeed inspired popular culture and television fiction in a number of different ways; a closer study of the above examples and other programmes of Greek television could provide us with a more concrete image of how different aspects of the national media culture negotiate times of tension and issues of (national) identity. Georgia Aitaki PhD candidate University of Gothenburg
Austerity’s City – poems by Adrianne Kalfopoulou MAY 6, 2015MAY 11, 2015
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As with so many others I lived the gradual changes in Athens during the country’s not-so-gradual fiscal demise, as the city became a new and extraordinary site of collective grief and rage. The city’s walls in particular, and its surfaces more generally, expressed polyphonies of resistance, complaint, subversion, and humor.
Literary Representations of a Society in Crisis: the Students’ Point of View FEBRUARY 2, 2015FEBRUARY 2, 2015
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Venetia Apostolidou, University of Thessaloniki In winter semester 2013-14 I taught a seminar at the School of Elementary Education of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki entitled “Representations of society in Modern Greek fiction”. My aim was to introduce the students into the discussion which is being held for the last five years on whether contemporary Greek literature has depicted and scrutinized the crucial economical, social, political and cultural problems of Greek society or, on the contrary, it has focused mainly on individual, psychological and narrow family affairs. My assumption had been that a topic like this would be interesting for the students, the majority of whom face severe economical problems, would motivate them to read some good novels and therefore become familiar with contemporary Greek literature. The organization of the course was the following: in the first three or four meetings we discussed theoretical issues such as the relation between fiction and society, author’s and reader’s ideology, realism and plausibility techniques. I suggested a list of about fifteen books, novels and collections of short stories, which were published from 1972 (Alexandros Kotzias, O Genaios Tilemachos) to 2013 (Makis Tsitas Martis mou o Theos). The books were supposed to be read by groups of students and presented to the class. The students suggested some more books and finally twenty four groups of students read twenty four different books. The total sum of students involved was eighty seven. In each class meeting two groups of students presented their books (there was time for only fourteen to be presented in class, the rest of them were turned in as written assignments) after, of course, close collaboration with me during office hours. At some point I decided to keep a record of students’ opinions because I found interesting the fact that a bunch of young people were talking about literature, crisis and their interrelation. Therefore, at the end of each class, I handed out a questionnaire on the books presented in the particular day and asked them to fill it in anonymously. In our last meeting I handed out a final questionnaire which took under consideration the whole course. Not all students were present in all meetings (unfortunately presence is not obligatory in undergraduate classes) and not all present students were willing to fill in the questionnaire. I have gathered about 25 completed questionnaires on each book and 31 with the overall conclusions. Here I will present and discuss the students’ answers on the final questionnaire. It is a multiple choice questionnaire. I realize that the particular formation of the possible answers may not express accurately the views of each one of the students and, from a certain point of view, the proposed answers can be considered as imposing a particular interpretation. Yet, those are the limitations of this kind of questionnaire. The other choice I had was to pose open questions but then the danger would have been either lack of answers or dubious and vague answers. In any case, I tried to suggest views that have been repeatedly discussed in class. Final Questionnaire 1. Having read the book you chose and having participated to the discussions on the other books, what are your views as far as the relation between modern Greek fiction and society is concerned? Modern Greek fiction has depicted all serious problems of Greek society and makes us think about them
39%
Only a few books help us to know Greek society. Most works give an abnormal image of society or they depict totally personal and extreme problems.
26%
I realize that literature had pointed out the social problems that are now considered symptoms of the crisis, long before the crisis burst out.
48%
A good percentage of the students realize that literature had pointed out the social problems that are now considered symptoms of the crisis long before the crisis burst out. Specifically, two older novels made a strong impression due to their deep analysis and the complex image of a corrupted society they create. Those were O Genaios Tilemachos (1972) of Alexandros Kotzias and Eis ton pato tis eikonas (1990) of Maro Douka. The students found out with surprise that all issues that are presently being discussed in the public sphere (see below) were not only evident to certain authors but they have been the object of literary elaboration in a quite sophisticated way. However, a considerable percentage of students think that literature talks mainly about personal and extreme situations and does not give any reliable image of society. I guess that those were the students who were keen on discussing thoroughly characters’ psychology and their motives but unwilling to see social and cultural structures; however, we have to admit that they represent a considerable part of the reading audience, perhaps not the most experienced, that looks for answers in personal matters. In any case, this is an existent stance in reading literature. 2. Out of all social problems depicted in the novels and short stories, which one did impress you the most? The corruption of the state administration
32%
The social discrimination and social exclusion
23%
The economical scandals
3%
The family problems and the decay of welfare institutions
32%
The lack of reliable political leadership and the confusion of values and ideologies
32%
It is impressive that students’ choices are distributed equally to most answers. Quite right they didn’t pay any attention to the economical scandals such as the Koskotas affair in 1989 since novels (for example Eis ton pato tis eikonas by Maro Douka) see the scandals as symptoms of greater problems. I think that this distribution of the answers shows that the readers are not preoccupied with the elaboration of certain social problems while reading literature. Moreover, they comprehend larger images of society or, to put it differently, literature makes them to conceive society itself as a problem. 3. What do you think you gained from the course as far as your relation with literature is concerned? I want to read more literary books
45%
I have learned to pose questions while reading and look for answers
65%
I realize that interesting literary works are being written today in Greece and I want to get to know them better.
26%
It is comforting that 45% of the students have been motivated to read more literary books since my colleagues and I have had many opportunities to notice that our students are not systematic readers of literature. The part of students (26%) which sees positively modern Greek literature in particular and wants to get to know it better is surely low. This is perhaps due to the ‘academic’ way in which the answer is formulated. We have to take into consideration that my students study to be elementary teachers, therefore they see literature not as literary experts but in the way that ordinary readers see it: as food for thought and resource of enjoyment. Last but not least, the high percentage (65%) of students who think that they have learned to pose questions while reading indicates perhaps that students, at the most, look for reading strategies that may lead them to answers on (no matter general or personal) hot and widely discussed issues. I realize that this is a small scale research which took place under very specific circumstances determined by an academic course with its own aims and limitations. We should not jump to conclusions. If I may at this point add a few remarks from my experience I would say that I was happy to see that students with little experience in reading Greek literature found difficult books interesting and made sense of them. They discussed passionately about different social characters and images of society and they understood very well that literature has much to say to us in difficult times. Actually, the idea that dominated the whole course after all was that literature sees always, even in good times, society as a problematic structure and thus helps us to be prepared for bad times. Image: Graffiti on the building of the National Academy on Panepistimiou Avenue, Julia Tulke/aestheticsofcrisis.org (http://aestheticsofcrisis.org/)
Social Media and the Greek Crisis: Its Impact on the Greek Public Sphere JANUARY 15, 2015JANUARY 15, 2015
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Michael Nevradakis When Gil Scott-Heron coined the phrase “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” in 1970, could he have imagined the form such a non-televised “revolution” would take three decades later? Social networking have had a profound impact on the global flow of information, radically altering the nature of time and space, and “revolutionizing” the very idea of revolution. In recent years, social media tools have been credited with helping to inspire or organize political movements in countries and territories as varied as Iran, Thailand, Moldova, Hong Kong, the Ukraine, and Honduras, as well as the “Arab Spring” uprisings of 2011 and the Occupy Wall Street protests throughout the United States which followed.
Three times an immigrant DECEMBER 9, 2014DECEMBER 12, 2014
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Panayotis Sfalagakos, December 2014 When delving into the history of modern Greece, one fact that surely stands out in the mind of the student is the recurring theme of emigration and domestic depopulation. At what seem to be almost regular intervals, political, economic, social and other factors and considerations spur a new wave of Greeks to migrate, either internally (from rural to urban areas) or beyond the borders of the country, to foreign lands, both near and far. Thus, the post-2008 ‘Greek crisis’ period may be viewed as simply constituting but the latest instalment in the history of Greek mass emigration.
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