Journal of Popular Television, The - Volume 13, Issue 3, 2025

By seamlessly blending comedy and music, Bluey (2018–present) effectively captures the emotional journey of parenting and reflects a broader Australian cultural focus on the local and mundane. In this article, I explore how humour contributes to the emotional impact of Bluey in combination with western classical music. The influence of Romanticism on the perception of classical music as transcendent contrasts with the everyday nature of Bluey’s narratives and setting, resulting in moments of humour. This humour is ironic, as each element of the joke carries a sense of the other. This article draws on netnographic data as well as previous scholarship to explore how classical music operates within Bluey as a text in the broadest sense and how it can be situated within the history of Australian creative writing. Bluey is not just a phenomenally successful children’s programme; it is a phenomenally successful Australian children’s programme, and this aspect forms a significant part of its identity. This article, therefore, takes a moment to consider the programme’s place within the broader context of Australian cultural production. In doing so, I explore the concept of the ‘ordinary’ or ‘quotidian sacred’ to delve into how music supports both the creation of humour in Bluey, its emotional intensity and its Australian cultural specificity. Drawing on Lyn McCredden and Ashcroft et al.’s research on the contemporary sacred in Australia, which highlights a uniquely Australian expression of the sacred as ‘earthed, embodied, humbled, local, demotic, ordinary, and proximate’, this article examines this concept as a lens through which Bluey’s portrayal of the child can be understood. By bringing together the elements of the Australian sublime, the Australian sacred, humour and sound, I argue that the juxtaposition of the transcendent and the ordinary creates Bluey’s emotional impact at the shared border between each element.

This article examines the representation of female political leadership in Netflix original political dramas through quantitative content analysis of four central characters: Claire Underwood (House of Cards [2013–18]), Queen Elizabeth II (The Crown [2016–23]), Birgitte Nyborg (Borgen [2010–22]) and Kate Wyler (The Diplomat [2023–present]). Using automated sentiment analysis and stereotype classification algorithms, the research reveals significant patterns in how streaming platforms construct female political authority. Results demonstrate a predominance of the Maternal Nurturer archetype (50 per cent of characters), alongside the emergence of a Professional Expert archetype that is prominently featured in recent productions. American characters exhibit marked divergence, with Claire Underwood displaying the highest Iron Lady stereotype scores (75.76) and a negative sentiment polarity (−0.089). At the same time, Kate Wyler demonstrates strong Professional Expert characteristics (62.0) with a positive sentiment polarity (0.334). European characters maintain positive sentiment orientation (0.36–0.45) aligned with collaborative leadership representations. These findings suggest that, despite global distribution, distinct cultural frameworks persist in Netflix’s construction of female political authority, with recent productions introducing competence-based representations that potentially expand available leadership models. The research contributes to an understanding of how transnational media platforms balance global reach and local cultural specificity in their representation of women’s leadership in politics.

Scholarship on how the audience perceives journalism in the real world through the image of the journalist in popular culture is growing, but little addresses how these professional portrayals can also showcase the personal identity of journalists. The Netflix dark comedy After Life (2019–22) follows community-based journalist Tony Johnson through his grieving process from the death of his wife, and his personal trauma appears to have had a direct effect on his professional role, as both identities are immersed in the local community where emotional post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) triggers are unavoidably present. However, individual behavioural patterns and protective factors such as social support contribute to resilience. Using the lens of popular culture and through a textual analysis of all After Life episodes, this article explores how personal trauma impacts a community journalist’s professional role and the community’s impact on the journalist’s resilience.

Chinese ‘big heroine’ dramas have recently emerged as a prominent cultural form that symbolically showcases ideals of women’s empowerment and gender progress. Yet beneath their surface narratives of autonomy and strength lies a persistent tension between symbolic liberation and structural constraint. Drawing on Norman Fairclough’s framework of critical discourse analysis, this article examines how visual symbols, linguistic choices and narrative strategies in major big heroine dramas construct female subjectivity and gender consciousness. While these series appear to challenge traditional gender norms, they remain deeply entangled with entrenched stereotypes and market-driven imperatives. This paradox reveals how empowerment narratives are often appropriated by commercial logics, limiting their potential for cultural transformation. This article argues for deeper narrative reform and more diverse character representation, suggesting ways in which television can not only provide entertainment but also contribute to gender-equitable cultural development.

This article examines television in India as a case to argue for the role of comparative literature in analysing visual media within the context of the alternative humanities. It seeks to redefine the role of comparative literature as a reflective practice within the alternative humanities. Through the lens of gender representation, it explores how Indian television negotiates cultural narratives and offers a non-western perspective to comparative media studies. Since the 1960s, scholars have positioned comparative literature in relation to adjacent and competing disciplines to define its role within the alternative humanities. These debates highlight how comparative literature materializes in fields such as cultural studies, world literature, media studies and the digital humanities. In the context of visual media, comparative literature establishes a cultural framework for analysis and criticism. It bridges the study of television as both a communication medium essential to contemporary society and an aesthetic object that, through its narrative structures, engages with and interrogates the alternative humanities. This study challenges the view that comparative literature abruptly replaced traditional criticism and produced a revolutionary societal impact. Instead, its development is examined alongside that of television, which evolved gradually by integrating tradition with innovation. Television has served as a platform where the alternative humanities converge, particularly through representations of gender in advertising, news interpretations, political activism and discourse of justice. This process has contributed to the expansion of comparative literature. Comparative literature fosters plurality and social justice, while media studies, particularly visual media, offer a critical perspective on television.