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Almost 20 years ago, the country, for the first time with bated breath, followed the ups and downs of the plot of “Slave Izaura”. It would seem that it’s time for us to get tired of the genre, but every day TV shows dozens of series that are watched by millions of viewers. Our experts reflect on the reasons for such persistent interest.
“Feelings of belonging and security are important to us”
Irina Kuznetsova, social psychologist, lecturer at St. Petersburg State University
“The series gives us a sense of busyness: it takes a lot of time to watch, and this is an excuse not to do something else at the moment. In addition, the series serve as a topic of conversation for us, and for those who lack communication in real life, TV heroes become almost family members: they worry about them, they sympathize. At the same time, the viewer cannot participate in the events, and therefore bear responsibility for them. All this gives a unique combination of feelings of belonging to what is happening and their own security. So, on the one hand, TV shows, like an addiction, take up our time, on the other hand, it’s a habit that makes life easier.”
“We are calmed by the “stretched” time”
Boris Dubin, sociologist, leading researcher at the Levada Center
“The action of any series is deliberately stretched out in time. Events, words, mise-en-scenes are repeated many times. It is impossible to fall behind such a time, because the missed time is easily made up. And such an aesthetic of endless delay calms us down, gives us a respite: we are too tired of the modern abundance of information and need to pause, slow down the pace of daily life. A television clip, commercial or music, causes shock; the series is a habit and a sense of the regularity of existence. Between these two regimes, the life of almost every TV viewer and person passes today in Russia.