An Analysis of the Mode of Narrativity in TV Series Shabhaye Barareh: Linguistic Action versus Discursive Limitations

Introduction

This paper presents Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory and applies its main concepts such as Intertextuality, chronotope and multi-voiced art to analyzing specificities of TV series Shabhaye Barareh. The TV series of Shabhaye Barareh was first aired in Iran’s National Television in 2005 and very soon became one of the most viewed comedy TV programs in recent years. Of course, the series soon received a bulk of criticisms from conservatists. Based on reports of some news agencies 90% of TV viewers followed the series and 67% were satisfied with it.

Problematic of the Research

Although it had its unique language and particular characteristics which represented a time in the far past, Shabhaye Barareh used a metaphorical structure so to create a very special time and space which could go along with characters and humorous space. Shabhaye Barareh is the only comedy series since the 1979 Iran’s revolution that focused on history and its conceptions and a culture with which people were living. In other words, what makes Shabhaye Barareh so outstanding is the tangible connection that it has with our age and time period although it depicts past. It seems Mehran Modiri who was the producer-director and one of the actors, had collected some pieces of history and put them together in order to challenge the viewer thought. In fact, Shabhaye Barareh had a look on the others, i.e., the Barareh people. Modiri in the series uses this “the others” to refer to present day ourselves, as if he is making some sort of autobiography. In such autobiography, Modiri as the director and producer involves all objects of the past, “the other”, and even him and is in a constant challenge with them in every single episode of the series. This very point attracted many viewers because the general public understood such point and even started to love it. The viewers connected with the show and understood the contrived ironies and felt they can identify themselves with the points made in the series. The attunement of Shabhaye Barareh with the everyday life’s social distresses, and challenging culture and criticizing defective social relations, links the viewers to the Barareh empirically, and this results in producing a discourse. Because the subject who is being narrated is not really made during the show but rather is related to audience’s age which is depicted in characters such as modern Kiyanoush, it would seem as if it covers the audience’s whole history. In spite of all limitations and producing conditions, the combination of humor, amusement and authors’ modes of thinking created a series that was successful in providing its viewers with fun and amusement.

Shabhaye Barareh as a cultural product and open and multilayer text provides its viewers with various declamations because this interpretation process is not independent from the text but is a structural part of its production process.

Theoretical Framework

This paper presents Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory and applies its main concepts such as Intertextuality, chronotope and multi-voiced art to analyzing specificities of TV series Shabhaye Barareh. We studied the dominant metaphorical structure of the text of ‘Shabhaye Barareh’, i.e., a TV series aired in Iran’s TV in 2005. Our objective was to show that although social context makes the producer (director) to express his intentions in a specific way, it is the discursive context of the society which determines his modes of thought. It also determines how the producer chooses the mode of narrating the series and how it arranges his narrating possibilities in a way that allows new interpretations while he respects the social framework. The discursive context of the society also contributes to the implications and discursive process that help one to analyze and interpret Mehran Modiri’s cultural act. Finally, the interpretation of this article has reached an idea based on which we can claim Modiri took Shabhaye Barareh to its exception point by gathering issues such as creating time-space of Barareh, modern thought banishment, Barareh’s anti language, and Intertextuality. By interpretation of Shabhaye Barareh one can find ideas which help the director to put his humor in an outstanding place. The first idea included banishing Kianoush to Barareh and thereby showing the exiling of open-minded rational character and its displacement. The second idea could be identified in the fact that the whole story is relying on the imaginary chronotope and an ambiguous place as Barareh. Another idea was related to the language of Barareh. And the other idea was the Intertextuality which is one of the formal components of Modiri’s works meaning that his series’ narrations are concatenate.

Methodology

It can be said that this study is a type of interpretational–critical research: A) it is interpretative because our intention was to interpret a cultural producer’s action and make it possible for the reader to know our interpretation of these cultural action. Accordingly, in this way we introduced the reader with some theoretical and methodological possibilities. B) It is critical because it involves in some power relations. This involvement is the causes several other issues, including: the first issue is that Modiri has engaged in power relation and every interpreter needs critical analysis to interpret his work. And the other issue concerns the fact that since the researchers represent the power relation in this interpretational action, his/her approach is critical; and his/her critical interpretation makes the reader to read the text from a critical point of view (Fazeli, 1391).