2023-10-20 11:19:32
Doctor in political science and HDR, Virginie Martin is a professor-researcher at Kedge Business School. Anne-Lise Melquions has a doctorate in cinema studies.
They answer my questions on the occasion of the publication of their work “I assure in geopolitics thanks to the series”, published by De Boeck Supérieur.
Series and geopolitics: source of inspiration and political vector ?
The series provide a formidable corpus for research in several disciplines: political science, sociology, management and of course geopolitics.
Since the emergence of the platforms, they have been widely watched, shared and are becoming more established than ever in works included in cultural studies. They are undeniably a cultural, economic, social, societal and political object. Taking the series as a body of study is increasingly necessary, in the sense that they participate in the great concert of national, regional and global influences.
They are, they do politics, they show major developments – rather correctly – as we underline in this work: progression of the means of communication as shown in the series Downton Abbey, issues around ecological diplomacy as in Borgen, critical of the European Union whether with Parliament or Years and Years.
The series depict the world in all its complexities, and also play a role in it.
Have series become a source of soft power?
The series are not trivial from a soft power point of view. They are in line with the work of Joseph Nye on soft power or the play of influences. They are also profoundly Gramscian in the sense that they participate extensively in a cultural and therefore political battle.
Serial fictions are witnesses to current events and history in progress, and they are themselves actors. Each country plays with its serial production in order to create its own image, its own history, its own story-telling to use it as a weapon of soft power.
The countries producing series show themselves to the world in conditions that they can control. To influence the world, this “soft power” – as opposed to the hard power of “real” war with weapons and drones – relies on seducing public opinion through popular culture. Series are used as a massive weapon of influence.
The “world in series” therefore powerfully reveals the power of cultural objects on our societies. This is what is happening at full strength with platforms, weapons of domination and cultural appropriation.
Is there a multipolarization of the series?
In this ideological war, countries stand out for the quality and performance of their series, for example Israel with productions like Hatufim (the Homeland series is the American adaptation) or Fauda. Over the past ten years, Israeli television series have become a powerful instrument of soft power because, beyond simple entertainment, they subtly broadcast speeches that contribute to positive and beautify the country’s image abroad. The tragic events of October 2023 will certainly – in a few years – resurface in this serial world.
India is not left out with television opuses like Delhi Crime, The Lord of Bombay, Leila or Bombay Begums. Through its prolific film industry, Bollywood has often been seen as a vector of India’s soft power.
The Scandinavian countries themselves have mastered this art of soft power, promoting their culture and their political vision of the world and societies, with series like Occupied or Borgen which, for example, make it possible to publicize and disseminate their environmental initiatives.
South-South relations are also very strongly present: Senegal, for example, consumes Brazilian series, or Nigeria broadcasts Indian series, series which are very rarely dubbed into English.
This “world in series” reveals more than ever a multipolar, even apolar, theater as we already saw in The discreet charm of series (Virginie Martin, Humensciences, 2021).
Our environment has become extremely complex since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the digital explosion is reshuffling the cards in the possibility of one or two powers controlling the planet alone. It is also this complexity that these fictions tell and which shows how the series is a geopolitical tool in the strict sense.
The legends office, an asset for France ?
As a reminder, The Bureau of Legends (or BDL) is a French television series in five seasons created by Éric Rochant (2015-2020). It tells the story of a department located at the heart of the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE).
The Bureau of Legends testifies, it is true, to the cultural influence of France abroad in a dizzying mise-en-abyme since it is the first French series to have enjoyed global success. It is considered the best French series and the renewal of creation in France. It will also be adapted for the United States: entitled The Department, the series, produced by the cable channel Showtime, will be directed by George Clooney.
So yes, this series is important, and can largely be considered an asset for France. But even its creator Eric Rochant says it:
I have to make a distinction between my desire and reality. It’s true that I think that The Bureau of Legends perhaps has a tendency to give a little more importance to France than it actually has.
Thus, in the series, France indeed appears as an essential power in the Syrian conflict for example. However, in reality, it was sidelined by its inability to convince the US and British allies to intervene militarily in Syria in 2013 and suffered a political defeat: Syrian power was not overthrown.
Even today we see it – with the events mourning Israel and the region – France plays an important, but not major, role in international relations.
Furthermore, France currently does not pay enough attention to soft power in the series and remains a little behind other countries. It still remains somewhat confined to a predominantly “glamorous” soft power of the Lupine or Ten Percent type, but has a little difficulty in tackling more directly political subjects. And, if series like Parliament, Black Baron, Collapse are eminently political, they do not really contribute to “telling” France. In this sense, the BDL remains remarkable.
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