MISANTHROPIC OTHERING IN THE TV SERIES „TIN STAR”
Keywords:
otherness, anthropology, we-group, nuclear family, empathy, misanthropy, cultural identity, moralityAbstract
Otherness appears as a reflexive category in the process of identity ascription and description. Cultural identities are often constructed through cognitive, emotional and practical opposing to something, most frequently in terms of what we ourselves are not. This is particularly true for ethnic identities, but it also remains present in many other instances of identity building, from local to fan-based identities. The basis of such a procedure is to establish a we-group as a reference in relation to which othering is carried out. What stands for small groups applies also to larger groups: they establish a system of values which serve as a cohesive factor in the existence of a given group and which allows its members to determine themselves in relation to the rest of the world in general, as well in relation to some other similar group. Conflict with others appears as an essential feature of such a value system. Taken to the extreme, the conflict as a means to an end can be considered as a fundamental element of misanthropy in the process of construction of we-groups. It works by way of deliberate depriving of its members of empathy through dehumanization of the other, which makes the backbone of othering. The establishment of a nuclear family as a we-group in the British-Canadian television series „Tin Star” is the example where this process of othering is employed as a misanthropic device.
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