Undoubtedly, both Capital and Deutschland 83 offer realism as
a huge aspect. Capital, being a state of the nation drama makes sure and has to
bring issues in the real world to the show making it one of the main focuses.
In Capitals case it reflects on the financial crash in London and also others
like immigration, doing this intrigues British audiences as if they are
watching this they most probably have gone through the financial crash time
period and would like to see how a TV company like BBC interpret it. In the
same way, Deutschland 83 focuses on the historical event, The Cold War from an
Eastern perspective showing the conflict between East and West Germany. From
this you can get a strong sense of Realism as audiences who lived through it
will remember the time very clearly and may also feel a sense of nostalgia when
watching the show.
In addition, Capital has a wide range of characters all with
different personalities, class, ethnicity and views as Capital focuses on
social and cultural context. For example the middle classed in Capital are
viewed as the elite and obsessed with any and everything money related as we
see with the bankers family. They are shown to be selfish and take things for
granted, money being one of the major aspects as we see he gets a great sum of
money as a bonus but he doesn’t appreciate the gesture and wants even more
money whereas someone lower classed than him would gladly accept the money as
it’s not easy to come by especially when living in London. This shows a sense
of realism as in reality the middle class are often viewed as quite snobbish
and thinking they are better than most people, therefore wanting large sums of
income to fuel their ego even more.
Issues like immigration are also touched upon in Capital when following
the story of Quentina who fled from Zimbabwe to London and now works illegally.
This offers realism as in the show we see her constantly being oppressed by
other characters because of her background, and is also not met with many
opportunities and has to fend for herself, which is very common in not just
London but other countries too for immigrants. The fact that she works so hard,
not relying on other people and still not getting any recognition or any
support shows the harsh reality many immigrants face when they come to England
in hopes of finding a better life.
Although, many argue that Capital has a left-wing bias as
they portray the upper classed in such a negative manner making them look bad
therefore the sense of Realism in Capital may not all be so authentic. When
compared to how the working and lower classed people who are presented as kind
hearted and hardworking the middle and upper classed are out shined as they are
just shown to be a stain on society because of the way they are shown to go about
life and whatnot.
In continuation, there is a strong sense of realism
throughout the entirety of the whole show as the main focus is about the
conflict between East and West Germany, therefore allowing audiences to educate
themselves on what actually occurred in real life from another perspective they
wouldn’t have got from anywhere else offering realism to them. Audience members
who may have lived in Germany through this time period will feel nostalgic as
the settings will be very recognisable to them and will be able to recall them,
e.g. the way the houses looked and the supermarket which we see in episode 1
when Martin runs through it. Also whilst running through the supermarket music
can be heard playing which was relevant to that time period and therefore could
also offer realism as older audiences will recognise it easily. Another way the
show offers realism is how they include clips from real life into the show like
Ronald Reagans Evil Empire speech which older audiences will recognise and
start to feel nostalgic when remembering all that happened. This is how
Deutschland 83 draws in audiences as they include things that they know people
will be attracted towards and then keep on giving them more of the same thing
to make them feel like it’s not just a TV programme but also reality.
At the same time, many
argue that the representations of East and West Germany are inappropriately
portrayed to make them look worse than they actually are taking away the
realism that the show has. It is also said that because some locations are top
secret the production team had to come up with what they thought certain
locations were actually like instead of actually having the info from real life
which further takes away the aspect of realism of the show. Although as a whole
Deutschland 83 is very accurate in what it does which makes it as successful as
it is. The same goes for Capital as it offers such realistic features people
enjoy it as they can relate to certain aspects and feel comfortable when
watching it as they have a wider knowledge about the topic than people outside
of London.
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