It's no secret that watching television is my favorite thing to do in my free time. I've been known to wax poetic about my favorite program with a friend in lieu of doing a p-set now and again... so, imagine my joy at watching part of the HBO series Treme in class!
As I've mentioned before, most of my prior knowledge of New Orleans came from the stereotypes of the city: mardi gras, gumbo, jazz music. What else I knew of the city came through video footage of Hurricane Katrina. Because of this, I saw the city as both one with a rich history and cultural traditions, as well as one with an inefficient political system and precarious geographical location. My perception of the city has been augmented and made more realistic through the course of the class so far, especially since I now know more of the city's history.
Before starting Treme, I had one question in mind: is this show a realistic view of the Treme neighborhood and how was it perceived by New Orleanians? In my limited research so far, I found that the city's residents had generally positive responses to the show. The Times-Picayune even has a weekly column called "Treme Explained," decoding all the NOLA-specific references to non-locals. From what I saw in the pilot episode, Treme could prove a great introduction to the city, beyond what most people have seen on CNN.
One thing I realized when watching the rest of the pilot is that I often missed a lot of the conversation unless I had the closed captioning on. This acts as a reminder of how removed I am from life in Treme or New Orleans in general. I needed captions to understand what people were saying-- how will I do in NOLA once we're actually there in person?
As I've mentioned before, most of my prior knowledge of New Orleans came from the stereotypes of the city: mardi gras, gumbo, jazz music. What else I knew of the city came through video footage of Hurricane Katrina. Because of this, I saw the city as both one with a rich history and cultural traditions, as well as one with an inefficient political system and precarious geographical location. My perception of the city has been augmented and made more realistic through the course of the class so far, especially since I now know more of the city's history.
Before starting Treme, I had one question in mind: is this show a realistic view of the Treme neighborhood and how was it perceived by New Orleanians? In my limited research so far, I found that the city's residents had generally positive responses to the show. The Times-Picayune even has a weekly column called "Treme Explained," decoding all the NOLA-specific references to non-locals. From what I saw in the pilot episode, Treme could prove a great introduction to the city, beyond what most people have seen on CNN.
One thing I realized when watching the rest of the pilot is that I often missed a lot of the conversation unless I had the closed captioning on. This acts as a reminder of how removed I am from life in Treme or New Orleans in general. I needed captions to understand what people were saying-- how will I do in NOLA once we're actually there in person?
One thing that is interesting about the show Treme that we didn't talk about in class is that many of the people in the episode are real people in New Orleans. There is one guy in the opening who is a really famous trumpet player. Srav and I actually saw him! I think having the real people in the show makes it much for genuine and realistic.
ReplyDeleteThe accent is fun. You get used to it but it is definitely something different at first.