Television
The portrayal of librarians on the small screen has usually followed the same stereotypes as those found in motion pictures. For example, in most animated cartoon series (such as Baby Looney Tunes or Rugrats) the librarian is often shown silencing the main/pivotal characters - especially younger children - when they're in a library area. Some even ban the characters from the libraries for making rude or strange noises.
The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured the character of Rupert Giles as school librarian at Sunnydale High and mentor for the main character of Buffy. At the start of the series Giles is often portrayed stereotypically, for example he wears old-fashioned clothes and spectacles, is intelligent and well-read though has a dislike for computers, and is overly concerned with following regulations. As the series progresses the character is given the opportunity to develop beyond these stereotypes as we learn that Giles was a rebellious and angry teenager who was partly responsible for the death of a friend after dabbling in dark magic. He is also depicted at being competent with weaponry and hand to hand combat and at playing the guitar and singing. Though Giles never has a longlasting on-screen relationship and has never been married, he does have brief romances on screen and is acknowledged as an attractive man by other characters in the show; therefore at least partially refuting the usual stereotype.
In creating the Australian miniseries The Librarians, however, co-producers and -writers Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler consulted with real librarians for research, and took their advice to avoid shooshing and cardigan-wearing librarian characters.
Read more about this topic: Fictional Librarians
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“... there is no reason to confuse television news with journalism.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)