“The Big Bang Theory” tra intertextuality ed extractability. Verso nuovi percorsi transmediali?

Abstract

The paper aims at analysing the ability of some brands, especially those that have particularly complex storyworlds and/or manage fragments of experience different/external to the more traditional ones, to activate alternative forms of transmediality. To this purpose, it investigates the relationship between intertextuality and extractability with respect to a particular transmedial narrative brand such as “The Big Bang Theory” (TBBT).

Intertextuality – founding element of transtextuality – refers in particular to the multiple forms of reference and quotes; extractability is specifically associated with immersion, within the fundamental principles of transmedia storytelling, and finds in merchandising one of its most concrete expressions.

In particular, the paper focuses on the first results of a case study focused on TBBT, a series that has made references and merchandising its very clear distinguishing features. The analysis is based on two distinct corpuses: on the one hand the titles and plots of all the episodes of the series (in Italian and English); on the other hand the related merchandising (both official and unofficial and above all produced and distributed by fans, viewers and users).

The research shows how and to what extent intertextuality and extractability are able not only to characterize the series, grounding it to the subculture of the protagonists, the nerd/geek one, but also to transform TBBT into a brand with a high cultural transmediality. In other words, two different trends emerge within the series: a centripetal, through which it incorporates and resemanticizes other brands, texts and contents (comics, videogames, TV series, etc.), and a centrifuge, through which it conveys recurring components of the series outside the series, transferring them to the real world.

Within the synchronicity of these two centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, TBBT characterizes itself as a phagic brand, and makes the transition from a television series to a transmedial brand in all respects, activating an atypical transmediality, scarcely connoted from a technological/medial point of view. A sort of trans(textual)media storytelling.