Community, Seriality, and the State of the Nation - British and Irish Television Series in the 21st Century

The most poignant motif in the series that represents a fundamental threat to the community, however, is pornography. Adultery and betrayal are typical secrets to come out during a police investigation in crime drama, both to add emotional tension and to suggest further potential reasons for murder, but series three introduces pornography as a subject that goes beyond these conventions, and this is strongly connected to the general sense of transition within the community. In his Guardian review, Mark Lawson emphasises “the series’ well-developed sub-theme of the effect on young men of the increasing availability and depravity of pornography”. The two young men who are later identified as rapists watch pornography frequently, but Ellie’s adolescent son Tom (Adam Wilson) watches it, too, even after he has been caught and punished at school, and after his horrified mother has confiscated his phone. Within the theme of sexual morality, pornography represents everything that is problematic about the associational society that is slowly undermining the traditional moral and social structures of the town: pornography takes the most personal, emotional, and direct type of bond between two people, a bond traditionally framed and regulated by religious and social ceremonies, and subverts it into something impersonal, anonymous, and (strangely) efficient, thereby alienating it from the emotions that are conventionally associated with it. Since pornography is an expansive and lucrative market, it also adds a capitalist aspect to the theme of sexuality. Pornography rationalises and disenchants sexuality and, so the series suggests, can give rise to de-humanising and immoral attitudes towards sexuality that can, in turn, lead to sexual violence, as in the case of Leo, the third series’ serial rapist. On the whole, the topic of sexual morality, as it is explored and developed in the course of the series, reveals and emphasises three aspects of the community as a whole: firstly, its essentially traditional moral standards; secondly, individual lapses from these standards, which are due to human fallibility and to genre conventions; and thirdly, a sense of moral decline, of failing marriages and, worse, a youth that is confronted with a pornographic treatment of sexuality that radically counteracts all traditional moral and emotional attitudes towards sexuality. The traditionally sanctioned place of sexuality, marriage, is threatened and transformed by these developments in sexual morality, just as other institutions are threatened by change, as the following analysis will show.

The community perceives its central institutions as a stronghold of its core values and expects them to guard it both against individual transgressions and against more profound threats to the community. However, Broadchurch presents institutions, too, as sites of generational conflict and modernisation. The series shows representatives of the church, the press, the judiciary, and – of course – the police as torn between the pressure to serve the community and the need to fulfil their own particular professional code in the framework of a society in transition. In the end, as the character constellations and plot developments suggest, each of the institutions is shown to be only as good as the individuals who work for, and while representatives of each institution are ‘fighting the good fight’, ambitious and ruthless members of the younger generation are challenging their authority and indicate incipient changes that go far beyond well-known generational conflicts, and threaten to destroy the very essence of these institutions.

The institution of the church is an exception within this general structure, as it is represented solely by the character of the vicar, Paul (Arthur Darvill). The very fact that the church plays a role here shows the relatively conservative, traditional orientation of the community. The vicar is still a figure of respect and authority, and the church is still an institution that people turn to in moments of crisis and need. Throughout the series, Paul gives several sermons in which he invokes and encourages the congregation’s sense of community: “If we are not a community of neighbours, then we are nothing.” (S1/E6, 00:07) Becca, who later becomes his girlfriend, commends him for this “nice bit of community leadership” (ibid.). Many townspeople seek Paul’s advice, and even though the Latimers are not a religious family, they come to him for marriage counselling. When young Tom Miller and Michael Lucas (Deon Lee-Williams) are caught watching pornography, they are sent to him for punishment, which affirms his role as a moral authority in the community (S3/E3, 00:15). Paul also assumes responsibility to protect his parishioners: when the elderly shop owner is subjected to the local witch hunt, Paul requests the detectives to protect him, albeit with little success (S1/E5, 00:27).

Nonetheless, the church is clearly an institution in crisis. With the exception of funerals and times of great distress, the services are almost empty (S3/E2, 00:31), and Ellie tells Alec that her family only go to church at Easter if they remember after the egg hunt, to which he caustically replies: “And so does Christianity fall.” (S1/E4, 00:19) The vicar himself tries his best to be a part of the community and help the parishioners in need, but he is often helpless in the face of suffering, and he is a troubled figure himself, a recovering alcoholic full of self-doubt. When the national media become interested in Broadchurch, and he gives interviews praising the local community (S1/E2, 00:40), he is even accused of trying to profit from the murder: Mark Latimer asks him if he enjoyed his “moment of glory” (ibid.), and Alec Hardy tells him he felt he was “too eager to get in front of the camera, claiming all this for the church” (S1/E6, 00:28). Alec, the prototypical cynical detective, clearly considers himself and his work as the more substantial moral corrective to society. Paul, however, points out the shortcomings of the police: “People came to me because there was a fear that you couldn’t address, a gap you couldn’t plug.” (ibid.) On the whole, Paul and the institution he represents are shown to be hanging in the balance – they still have a function within the community, but this function seems rather secular, and even when approaching the vicar for help, people are always quick to say that they are unsure about the spiritual side of things – or, as Ellie’s father puts it rather more explicitly: “I’m not into all that bullshit.” (S2/E3, 00:15) Paul is happy to adapt his help to the secular, psychological needs of his parishioners, but he realises that he is not always up to this task and that other institutions provide this service more efficiently. Paradoxically, in the third series he tells Beth (Jodie Whittaker), who often sought his counsel after her son was killed, that he envies her for her new job as a social worker who helps women after sexual assaults (S3/E5, 00:27). Eventually, he faces up to the lack of interest in the church and leaves the parish, effectively putting a seal on the rapid decline and vanishing of his institution in modern society.

The vicar’s brief appearance on television, which already jeopardises his reputation, reveals the general distrust attached to the media, which is under suspicion of pursuing financial gain and fame rather than moral objectives. However, the series also represents the local newspaper as an important local institution, which provides social cohesion and monitors other institutions. The editor of the local paper, Maggie (Carolyn Pickles), has a strong sense of community and of the moral obligations of her profession. She keeps employing an unreliable photographer on the grounds that “[w]e look after our own here” (S1/E1, 00:12); organises the community to express their sympathy towards the bereaved Latimers in a condolence book; and keeps her young, ambitious protegé Olly, Ellie’s nephew (Jonathan Bailey), on a short leash, making him apologise when he has overstepped the mark by rashly publishing private information online (S1/E1, 00:35). Maggie’s moral code is strongly linked to both her small-town paper and to her advanced age, which is emphasised when a young, ruthless antagonist from a national paper appears on the scene. This journalist, Karen (Vicky McClure), wins the trust of the Latimers and of Olly whilst exploiting them for her own purpose and bringing national media attention down on the small town. Selling the story to her editor, Karen describes Broadchurch as an “idyllic market town” and the Latimers as a “model family” with a highly photogenic mother (E1/S4, 00:50). This cynical, marketing-oriented approach to a family’s tragedy is an implied criticism of professional journalism and media coverage in general.