‘Mediating Remembrance; Personalization and Celebrity in Television Remembrance’

In the period since the First World War both conflict and remembrance have been experienced at a personal level and through a range of media. This article discusses the growing significance of broadcast remembrance texts focusing upon three recent television texts: The Fallen (BBC 2) (Matthews, 2008), My Boy Jack (ITV) (Kirk, 2007) and My Family at War (BBC 1) (Austin, 2008). It is suggested that personalization, celebrity and domesticity within television remembrance enables mediated remembrance to serve as an interface between the personal, domestic, unofficial and often feminized sides of remembrance and its national and official role. These texts both emphasize and legitimate the private and domestic sides of grief by portraying them within the public sphere. In so doing they engage with many who may feel excluded from traditional remembrance events and elicit an empathy for the bereaved which is removed from any support for conflicts and war.