‘Enlightened Melodrama: Excess, Care and Resistance in Contemporary Television’

This essay explores Enlightened (HBO, 2011-2013) in relation to recent scholarly developments in our understanding of melodrama and television, particularly in work by Linda Williams and Jason Mittell. It argues that the series offers an example of the kind of ‘politically efficiacous’ drama that Williams finds in The Wire through attention to its use of excess. Dismissed in some part because of its association with soap operas, excess, as a feature within melodrama, is something that we need to better understand in terms of its function in contemporary television. In Enlightened, excess is used to highlight the contradiction between the care of the self and the care of others. Embodied by Amy in terms of her performance of care, her facial expressions, and clothes, excess works to map out the journey of selftransformation offered in the series. This essay also focuses particular attention on the trope of mothering, both in terms of the mother-daughter relationship and a broader understanding of mothering that Amy embraces in her quest to be an ‘agent of change.’