In particularly long and in-depth products such as TV series, the setting very often ends up assuming a main role, because it is called upon to frame long and complex stories, dug deeply and with substantial connotations. It is never trivial, therefore, the choice of location for a TV series, whether it’s a fictional setting or a real city. There are many cases in which the choice of the frame has had a profound effect on the success or failure of a production, a symptom of how this is anything but a secondary issue. The difficulties, paradoxically, increase when the chosen location is real, not invented, because it already possesses connotations that must be made to coincide with the story staged. However, if you make the right choice, the result can be outstanding. This is the case, for example, of series such as Sex and the City, which would have a completely different face without its New York.
There are not a few scenarios in which thesetting she has become so relevant in a TV series that she rises to a sort of protagonist, equal to the main characters. Listing them all is a difficult task, therefore it is better to choose a precise cut and then it can be particularly interesting to dwell on real cities, which have their own souls and distinctive features. As mentioned, it’s even harder to find one correspondence effective in such cases, because certain peculiarities of cities cannot be changed, as in fictional locations. However, they can be exploited characteristics very precise and this is what the five TV series protagonists of this list have done, capable of exalting metropolises such as New York, London and Los Angeles, to the point of personifying them, giving them a heart and living flesh and making them move alongside the main characters of their respective productions, completing the very meaning of the entire series.
La New York di Sex and the City
It is impossible not to start from one of the symbolic and most represented cities in the serial panorama: of course New York. In the history of TV series we have seen various declinations, both spatial and temporal, of the Big Apple, but none is probably more exemplary than the one offered by Sex and the City. Aired from 1998 to 2004, the HBO series has become highly iconic partly due to its frame, particularly suitable for enclosing the events of the four female protagonists of the story.
The New York drawn in Sex and the City captures the genuinely glamorous soul of the city, the one enclosed by the Upper East Side, Manhattan and the iconic Central Park. In particular, the great protagonist of Sex and the City and the Greenwich Village, a location that is the backdrop to many places in the series and which is one of the most artistic and dreamy souls of the city. New York, and especially this area of the Big Apple, perfectly embodies the glossy soul of Sex and the City, between the exaltation of appearancesof the social statusbut also i dreams never dormant. Without New York there could never have been Carrie Bradshaw and her companions. Without New York a narrative like that of Sex and the City it would never have been possible and vice versa, without the series we would never have enjoyed certain cuts in the city.
Beyond Sex and the City: the Rome of Romanzo Criminale
New York is to American production what Rome is to Italian production. The capital is, obviously, the main location of Italian seriality and cinema, declined in many versions because the Eternal City has countless souls. The most dissolute, spoiled and violent is the great protagonist of Criminal novel. Rome in the Sky series is not only the frame in which the Lebanese, the Freddo and all the other members of the Magliana gang move, but she is present in different guises, the protagonist more conceptual than physical.
Paradoxically, we don’t see much of Rome in Romanzo Criminale, but the city is present under different shades and constantly hovers over the events, directing them in a decisive way. She is mother, wife and executioner. He gives those street kids the illusion of power, raises them and entices them with false promises, and then betrays them, one by one, without mercy. “Roma nun vo’ masters” is heard by the Lebanese and in the end the city reveals its nature, the tragic fatality that has been inherent in it for more than 2000 years. Rome is the real engine that drives the action in Criminal novel, because the ultimate goal for the protagonists is not money, luxury, thrill or pleasure, but is essentially the power. That illusion of being able to succeed where no one has ever dared, of being able to put a city in check that has never bowed. Like the most tragic of femme fatales, Rome pretends to be courted, intoxicates her usurpers with power and then slaughters them, without any reservations.
La Birmingham di Peaky Blinders
There is a phenomenon, called cinematourism, which consists of visiting famous locations of famous films or TV series and is a form of tourism that has gained a substantial foothold in recent years, leading to the rediscovery of places and destinations hitherto outside the traditional routes. This phenomenon is definitely applicable to Peaky Blinders and to his Birmingham, a city that is one with the Steven Knight series. Positioned in the heart of England, Birmingham is anything but a fringe city in the UK. Second in population in all of Great Britain, Birmingham is a city rich in both industrial and artistic ferment, capable of giving birth to illustrious characters such as JRR Tolkien and Arthur Conan Doyle. Yet Birmingham is traditionally the city of Peaky Blinders. This perfectly returns the figure of the impact that the series has had on the city and vice versa.
Steven Knight’s television series brings roaring Birmingham to the small screen 20s, those that follow the First World War and are marked by the typical post-conflict ferment, which will be the prelude to an even more total confrontation. The city fully represents the difficulty of those years, creating the perfect setting for the adventures of the Peaky Blinders. Birmingham is a center hit hard by the First World War: from a thriving economic and industrial center it has become a city to be rebuilt, with serious difficulties. These ombre descended on Birmingham after golden years clearly mark the character of the protagonists and create the ideal terrain for the development of the narrative, which can not ignore the city that is the background. The dark colors that indelibly mark Peaky Blinders they come right from the outlined Birmingham.
Beyond Sex and the City: Penny Dreadful’s London
After talking about the Birmingham of Peaky Blinders let’s stay in England and go back in time, just 30 years which however completely change every point of view. In Penny Dreadful we are in the London of fine 800, in the last years of the very long Victorian age. This era of English history is globally considered an era of splendor and progress, but if we go to see many serial and cinematic representations set in these years, they give us a different portrait. To better understand the Victorian age, the literature of that masterpiece that it is is recommended The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: a novel that, with a broad metaphor, shows us the two opposite faces of society in those years.
Penny Dreadful it perfectly restores the dark side, which is also the most interesting, of that coin which is society l‘Victorian age. The demons, in the Showtime series, are present in the flesh and could not find a more congenial place of action than London at the end of the 19th century. In the last decade of the 20th century, the Victorian age had now reached its peak, all vices hidden until then are now overflowing and we are approaching, at an ever more pressing pace, that 900 in which the demons will become real with the two world conflicts. London is clearly the city that acts as a catalyst for all the ambiguities of the Victorian age and Penny Dreadful it gives them back to us at its best, making London itself one of the monstrous creatures protagonists of the series.
The Los Angeles of Lucifer
We close this review by returning to America, to another of the most represented cities in the world of TV series. If New York is luxury, frenzy and romance, Los Angeles is the city of stars, parties and relaxation. Los Angeles is the reality that is the backdrop to Lucifer and it is no coincidence that the devil, to live his experience on Earth, has chosen California. We can go so far as to say that, in the series, Los Angeles is sort of another self of Lucifer himself, a mirror of the personality of the devil embodied by Tom Ellis.
Lucifer presents that happy and carefree face that Los Angeles has, that aura of a Hollywood star who can enjoy the warm California sun and its rich beaches without worries. In reality, just like the city, the protagonist of the series based on the Vertigo comics has a much more complex soul and ambivalent of what it shows. Behind its glossy and elegant facade, Los Angeles hides many more complexities than it would seem, many of which derive precisely from the presence of the big film industry, which attracts personalities and situations of all kinds. A complex layering, which is perfectly reflected in the character of Lucifer. Looking at Los Angeles, we can see the true soul of the devil depicted in the series and it is as if the character and the city lived a sort of co-protagonist in a profound game of references and correspondences.
