The exhibition BEHIND THE COUNTER by painters Adéla Jánská, Paulina Olowská and Caroline Walker clearly refers in its title to the infamous normalization series The Woman Behind the Counter starring pro-regime actress Jiřina Švorcová. As the exhibition comes to an end in February, it is time to remember the series and, more importantly, to talk about it from today's perspective. The screening of the first episode will be followed by a lecture by teacher Anna Rufer Bílá from the UP Department of Television and Radio.
Anna Rufer Bílá: In front of the counter, behind the counter: that's where we'll look at you
Women behind the counter and elsewhere: the (un)realism of normalization television
Women behind the counter series today are often perceived through the prism of irony or nostalgia. It represents one of the most striking examples of normalisation television fiction, in which the everyday becomes a vehicle for an ideological message. Its significance, however, lies not only in the way it depicted the everyday of socialist commerce, but above all in the image of women it created through that everyday.
This talk will look at the context of television production at the time, and what it faced to still deliver a story viewers could relate to. What does the series say about its time? What does it say about women? And what does it say to us today?
Programme subject to change.
