Abstract:

The article arises from case study experiences being made with Czech Sex and the City audience, which were found out on basis of their positive or someway interesting comments on Czech-Slovak film database. The TV series itself treats quite unorthodoxly with problems of marriage, dating, relationships, sex, gender roles, career, illness, friendship and family while concurrently accommodating several as-expected clichés about those phenomena. It has only proven to be true that in the case of Sex and the City audience there is a decisive moment during the identification process where a viewer finds clear resemblance of fictional situation with his or her life. At its beginning, the identification process can be even intensified by an actual negative experience (among frequently mentioned occurences are those originating from a break-up or being in a generally sad mood). Viewers of popular TV series get experiences with various topics through various fictional characters’ stories. This form of experiential learning comes from a viewer-fictional character identification process which is itself a part of a broader process of (self)reflection. A deep comparison of a fictional character and its situation with one-self emanates as a crucial part of social and emotional learning. Through the characters we identify with, we can usually get into new situations as well as to those, which we already lived before with an additional potential to learn. In general, we can say that sharing an experience with a fictional character makes some opportunities for personal experience reflection while character identification creates a potential for self-reflection. Czech Sex and the City audience have a strong dedication to follow-up Sex and the City heroines as role models and thus finding their own strength through fictional characters can be considered as one of the main benefits of this identification. And although educational environments arising from fictional characters-ourselves discoveries may sometimes seem a bit chaotic, this process remains an irreplaceable and elementary form of lifelong learning.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, experiential learning, identification, reflection, TV series, fictional character.