Get Away With Murder Themes

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From TGIF to #TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday), Shonda Rhimes has transformed ABC Thursday night television with her must see guilty pleasures Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and the latest hot addition How to Get Away With Murder. ABC’s portrayal of powerful, intelligent and complex women enhances it’s brand transition to one of female empowerment. In this new show, Viola Davis plays the strong and remarkably intelligent defense attorney Annalise Keating who faces personal, scandalous affairs which intertwines with a brutal murder. Sex, drugs and captivating drama are all central themes of the show- or more specifically, themes of Shonda Rhimes’ work. In pairing How To Get Away With Murder with Rhimes’ hit shows Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, ABC executives…show more content…
According to Jose Van Dijck’s The Culture of Connectivity, media is conceived as “the socially realized structures of communication, where structures include both technological forms and their associated protocols, and where communication is a cultural practice, a ritualized collocation of different people on the same mental map, sharing or engaged with poplar ontologies of representation” (5). ABC has taken advantage of all media platforms to market and promote this new television series. First and foremost, the network has run with #Shondaland and #TGIT to target loyal Shonda Rhimes audiences. As the Hollywood Reporter points out, “ABC is using the women of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder to promote its ‘historic’ night of Shonda Rhimes programming” (Hollywood Reporter). ABC is able to accomplish this by releasing videos of the four leading ladies onto youtube and during television commercial slots. In one such video, Kerry Washington, Ellen Pompeo, Viola Davis and Shonda Rhimes came together to hype up the new Thursday night schedule and reveal spoilers of each show. Additionally, Rhimes was able to introduce How To Get Away With Murder which is a “sexy, fast paced look at the law”. Sexy and fast paced are two common themes of Rhimes’ hit dramas. This particular promotion was successful because it brought fans of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal- two shows similar…show more content…
Starting in September the official Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy Instagram accounts have released videos of the cast informing it’s over 197 thousand followers of the latest hit Thursday night show. The accounts have also posted pictures with the How To Get Away With Murder cast with the TGIT hashtag to get followers excited for the new lineup. One picture includes the cast of Scandal and Viola Davis with the caption “The Cast of Scandal officially welcomes Viola Davis to the TGIT family”. Additionally, the personal Instagram accounts of Kerry Washington (Scandal, Olivia Pope) and Shonda Rhimes are scattered with posts promoting Viola Davis and the cast of HTGAWM. The cross promotional efforts have reached a combined total of 600 thousand Instagram followers and has given the official How To Get Away With Murder Instagram account over 34 thousand followers before the show even aired. Twitter has also been a great promotional marketing strategy for the show. This social networking outlet “presents itself as an echo chamber of random chatter, the online underbelly of mass opinions where collective emotions are formed and where quick-lived trends wax and wane in the public eye (The Culture of Connectivity 69). Not only are the #TGIT and #Shondaland trending each week, HTGAWM has incorporated weekly hashtags during the show to get audiences talking about the episode. For example, the

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