“Hangin' in the Tremé / Watchin' people sashay”. : How the characters in Treme draw a portrait of New Orleans

As a city portrait, David Simon and Eric Overmeyer’s television series Treme (2010-2013) shows relatively little of the geography of the city of New Orleans itself. Instead, it tries to draw a portrait of a community, a collective portrait that, on the one hand, tries to express the resilience of the city after the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina (2005) and, on the other hand, the authenticity and créolité that distinguishes New Orleans from other American cities. In this article I want to analyze how Treme portrays New Orleans through a polyphonic narrative that combines fiction and reality in the construction and use of its characters.