Critical Studies in Television – serie

Tribal Warfare thoroughly investigates a central element of the hit reality television show Survivor that the existing literature on reality television has overlooked: class politics. Christopher J. Wright combines textual analysis and survey research to demonstrate that Survivor operates and resonates as a political allegory. Using the work of Fredric Jameson, this book reveals how Survivor frames its "characters" as "haves" and "have-nots." For those new to Jameson, Wright breaks down the theorist's complex notion of the political unconscious into easily understandable language. Furthermore, using the results of a survey of Survivor viewers, Tribal Warfare demonstrates that viewers divide along gender, racial, age, and—most significantly—class-related lines in their consumption of, and reaction to, the program. The first book to explore the premise of "Survivor as society," this unique work serves as both an engaging analysis of a popular television program and a highly readable primer for those new to critical theory.

Tribal Warfare thoroughly investigates a central element of the hit reality television show Survivor that the existing literature on reality television has overlooked: class politics. Christopher J. Wright combines textual analysis and survey research to demonstrate that Survivor operates and resonates as a political allegory. Using the work of Fredric Jameson, this book reveals how Survivor frames its "characters" as "haves" and "have-nots." For those new to Jameson, Wright breaks down the theorist's complex notion of the political unconscious into easily understandable language. Furthermore, using the results of a survey of Survivor viewers, Tribal Warfare demonstrates that viewers divide along gender, racial, age, and—most significantly—class-related lines in their consumption of, and reaction to, the program. The first book to explore the premise of "Survivor as society," this unique work serves as both an engaging analysis of a popular television program and a highly readable primer for those new to critical theory.

Dear Angela includes fourteen critical essays that examine the brief-lived but landmark television series, My So-Called Life (1994-1995). Though certainly not the first young woman to be the center of a television series, Angela Chase and the show about her life were doing something new on television and influenced many of the shows about young people that followed. Michele Byers and David Lavery bring together enthusiastic and engaging voices that bear on a series that continues to be hailed as a breakthrough moment in television, even though more than a decade has passed since its cancellation. Tackling a broad range of topics_from identity politics, to music, to infidelity, and death_each essay builds upon a belief that My So-Called Life is a particularly rich text worth studying for the clues it offers about a particular moment in cultural and television history. Dear Angela offers a sophisticated analysis of the show's legacy and cultural relevance that will appeal to media studies scholars and fans alike.

Dear Angela includes fourteen critical essays that examine the brief-lived but landmark television series, My So-Called Life (1994-1995). Though certainly not the first young woman to be the center of a television series, Angela Chase and the show about her life were doing something new on television and influenced many of the shows about young people that followed. Michele Byers and David Lavery bring together enthusiastic and engaging voices that bear on a series that continues to be hailed as a breakthrough moment in television, even though more than a decade has passed since its cancellation. Tackling a broad range of topics_from identity politics, to music, to infidelity, and death_each essay builds upon a belief that My So-Called Life is a particularly rich text worth studying for the clues it offers about a particular moment in cultural and television history. Dear Angela offers a sophisticated analysis of the show's legacy and cultural relevance that will appeal to media studies scholars and fans alike.

thirtysomething: Television, Women, Men and Work examines one of television's most emotionally and culturally resonant programs and the many themes it contained. Addressing what it means to be a modern woman and the many corollary issues that revolve around the lives of the series' major women characters, thirtysomething explores female friendships and sexuality, male/female relationships, and the relationship of women to work and domestic life. Just as the women reflected the dilemmas of contemporary femininity, the men in the series represented many of the problems of modern masculinity at a time of great flux in traditional male roles. thirtysomething discusses how the series dealt with the roles of husbands and fathers, the nature of male sexuality, and the complex tensions that exist in male friendships.Authors Albert Auster and Leonard Quart view the television series as a program that not only provided a penetrating and imaginative portrait of the nature of marriage, friendship and career, but also is a conduit to understanding a particular urban-suburban American class culture and lifestyle during the late eighties and early nineties.

thirtysomething: Television, Women, Men and Work examines one of television's most emotionally and culturally resonant programs and the many themes it contained. Addressing what it means to be a modern woman and the many corollary issues that revolve around the lives of the series' major women characters, thirtysomething explores female friendships and sexuality, male/female relationships, and the relationship of women to work and domestic life. Just as the women reflected the dilemmas of contemporary femininity, the men in the series represented many of the problems of modern masculinity at a time of great flux in traditional male roles. thirtysomething discusses how the series dealt with the roles of husbands and fathers, the nature of male sexuality, and the complex tensions that exist in male friendships.Authors Albert Auster and Leonard Quart view the television series as a program that not only provided a penetrating and imaginative portrait of the nature of marriage, friendship and career, but also is a conduit to understanding a particular urban-suburban American class culture and lifestyle during the late eighties and early nineties.

Dawson's Creek: A Critical Understanding provides a textual analysis of the WB's hit teen drama that ran from 1998 to 2003. Author Lori Bindig analyzes episodes of Dawson's Creek as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. Exploring the ideology encoded within Dawson's Creek from a feminist cultural studies perspective, Bindig examines gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism as it is presented in the show. The depiction of each of these five ideological concepts is discussed beyond the framework of the series and put into a larger social context, allowing a discussion of the potential ramifications of the television program. This book suggests that although Dawson's Creek includes counter-hegemonic story lines, ultimately the political-economic realities of the current media system undercuts the oppositional content and frames the program as hegemonic. Nevertheless, Dawson's Creek is a valuable tool in navigating the ongoing struggle against social inequality, illustrating how far society has come and how far it has yet to go.

Dawson's Creek: A Critical Understanding provides a textual analysis of the WB's hit teen drama that ran from 1998 to 2003. Author Lori Bindig analyzes episodes of Dawson's Creek as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. Exploring the ideology encoded within Dawson's Creek from a feminist cultural studies perspective, Bindig examines gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism as it is presented in the show. The depiction of each of these five ideological concepts is discussed beyond the framework of the series and put into a larger social context, allowing a discussion of the potential ramifications of the television program. This book suggests that although Dawson's Creek includes counter-hegemonic story lines, ultimately the political-economic realities of the current media system undercuts the oppositional content and frames the program as hegemonic. Nevertheless, Dawson's Creek is a valuable tool in navigating the ongoing struggle against social inequality, illustrating how far society has come and how far it has yet to go.

CSI has been heralded in many spheres of public discourse as a televisual revolution, its effects on the public unprecedented. The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance demonstrates that CSI's appeal cannot be disentangled from either its production as a televisual text or the broader discourses and practices that circulate within our social landscape. This interdisciplinary collection bridges the gap between the study of media, particularly popular culture media, and the study of crime. The contributors consider the points of intersection between these very different realms of scholarship and in so doing foster the development of a new set of theoretical languages in which the mediated spectacle of crime and criminalization can be carefully considered. This timely and groundbreaking volume is bound to intrigue both scholars and CSI enthusiasts alike.

CSI has been heralded in many spheres of public discourse as a televisual revolution, its effects on the public unprecedented. The CSI Effect: Television, Crime, and Governance demonstrates that CSI's appeal cannot be disentangled from either its production as a televisual text or the broader discourses and practices that circulate within our social landscape. This interdisciplinary collection bridges the gap between the study of media, particularly popular culture media, and the study of crime. The contributors consider the points of intersection between these very different realms of scholarship and in so doing foster the development of a new set of theoretical languages in which the mediated spectacle of crime and criminalization can be carefully considered. This timely and groundbreaking volume is bound to intrigue both scholars and CSI enthusiasts alike.

The O.C., A Critical Understanding, by Lori Bindig and Andrea M. Bergstrom, is a feminist cultural studies analysis of FOX’s hit teen television drama The O.C. (2003-2007). Episodes of The O.C. are analyzed as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. This analysis utilizes ancillary media such as director commentary in conjunction with content in order to understand how ideological content, in regards to gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism, is presented throughout the show. The O.C. is also examined in terms of audience analysis, auteur theory, aesthetics, and reality television spin-offs. Bindig and Bergstrom place The O.C. in a larger social context and explore the potential ramifications of popular media texts, as well as the series' cultural legacy which continues to resonate in media and culture.

Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park argues that progressives should conceive the connections between media, policy, and culture beyond the limits of "politics" and "news." With sustained analyses of groundbreaking contemporary examples of what has become known as "convergence culture," Ted Gournelos brings together a wide range of media without sacrificing depth. His examples, such as South Park, The Simpsons, The Onion, The Daily Show, Chappelle's Show, and The Boondocks, are chosen for their political scope and social impact and demonstrate the ways in which what we know as "politics" is rapidly changing. The book's forays into established fields like feminist, race, and queer theory are combined with perspectives drawn from political economy and rhetoric to demonstrate the power of irony, humor, and cultural dissonance in modern approaches to dissonant cultural politics.

Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park argues that progressives should conceive the connections between media, policy, and culture beyond the limits of "politics" and "news." With sustained analyses of groundbreaking contemporary examples of what has become known as "convergence culture," Ted Gournelos brings together a wide range of media without sacrificing depth. His examples, such as South Park, The Simpsons, The Onion, The Daily Show, Chappelle's Show, and The Boondocks, are chosen for their political scope and social impact and demonstrate the ways in which what we know as "politics" is rapidly changing. The book's forays into established fields like feminist, race, and queer theory are combined with perspectives drawn from political economy and rhetoric to demonstrate the power of irony, humor, and cultural dissonance in modern approaches to dissonant cultural politics.

Rachel E. Dubrofsky examines the reality TV series The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in one of the first book-length feminist analysis of the reality TV genre. The research found in The Surveillance of Women on Reality TV: Watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette meets the growing need for scholarship on the reality genre. This book asks us to be attentive to how the surveillance context of the program impacts gendered and racialized bodies. Dubrofsky takes up issues that cut across the U.S. cultural landscape: the use of surveillance in the creation of entertainment products, the proliferation of public confession and its configuration as a therapeutic tool, the ways in which women's displays of emotion are shown on television, the changing face of popular feminist discourse (notions of choice and empowerment), and the recentering of whiteness in popular media.

Deconstructing South Park: Critical Examinations of Animated Transgression is an edited collection by Brian Cogan that looks at the long and controversial run of one of the most subversive programs on television. South Park, while denounced by many as simply scatological, is actually one of the most nuanced and thoughtful programs on television. The contributors to South Park reveal that, through the lens of four foul-mouthed nine year olds, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created one of the most astute forms of social and political commentary in television history.Deconstructing South Park, itself the most ambitious deconstruction of popular culture to date, analyzes how South Park is not only entertainment, but a commentary on American culture that tackles controversial issues far beyond the depth of most television. Specifically, the medium of animated sitcom allows the show's creators to contribute to cultural conversations regarding disability studies, religion, sexuality, celebrity, and more. If South Park deconstructs American culture, then Cogan and his contributors deconstruct the deconstructionists and reveal South Park in all its hilarious and often contradictory complexity.

Brazilian Telenovelas and the Myth of Racial Democracy, by Samantha Nogueira Joyce, examines what happens when a telenovela directly addresses matters of race and racism in contemporary Brazil. This investigation provides a traditional textual analysis of Duas Caras (2007-2008), a watershed telenovela for two main reasons: It was the first of its kind to present audiences with an Afro-Brazilian as the main hero, openly addressing race matters through plot and dialogue. Additionally, for the first time in the history of Brazilian television, the author of Duas Caras kept a web blog where he discussed the public's reactions to the storylines, media discussions pertaining to the characters and plot, and directly engaged with fans and critics of the program.Joyce combines her investigation of Duas Caras with a study of related media in order to demonstrate how the program introduced novel ideas about race and also offered a forum where varying perspectives on race, class, and racial relations in Brazil could be discussed. Brazilian Telenovelas is not a reception study in the traditional sense, it is not a story of entertainment-education in the strict sense, and it is not solely a textual analysis. Instead, Joyce's text is a study of the social milieu that the telenovela (and especially Duas Caras) navigates, one that is a component of a contemporary progressive social movement in Brazil, and one that views the text as being located in social interactions. As such, this book reveals how telenovelas contribute to social change in a way that has not been fully explored in previous scholarship.

Gossip Girl: A Critical Understanding provides a critical analysis of The CW’s hit teen television drama Gossip Girl. Lori Bindig analyzes episodes as a set of media texts that blur the boundaries between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic content. Using political economy, textual and audience analyses, Bindig dissects how the show presents ideological content in regard to gender, race, class, sexuality, and consumerism, ultimately unearthing potential ramifications of Gossip Girl and other popular media texts. In addition, Bindig examines the expansive fan community and its engagement with the show through online forums and YouTube. Gossip Girl: A Critical Understanding will appeal to scholars of media, audience studies, and popular culture.

Branded Women in U.S. Television examines how The Real Housewives of New York City, Martha Stewart, and other female entrepreneurs create branded televised versions of the iconic U.S. housewife. Using their television presence to establish and promote their own product lines, including jewelry, cookware, clothing, and skincare, they become the primary physical representations of these brands. While their businesses are serious and seriously lucrative, especially reality television enables a certain representational flexibility that allows participants to create campy and sometimes tongue-in-cheek personas. Peter Bjelskou explores their innovative branding strategies, specifically the complex relationships between their entrepreneurial endeavors and their physical bodies, attires, tastes, and personal histories. Generally these branded women speak volumes about their contemporaneous political environments, and this book illustrates how they, and many other women in U.S. television history, are indicative of larger societal trends and structures.

Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking expands the vista of critical approaches to comedy and representational politics on mainstream television from an interdisciplinary Latina/o studies approach. González and Rodriguez y Gibson examine how Ugly Betty uses humor and Latina/o camp to reframe socially charged issues on the show: representations of masculinity and familia, immigration, drag and queer subjectivities, Latina sexuality, and finally, a Latina feminist critique of the American Dream. Ugly Betty moves beyond the binaries of traditional representational politics and opens a vista of critical possibility applicable to all mainstream texts that portray people of color through comedy. This work will be of interest to scholars in media studies, Latina/o studies, and communication studies.

Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking expands the vista of critical approaches to comedy and representational politics on mainstream television from an interdisciplinary Latina/o studies approach. González and Rodriguez y Gibson examine how Ugly Betty uses humor and Latina/o camp to reframe socially charged issues on the show: representations of masculinity and familia, immigration, drag and queer subjectivities, Latina sexuality, and finally, a Latina feminist critique of the American Dream. Ugly Betty moves beyond the binaries of traditional representational politics and opens a vista of critical possibility applicable to all mainstream texts that portray people of color through comedy. This work will be of interest to scholars in media studies, Latina/o studies, and communication studies.