Publisher's Synopsis
Small Screen America provides a history of American television that is rooted within a cultural studies framework and attends to questions of power and political economy in televisual representations of race, class, gender and sexuality--from the obvious racism of Amos 'n Andy to Ralph Kramden's good-hearted exploits on The Honeymooners to the care-free feminism of The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Ellen's openness about her sexuality.
Small Screen America explores the diversity and the complexity that have defined the television era and highlight key theoretical terms and arguments that are useful for understanding the medium's history. Designed to complement the aims of a variety of semester- or quarter-long undergraduate courses, the book is organized within a broad historical framework, with specific theoretical concepts - including film genre, auteurism, cultural studies, race/ethnicity (including whiteness), gender, hetero- and homosexuality.
The power of Small Screen America resides in the chronicle of the social, cultural, and industrial aspects of television told through an impressive range of examples drawn from every era of the small screen: family sitcoms of the l950s, Westerns of the l960s, feminist comedies of the l970s, class-riven talk shows of the l980s, soaps, serials and procedurals of the l980s and '90s, and reality programming of the present day. Individual chapters also feature a concise overview of the topic at hand, a discussion of representative films, figures, and movements, and an in-depth analysis of a single film in an extended, case-study format.
Amply illustrated, featuring a glossary of key terms, questions for discussion, and lists for further reading and further viewing, Small Screen America demonstrates the interconnectedness of seemingly discrete historical moments, programming genres and exhibition venues.
