television

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  10/12/2021
  

  "The Chair" Creator: How to Fight Adjunctification

  by Annie Julia Wyman

  "The academic job market had collapsed -- indeed, it has been collapsing for more than a decade. Even L.A., where people famously go to get their dreams stomped on, seemed like a better bet."

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  10/14/2021
  

  The Lies of TV's Abortion Storylines

  by Tanya Melendez

  "Looking back on how abortion came into our living rooms starting in the 1960s and persisted into our audience-fragmented streaming era can teach us how these stories taught, shaped, and contributed to today’s public discourse about abortion."

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  10/9/2021
  

  Ted Lasso Isn't About What You Think

  by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

  "As historians, we've spent the past 18 months of the pandemic not only watching "Ted Lasso" but also thinking deeply about the values communities need to weather difficult times."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/1/2021
  

  New "Wonder Years" Revives a 1970s Tactic for Diversifying TV. Will it Work?

  by Kate L. Flach

  The technique of "racial inversion" was intended in the 1970s to encourage white viewers to empathize with Black characters. Today, as then, the results show that TV alone can't bridge the nation's racial divisions. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/29/2021
  

  What Young People's Embrace of "The Sopranos" Says about a Changing Culture

  "The show’s depiction of contemporary America as relentlessly banal and hollow is plainly at the core of the current interest in the show, which coincides with an era of crisis across just about every major institution in American life."

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  9/17/2021
  

  "The Eyes of Tammy Faye": When the GOP Got in Bed with the Christian Right

  The scandals involving the PTL television ministry of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker allowed Jerry Falwell to expand the inluence of the Moral Majority and connect the religious right more firmly to the Republican Party. A new film highlights that moment. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Drift
  9/14/2021
  

  XOXO, Ruling Class​: Gossip Girl, The O.C., and the New Gilded Age

  David Klion looks at TV producer Josh Schwartz's jump from "The OC" to "Gossip Girl" and argues that, after the 2007 financial crisis, popular culture was able to show the sociopathy of the super-rich. `

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  9/15/2021
  

  The Significance of Yasuke, the Black Samurai

  by Warren A. Stanislaus

  "While media coverage of Afro-Japanese encounters overwhelmingly focuses on incidents of racism or misunderstandings, Yasuke’s interaction with Japan has helped illuminate a rich but overlooked history of Afro-Japanese connectivity." 

• 
• SOURCE: AV Club
  9/13/2021
  

  Ken Burns's "Muhammad Ali" Well-Crafted, But Not Groundbreaking

  Ken Burns has an irresistable subject for his latest project. The problem isn't the quality of his film, but that so many others have gotten there first. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/13/2021
  

  "Negotiated Authenticity" and the Precarious Position of Black Creators in Television History

  "Since its invention, television has shaped this country’s self-image. To the extent that we share notions of “normal,” “acceptable,” “funny,” “wrong,” and even “American,” television has helped define them. For decades, Black writers were shut out of the rooms in which those notions were scripted."

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  9/9/2021
  

  "Impeachment" Shows How Different the Clinton Scandal Looks with Women at the Center

  by Nicole Hemmer

  "Monica Lewinsky fits squarely in this retelling of the work and experiences of women in the 1990s, as well as broader efforts to grapple with the influence of the decade on our current political travails."

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  9/1/2021
  

  Socialist Actor Ed Asner Fought for Labor

  by Jeff Schuhrke

  Ed Asner fought for the representation of small-time actors in the Screen Actors Guild and protested American support for right-wing autocrats in Central America. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  7/29/2021
  

  Ron Popeil, Inventor and Ubiquitous Infomercial Pitchman, Dies at 86

  "Mr. Popeil’s mastery of television marketing, dating to the 1950s but spanning several decades, made him nearly as recognizable onscreen as the TV and movie stars of his era."

• 
• SOURCE: UChicago News
  5/25/2021
  

  The Hidden History Of “Guerrilla Television”: UChicago Scholars Preserve Decades-Old Videos

  Technological innovation in the 1960s allowed more people to shoot video and push for community-based television. University of Chicago scholars are working to digitize and preserve "guerrilla television." 

• 
• 5/16/2021
  

  FDR's Indispensable Right-Hand Woman Portrayed Unfairly – Again

  by Kathryn Smith

  A new PBS series on the Norwegian Royal Family's contact with FDR at the outset of World War II takes some liberties with the facts, but is particularly unfair to Marguerite LeHand, who was Roosevelt's de facto chief of staff for years. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/6/2021
  

  The Epic Journey to ‘The Underground Railroad’

  Director Barry Jenkins struggled with the ethical implications of making entertainment out of the brutal events narrated in Colson Whitehead's novel "Underground Railroad." He discusses how he decided to go ahead with the miniseries adaptation anyway. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/22/2021
  

  Hank Azaria Apologized for Playing Apu on ‘The Simpsons.’ I Accept

  An Indian American actress reflects on the impact of 30 years of the character of Apu on the wildly popular show, arguing it enshrined a performance akin to minstrelsy as the dominant view of South Asians in American culture. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  4/7/2021
  

  How a New Kung Fu TV Series Is Reclaiming Much More Than Just the Martial Arts

  The reboot of the 1970s series reflects a history of activism by Asian Americans for greater representation and control of their image in popular culture. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/6/2021
  

  Review: ‘Exterminate All the Brutes’ Rewrites a Brutal History

  The atrocities documented in Raoul Peck's HBO film series on colonization of the western hemisphere are not news. That's part of what fuels the anger driving the film. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/19/2021
  

  In ‘Genius: Aretha,’ Respecting the Mind, Not Just the Soul

  "The full scale of Franklin’s contributions to her own music has long been obscured. She was a gifted songwriter and a superb pianist. In the studio, she was a taskmaster, pushing herself and her collaborators until they captured the exact sound she heard in her head — not easy for a Black female musician of her time."