U.S. Television Studies

Glee and Homophobia in Sports

by John Nauright

Blog article published after the Glee episode that first aired in the USA on 2/21/12.

Last night’s episode of Glee was one of the most important hours of television ever aired in America dealing with... more Last night’s episode of Glee was one of the most important hours of television ever aired in America dealing with sports. You heard me right, the show that normally addresses a choral group as safe space for all, took on one of the least talked about, yet important issues in sports today – the issue of homophobia in male sports.

In the episode, the closeted gay football player character of David Karofsky, who previously bullied Kurt, an openly gay member of the chorus group, is outed by others and has the word “Fag” spray-painted across his locker. In a locker room scene he is taunted by his teammates, his supposed friends, as he flees the scene. Upon arriving in his room at home, he sees even worse language all over the internet about him. With no easy refuge, he chooses to attempt suicide as a way to escape his pain and humiliation. This blog situates this storyline in the context of homophobia and male sport in the USA.

Visualizing and Dramatizing Politics and Morality in the American TV-Series 24

by Markus Dahlhoff

Rhétorique et sérialité : le cas "Oz"

by Séverine BARTHES

L'étude des séries télévisées à l'aide de la rhétorique ouvre des pistes fécondes. Le cas d'Oz est, selon cet axe,... more L'étude des séries télévisées à l'aide de la rhétorique ouvre des pistes fécondes. Le cas d'Oz est, selon cet axe, fort intéressant : l'argumentation extradiégétique, sous sa forme la plus explicite, passe par le narrateur et le générique. Cependant, elle se caractérise aussi par des phénomènes de reprises et de citations et par la construction d'un suspense propre à l'aspect feuilletonnant de la série, qui ont essentiellement une force parlocutaire de prise de décision de visionnage. Tout cela concourt à formuler l'hypothèse d'un "pacte de visionnage" dont les fondements seraient rhétoriques.

Cult Yet? The 'Miracle' of Internationalization?

by Benjamin W. L. Derhy

in Williams, R. (ed.) (forthcoming, 2013) Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television, London: I.B. Tauris.

The sci-fi series Torchwood started on BBC3 as a small spin-off from an immensely successful programme, Doctor Who.... more The sci-fi series Torchwood started on BBC3 as a small spin-off from an immensely successful programme, Doctor Who. After discussing Torchwood's prior positioning in relation to the cult and mainstream labels, this chapter analyses the unexpectedly violent reaction of Torchwood's fans with regards to the use of American cult Television writers on the programme's latest series, and how the latter impacted on Torchwood's cult and mainstream status. By addressing the viewers' negative response towards Miracle Day, this paper exposes the opposite consequences which resulted from the latter. It finally outlines the impermanency of this situation, and the long term repercussions which may arise from it.

TV talk shows as therapeutic discourse: The ideological labor of the televised talking cure

by Janice Peck

Du "temps de cerveau disponible" ? Rhétorique et sémiostylistique des séries télévisées dramatiques américaines de primetime diffusées entre 1990 et 2005

by Séverine BARTHES

Thèse de doctorat / PhD

Les séries télévisées dramatiques américaines contemporaines (1990-2005) ont développé un mode de communication... more Les séries télévisées dramatiques américaines contemporaines (1990-2005) ont développé un mode de communication spécifique avec les téléspectateurs, fondé sur la construction d'une connivence entre le public et le programme, que nous étudierons en utilisant les principes de la rhétorique épidictique. Deux axes sont particulièrement importants et font l'objet d'une attention particulière : les seuils (titres, génériques, épigraphes, etc.) et les phénomènes d'intertextualité et de transtextualité. Les premiers sont devenus des lieux de jeu entre les producteurs du discours (chaînes, créateurs, producteurs exécutifs, scénaristes) et le public : oscillant entre normes industrielles et dynamisme créatif personnel, ils accompagnent les téléspectateurs dans leur entrée et leur sortie de la série et manifestent de forts enjeux marketing. Les phénomènes d'intertextualité et de transtextualité sont d'abord le spin off et le crossover, mais aussi tout le continuum des procédés de citation et de référence qui aboutissent à la constitution d'un texte-centon. Ils finissent par faire de la série télévisée un palimpseste, dans lequel chaque texte est l'écho de mille autres textes, d'événements de notre contemporanéité et nous rappelle les situations de notre vie. La série télévisée devient ainsi un rituel, non seulement de consommation (regarder son épisode chaque semaine), mais aussi au sens que la rhétorique épidictique donne à ce mot : elle permet de créer une communauté réunie autour de valeurs partagées.




Contemporary US TV dramas (from 1990 to 2005) have developed a specific communication process with their viewers, based on a strong proximity established between the audience and the program. In studying this issue we will apply the principles of the epideictic rhetoric. Two aspects are especially relevant and will thus receive particular attention: first the thresholds à la Genette (titles, opening credits, taglines, etc.), then the phenomena of intertextuality and transtextuality. Thresholds have become the loci of a game between the discourse producers (networks, creators, executive producers, writers) and the audience: navigating between industrial conventions and personal creative dynamism, they go alongside the TV viewer in its entrance and its exit of the series and embody significant marketing issues. The phenomena of intertextuality and transtextuality, on the other hand, are particularly apparent in both the spinoff and the crossover, as well as in a continuum of processes ranging from quotes to references. Altogether they lead to the constitution of a text-cento. Ultimately, they transform TV shows into a palimpsest, in which each text echoes thousands of other texts, key events of our contemporaneousness as well as reminders of the audience's own life. In summary, TV shows have become a ritual in their own right, not only of consumption (watching an episode a week), but also in the sense that epideictic rhetoric gives to the concept: they create a community united around shared values.

Chris Carter paranoïaque ? Le complexe sémantique de la perte comme vecteur herméneutique et créatif

by Séverine BARTHES

Published in "Raison Publique" n°11, September 2009, Presses Universitaires Paris-Sorbonne

Les différentes séries de Chris Carter ont souvent été décrites comme paranoïaques. Or, une lecture approfondie de son... more Les différentes séries de Chris Carter ont souvent été décrites comme paranoïaques. Or, une lecture approfondie de son oeuvre montre que non seulement toutes les thématiques développées peuvent être unifiées sous l'hyperthème de la perte, mais encore que ce producteur a utilisé ses différentes séries pour combattre ce sentiment de perte en créant autour de lui une nouvelle famille fondée sur sa relation avec ses fans.

Portrait du héros en suprer héros sur le petit écran

by Séverine BARTHES

Published in "Theoreme" n°13, June 2009, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle

Durant les vingt dernières années, la thématique du super héros a connu une évolution intéressante à la télévision.... more Durant les vingt dernières années, la thématique du super héros a connu une évolution intéressante à la télévision. Tandis que, peu à peu, les séries présentant des super héros prenaient leurs distances avec l'image traditionnelle, les séries dramatiques, d'abord fantastiques, puis réalistes, paraient leurs héros de qualités super héroïques. Cet article revient sur ce phénomène de contagion et en explicite les présupposés et les conséquences.

Stylistique et séries télévisées : vers une sémiostylistique de l'écran

by Séverine BARTHES

Communication for "Questions de stylistique et stylistique en questions" (Rennes, France, January 2008)

À travers l'étude du générique de série télévisée à l'aide des outils stylistiques, l'auteur trace les orientations... more À travers l'étude du générique de série télévisée à l'aide des outils stylistiques, l'auteur trace les orientations d'une stylistique de l'audiovisuel et montre comment cette méthode d'analyse peut jeter les bases d'une didactique de l'éducation aux médias.

The Secret of Her Success: Oprah Winfrey and the Seductions of Self-Transformation

by Janice Peck

Radical Rationalism as Cinema Aesthetics: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in North American Documentary and Experimental Film

by Terri Ginsberg

Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination 4.1 (Fall/Winter 2011): 91-115

Phenomenology and Uncanny Homecoming: Homeworld, Alienworld, and Being-at-Home in Alan Ball’s HBO Television Series, Six Feet Under

by David Seamon

first draft of a chapter prepared for Uncanny Homecomings, a collection of essays edited by Daniel Boscaljon, publisher to be determined. A revised, extended version of a presentation at the 7th annual Religion, Literature, and the Arts Conference held at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, August 27; conference theme: “Uncanny Homecomings: Narrative, Structures, Existential Questions, Theological Visions.” © David Seamon 2011

This chapter provides one phenomenological interpretation of writer and director Alan Ball’s popular Home Box Office... more This chapter provides one phenomenological interpretation of writer and director Alan Ball’s popular Home Box Office cable-television series, Six Feet Under, which completed its fifth and final season in 2005. The chapter considers how home and at-homeness are portrayed in the series, drawing on two contrasting phenomenological conceptions: First, Edmund Husserl’s homeworld/alienworld as interpreted by Anthony Steinbock in Home and Beyond (Steinbock 1995); and, second, Kristen Jacobson’s being-at-home (Jacobson 2009). The argument is made that an open sense of at-homeness, grounded in family and place, allows for personal and communal transformation partly impelled by unsettling moments when characters suddenly encounter, in their home lifeworld, compelling situations and understandings before out of sight—i.e., the uncanny.

Key words: home, at-homeness, dwelling, homeworld, alienworld, being-at-home, uncanny, place, phenomenology, phenomenology of home, Alan Ball, Six Feet Under

From Radio Adman to Radio Reformer: Senator William Benton's Career In Broadcasting, 1930–1960

by Cynthia B. Meyers

Published in Journal of Radio and Audio Media, vol. 16, no. 1 (2009): 17-29.

William Benton, one of the founders of the advertising agency Benton & Bowles, helped oversee the production of... more William Benton, one of the founders of the advertising agency Benton & Bowles, helped oversee the production of major US radio programs in the 1930s, such as Maxwell House's Showboat. Benton left advertising and in his subsequent careers in education and politics, consistently advocated for broadcast reforms.

The Primetime War on Drugs & Terror

by johanna blakley

Co-authored with Sheena Nahm, 2011

This report analyzes depictions of the War on Terror and
the War on Drugs in popular primetime television... more This report analyzes depictions of the War on Terror and
the War on Drugs in popular primetime television programs.
We selected episodes that addressed the War on Terror or the War on Drugs from ten highly-rated one hour network dramas: 24, CSI, CSI: Miami, The Good Wife, House, Law & Order, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Law & Order: SVU, NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. All of the episodes aired during 2010, except for eight shows which aired in late 2009 as part of the network 2009-10 season. The aim was to analyze how terror or drug-related plots were portrayed rather than to assess how frequently these plots appeared. We subjected each episode to a codebook with 145 variables and over 800 sub-variables. In an effort to contextualize this research and how it might come into dialogue with
other conversations about the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, we include recent public opinion survey data about these wars as well as data about how the government and the justice system, in particular, are conducting them.

What’re youse lookin’ at, Meathead?: Locating Archie Bunker Across Archives

by Kimberly Springer

A look at how America’s “most lovable bigot”, Archie Bunker, lives through the archives. These include university... more A look at how America’s “most lovable bigot”, Archie Bunker, lives through the archives. These include university libraries, YouTube, and DVD box sets.

• “Betty Draper’s Handmaids: Africanist Presence and White Privilege in Mad Men”

by Kimberly Springer

under review for publication

This chapter questions the assumption that just because black people are minimally seen, and even less often heard,... more This chapter questions the assumption that just because black people are minimally seen, and even less often heard, that Mad Men is not a show “about” race. In her incisive series of lectures on the American Africanist presence in American literature, Toni Morrison offers readers both an ideology for interrogation as well as a mode of analysis. Exposing the Africanist presence turns the lens away from the object of racial language and toward the subject. How do black characters police the boundaries of whiteness while revealing much about the racial and sociohistorical moment in which the show is set?

Representations of race and place in Static Shock, King of the Hill, and South Park

by Michael Chaney

“Coloring Whiteness and Blackvoice Minstrelsy: Representations of Race and Place in Static Shock, King of the Hill, and South Park.” Journal of Popular Film & Television 31.4 (2004): 167-75.

Cinderella in the High School Hallways: The Place of Smart Girls on Teen Television

by Cindy Conaway

Draft of article published in Mid Atlantic Almanack--the journal of the Mid Atlantic Popular Culture Association, 2004

Introduction to the way that "smart girls" from teen shows in what can loosely be called "the 90s"... more Introduction to the way that "smart girls" from teen shows in what can loosely be called "the 90s" were shown as trading in a life of the mind devoted to reading, journalism, science or math for boys and popularity in order to fit in with a group of friends and find romance. Featured characters began with Andrea Zuckerman of Beverly Hills, 90210, which started in 1989, to Angela Chase of My So-Called Life, Willow Rosenberg of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lindsay Weir of Freaks and Geeks, and Rory Gilmore, Paris Gellar and Lane Kim of Gilmore Girls, which started in 2000, lasting through 2007.

Performing Glee: Gay Resistance to Gay Representations and a New Slumpy Class

by Taylor Cole Miller

Published by the FLOW Journal at the University of Texas-Austin

This paper explores the reasoning gay men and straight women watch GLEE and how they understand the flamboyantly gay... more This paper explores the reasoning gay men and straight women watch GLEE and how they understand the flamboyantly gay character, Kurt Hummel.  Also discusses originations of stereotyping and contemporary notions of gay icons.

Too Short to be Quarterback, Too Plain to be Queen: Roseanne's Rebuttal of Postfeminism

by Taylor Cole Miller

Published in gnovis | Georgetown University peer-reviewed Journal of Communication, Culture & Technology

This paper explores how the sensibility of postfeminism, as understood through the work of media scholar Rosalind... more This paper explores how the sensibility of postfeminism, as understood through the work of media scholar Rosalind Gill, functions within the diegesis of ABC’s Emmy-winning sitcom Roseanne, and how the show attempts to resist discourses commonly associated with the postfeminist landscape of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. This article pays particular attention to postfeminists’ articulation of female empowerment through sexuality and consumer spending, and Roseanne’s resistance to both. And through an exclusive interview with Roseanne Barr herself, this piece also identifies how behind-the-scenes drama contributed to the positioning of the protagonist’s daughter, Darlene, as a site of political agency while her mother and sister often adopt postfeminist tendencies.