Details

Other Title:

Visions of community in contemporary US television

Subjects:

Television broadcasting -- Social aspects -- United States.
Television broadcasting -- United States -- Influence.
Television viewers -- Psychology.
Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Popular culture.
Television broadcasting -- Influence.
Television broadcasting -- Social aspects.
United States.

Form/Genre:

History.

Summary:

This book examines the most popular American television shows of the nineties--a decade at the last gasp of network television's cultural dominance. At a time when American culture seemed increasingly fragmented, television still offered something close to a site of national consensus. The Lonely Nineties focuses on a different set of popular nineties television shows in each chapter and provides an in-depth reading of scenes, characters or episodes that articulate the overarching "ideology" of each series. It ultimately argues that television shows such as Seinfeld, Friends, Law & Order and The Simpsons helped to shape the ways Americans thought about themselves in relation to their friends, families, localities, and nation. It demonstrates how these shows engaged with a variety of problems in American civic life, responded to the social isolation of the age, and occasionally imagined improvements for community in America.

Contents:

Watching TV after the wall came down
Lonely bowling and other critical contexts
They let you just sit there: the failure of the coffee shop in Seinfeld, Friends, and Frasier
I'm doing this my own way: redeeming NYPD Blue's racist hero
It was a different time: Law & Order, White Rabbits, and the decline of sixties radicalism
The truth is out there and he loves you: depictions of faith in The X-Files and Touched by an Angel
This town ain't so bad: eternity in heavenly Springfield with The Simpsons
TV after the nineties.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

Contributor:

John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

Other format:

Online version: Arras, Paul. The lonely nineties : visions of community in contemporary US television

ISBN:

3319930931
9783319930930
9783319930947

OCLC:

1034615109

Web link:

The John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund Home Page