Download or read book Women Watching Television written by Andrea L. Press and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1991-03 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women's inclinations to identify with television characters varies with their assessment of the realism of these characters and their social world.
Download or read book When Women Invented Television written by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New and Noteworthy —New York Times Book Review Must-Read Book of March —Entertainment Weekly Best Books of March —HelloGiggles “Leaps at the throat of television history and takes down the patriarchy with its fervent, inspired prose. When Women Invented Television offers proof that what we watch is a reflection of who we are as a people.” —Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia Jennifer Keishin Armstrong tells the little-known story of four trailblazing women in the early days of television who laid the foundation of the industry we know today. It was the Golden Age of Radio and powerful men were making millions in advertising dollars reaching thousands of listeners every day. When television arrived, few radio moguls were interested in the upstart industry and its tiny production budgets, and expensive television sets were out of reach for most families. But four women—each an independent visionary— saw an opportunity and carved their own paths, and in so doing invented the way we watch tv today. Irna Phillips turned real-life tragedy into daytime serials featuring female dominated casts. Gertrude Berg turned her radio show into a Jewish family comedy that spawned a play, a musical, an advice column, a line of house dresses, and other products. Hazel Scott, already a renowned musician, was the first African American to host a national evening variety program. Betty White became a daytime talk show fan favorite and one of the first women to produce, write, and star in her own show. Together, their stories chronicle a forgotten chapter in the history of television and popular culture. But as the medium became more popular—and lucrative—in the wake of World War II, the House Un-American Activities Committee arose to threaten entertainers, blacklisting many as communist sympathizers. As politics, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and money collided, the women who invented television found themselves fighting from the margins, as men took control. But these women were true survivors who never gave up—and thus their legacies remain with us in our television-dominated era. It's time we reclaimed their forgotten histories and the work they did to pioneer the medium that now rules our lives. This amazing and heartbreaking history, illustrated with photos, tells it all for the first time.
Download or read book REDESIGNING WOMEN written by Amanda D. Lotz and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1990s, American televison audiences witnessed an unprecedented rise in programming devoted explicitly to women. Cable networks such as Oxygen Media, Women's Entertainment Network, and Lifetime targeted a female audience, and prime-time dramatic series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Judging Amy, Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal empowered heroines, single career women, and professionals struggling with family commitments and occupational demands. After establishing this phenomenon's significance, Amanda D. Lotz explores the audience profile, the types of narrative and characters that recur, and changes to the industry landscape in the wake of media consolidation and a profusion of channels. Employing a cultural studies framework, Lotz examines whether the multiplicity of female-centric networks and narratives renders certain gender stereotypes uninhabitable, and how new dramatic portrayals of women have redefined narrative conventions. Redesigning Women also reveals how these changes led to narrowcasting, or the targeting of a niche segment of the overall audience, and the ways in which the new, sophisticated portrayals of women inspire sympathetic identification while also commodifying viewers into a marketable demographic for advertisers.
Download or read book Stealing the Show written by Joy Press and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a leading cultural journalist, the definitive cultural history of female showrunners—including exclusive interviews with such influential figures as Shonda Rhimes, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Mindy Kaling, Amy Schumer, and many more. “An urgent and entertaining history of the transformative powers of women in TV” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In recent years, women have radically transformed the television industry both behind and in front of the camera. From Murphy Brown to 30 Rock and beyond, these shows and the extraordinary women behind them have shaken up the entertainment landscape, making it look as if equal opportunities abound. But it took decades of determination in the face of outright exclusion to reach this new era. In this “sharp, funny, and gorgeously researched” (Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker) book, veteran journalist Joy Press tells the story of the maverick women who broke through the barricades and the iconic shows that redefined the television landscape starting with Diane English and Roseanne Barr—and even incited controversy that reached as far as the White House. Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with the key players like Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls), Jenji Kohan (Orange is the New Black), and Jill Soloway (Transparent) who created storylines and characters that changed how women are seen and how they see themselves, this is the exhilarating behind-the-scenes story of a cultural revolution.
Download or read book Same Time Same Station written by James L. Baughman and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-03-26 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine Ever wonder how American television came to be the much-derided, advertising-heavy home to reality programming, formulaic situation comedies, hapless men, and buxom, scantily clad women? Could it have been something different, focusing instead on culture, theater, and performing arts? In Same Time, Same Station, historian James L. Baughman takes readers behind the scenes of early broadcasting, examining corporate machinations that determined the future of television. Split into two camps—those who thought TV could meet and possibly raise the expectations of wealthier, better-educated post-war consumers and those who believed success meant mimicking the products of movie houses and radio—decision makers fought a battle of ideas that peaked in the 1950s, just as TV became a central facet of daily life for most Americans. Baughman’s engagingly written account of the brief but contentious debate shows how the inner workings and outward actions of the major networks, advertisers, producers, writers, and entertainers ultimately made TV the primary forum for entertainment and information. The tale of television's founding years reveals a series of decisions that favored commercial success over cultural aspiration.
Download or read book Shaded Lives written by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shaded Lives, Beretta Smith-Shomade sets out to dissect images of the African American woman in television from the 1980s. She calls their depiction "binaristic," or split. African American women, although an essential part of television programming today, are still presented as distorted and deviant. By closely examining the television texts of African-American women in comedy, music video, television news and talk shows (Oprah Winfrey is highlighted), Smith-Shomade shows how these voices are represented, what forces may be at work in influencing these images, and what alternate ways of viewing might be available.
Download or read book Women and American Television written by Denise Lowe and published by ABC-CLIO. This book was released on 1999 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although limited in focus to the role of women in and on television, this work is notable for unearthing the more obscure personalities and programs not covered by other television encyclopedias. Includes bibliography, several appendixes, and a subject index."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Surveillance of Women on Reality Television written by Rachel E. Dubrofsky and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Defining Women written by Julie D'Acci and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defining Women explores the social and cultural construction of gender and the meanings of woman, women, and femininity as they were negotiated in the pioneering television series Cagney and Lacey, starring two women as New York City police detectives. Julie D'Acci illuminates the tensions between the television industry, the series production team, the mainstream and feminist press, various interest groups, and television viewers over competing notions of what women could or could not be--not only on television but in society at large. Cagney and Lacey, which aired from 1981 to 1988, was widely recognized as an innovative treatment of working women and developed a large and loyal following. While researching this book, D'Acci had unprecedented access to the set, to production meetings, and to the complete production files, including correspondence from network executives, publicity firms, and thousands of viewers. She traces the often heated debates surrounding the development of women characters and the representation of feminism on prime-time television, shows how the series was reconfigured as a 'woman's program,' and investigates questions of female spectatorship and feminist readings. Although she focuses on Cagney and Lacey, D'Acci discusses many other examples from the history of American television.
Download or read book Women Pioneers in Television written by Cary O'Dell and published by McFarland. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles such notable women as Lucille Ball, Faye Emerson, Betty Furness, Lucy Jarvis, Ida Lupino, and Betty White
Download or read book The American Television Industry written by Michael Curtin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Television Industry offers a concise and accessible introduction to TV production, programming, advertising, and distribution in the United States. The authors outline how programs are made and marketed, and furthermore provide an insightful overview of key players, practices, and future trends.
Download or read book Race in American Television 2 volumes written by David J. Leonard and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 901 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume encyclopedia explores representations of people of color in American television. It includes overview essays on early, classic, and contemporary television and the challenges for, developments related to, and participation of minorities on and behind the screen. Covering five decades, this encyclopedia highlights how race has shaped television and how television has shaped society. Offering critical analysis of moments and themes throughout television history, Race in American Television shines a spotlight on key artists of color, prominent shows, and the debates that have defined television since the civil rights movement. This book also examines the ways in which television has been a site for both reproduction of stereotypes and resistance to them, providing a basis for discussion about racial issues in the United States. This set provides a significant resource for students and fans of television alike, not only educating but also empowering readers with the necessary tools to consume and watch the small screen and explore its impact on the evolution of racial and ethnic stereotypes in U.S. culture and beyond. Understanding the history of American television contributes to deeper knowledge and potentially helps us to better apprehend the plethora of diverse shows and programs on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and other platforms today.
Download or read book Television for Women written by Rachel Moseley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Television for Women brings together emerging and established scholars to reconsider the question of ‘television for women’. In the context of the 2000s, when the potential meanings of both terms have expanded and changed so significantly, in what ways might the concept of programming, addressed explicitly to a group identified by gender still matter? The essays in this collection take the existing scholarship in this field in significant new directions. They expand its reach in terms of territory (looking beyond, for example, the paradigmatic Anglo-American axis) and also historical span. Additionally, whilst the influential methodological formation of production, text and audience is still visible here, the new research in Television for Women frequently reconfigures that relationship. The topics included here are far-reaching; from television as material culture at the British exhibition in the first half of the twentieth century, women’s roles in television production past and present, to popular 1960s television such as The Liver Birds and, in the twenty-first century, highly successful programmes including Orange is the New Black, Call the Midwife, One Born Every Minute and Wanted Down Under. This book presents ground-breaking research on historical and contemporary relationships between women and television around the world and is an ideal resource for students of television, media and gender studies.
Download or read book Housework and Gender in American Television written by Kristi Rowan Humphreys and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-10-29 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Housework and Gender in American Television: Coming Clean examines representations of housework and their relationships with gender in sixty of the most popular television shows of the 1950s through the 1980s, searching for trends, similarities, inconsistencies, and meaning. Much of the critical scholarship addressing mid-century televised housework claims that domestic activities marginalize female characters, removing them from scenes involving important familial discussions and placing them in devalued positions. This book challenges the notion that housework functions primarily as a mechanism through which female characters are marginalized, devalued, invisible, or passive, and instead proposes a different reading of housework in television, one that brings to the fore the loving, sacrificial, and active qualities so crucial and foundational to housework activity in both representation and reality. These qualities, in turn, attach a strength to female characters, and male characters when applicable, that is often ignored in standard feminist analyses of television. This study reveals roughly twenty trends established in four decades of televised housework, from the housewives of the fifties, to the witches and genies of the sixties, to the elimination of male domestic labor in the seventies, to the dominance of male housekeepers in the eighties.
Download or read book Quality TV written by Janet McCabe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2007-09-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field of contemporary television to debate what we currently mean by quality TV. They go deep into contemporary American television fictions, from "The Sopranos" and "The West Wing", to "CSI" and "Lost" - innovative, sometimes controversial, always compelling dramas, which one scholar has described as 'now better than the movies!' But how do we understand the emergence of these kinds of fiction? Are they genuinely new? What does quality TV have to tell us about the state of today's television market? And is this a new Golden Age of quality TV? Original, often polemic, each chapter proposes new ways of thinking about and defining quality TV. There is a foreword from Robert Thompson, and heated dialogue between British and US television critics. Also included - and a great coup - are interviews with W. Snuffy Walden (scored "The West Wing" among others) and with David Chase ("The Sopranos" creator). "Quality TV" provides throughout groundbreaking and innovative theoretical and critical approaches to studying television and for understanding the current - and future - TV landscape.
Download or read book Black Women s Portrayals on Reality Television written by Donnetrice C. Allison and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book critically analyzes the portrayals of Black women in current reality television. Audiences are presented with a multitude of images of Black women fighting, arguing, and cursing at one another in this manufactured world of reality television. This perpetuation of negative, insidious racial and gender stereotypes influences how the U.S. views Black women. This stereotyping disrupts the process in which people are able to appreciate cultural and gender difference. Instead of celebrating the diverse symbols and meaning making that accompanies Black women's discourse and identities, reality television scripts an artificial or plastic image of Black women that reinforces extant stereotypes. This collection's contributors seek to uncover examples in reality television shows where instantiations of Black women's gendered, racial, and cultural difference is signified and made sinister.
Download or read book Invisible Stars written by Donna Halper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invisible Stars was the first book to recognize that women have always played an important part in American electronic media. The emphasis is on social history, as the author skillfully explains how the changing role of women in different eras influenced their participation in broadcasting. This is not just the story of radio stars or broadcast journalists, but a social history of women both on and off the air. Beginning in the early 1920s with the emergence of radio, the book chronicles the ambivalence toward women in broadcasting during the 1930s and 1940s, the gradual change in status of women in the 1950s and 1960s, the increased presence of women in broadcasting in the 1970s, and the successes of women in broadcasting in the 1980s and 1990s. The second edition is expanded to include the social and political changes that occurred in the 2000s, such as the growing number of women talk show hosts; changing attitudes about women in leadership roles in business; more about minority women in media; and women in sports and women sports announcers. The author addresses the question of whether women are in fact no longer invisible in electronic media. She provides an assessment of where progress for women (in society as well as broadcasting) can be seen, and where progress appears totally stalled.
