The Sexy 90's: Section Prompt Nov. 27

Hello!

For this Wednesday, please come prepared with a definition/understanding of the terms "postnetwork" TV, cumulative narrative, and world building. (Hint: we are discussing the Sconce essay assigned for last week.) Also, be prepared to watch some kickass TV.

Over and out, and happy essay writing.
Josh

And Now for Something Completely Different: Section Prompt Nov. 20

Hello all!

Please come to section this week ready to discuss Caldwell’s Trash TV article. With regards to my questions below, please be ready to provide page numbers referencing your answers or places you have questions about to go into the text. This will help us keep the conversation moving so we also have time to talk about editing your papers at the end of section. 

1. How does Caldwell define postmodernism? (hints: modernism and postmodernism not being set up as a dichotomy, spectacle, specularity, empty signs/signifiers, pastiche)
2. How does Pee-Wee’s Playhouse have an oppositional look and mainstream attitude according to Caldwell? 
3. How does Pee-Wee’s Playhouse work through social issues as a process of stylization and conflate the social into the psychological (hint: page 211-onward). 

Here are key terms/lists that Caldwell includes that will help you answer these questions. In a class I took on postmodernism and performance with Dr. EJ Westlake in the theatre department (shout out!) I learned that the best way to learn PoMo anything is to enact it, so in our discussion we will go to the terms from this list that people are drawn towards, and use them to link to others in whatever random chain our discussion follows. It may feel chaotic, but it will help us practice the theory that’s being discussed. Each list has the term that Caldwell uses, then one key phrase I picked out that helps explain that term. (Also, you can use this chart as a study guide for this dense article down the road!)

(Radical) Modernist Forms	PoMo Ideologies and Styles	Stylization and Conflating the Social and Psychological
Narrative intransivity (textual fragmentation)	Reality into Images (world as pictures)	Interior vs. exterior (home as psychological barrier)
Estrangement (objectification)	Perpetual presents (temporal and atemporal oddity)	Extreme specularity (primacy of visual, ways of watching/spectatorship)
Foregrounding (form over content)	Pastiche (retrostyled blank/empty parody with historical amnesia)	Extremely mediated communications (distancing)
Multiple diegesis (subplots with multiple narrators)	Schizophrenia (incoherent signifiers)	Reversals of Race, Class, Gender (ambiguity, perpetual anxiety)
Aperture (irresolution and openness)		Commodities, consumption (celebration of consumption, learning to be a good consumer)
Displeasure (pain and art)		Pee-Wee as Recombitant Bricoleur (bricolage, repurposing items to have endless meanings)
Reality (direct address)		Site of extreme intertextuality (characteristics of other media/arts inside the TV text)
		Social-to-Psychological: Pee-Wee as Therapeutic Discourse (forever socially alienated, constant escape/retreat)

I know this is a lot of information: don’t freak out! This article is dense, and you don’t have to master it! The key to reading theory well is to engage with it, ask questions, have a conversation, and take from it what you can! See if you can feel confident about one or two key concepts, then let it rest until section. 

See you Wednesday, and happy writing!

Josh

PS: I have posted my writing tips powerpoint on CTools for you to look at if you like. It includes the diagram for the research and writing process that I talked about last week.

PPS: And now for something completely different:

PPPS: The larch.

Deconstructing the Simpsons

Analyze two examples of postmodern style in the Simpsons episode "The Front" (April 15, 1993; available on Paley) using terms from John Caldwell's essay.  (Responses of 200 words will count as one blog post, 400 words as two blog posts; due 11/25):

https://www-paleyicollection-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Library.aspx#/Details/T:45330

Synergetic Practices (Extended Deadline--Due before Section 11/20)

What is synergy?  How does it operate within a contemporary media environment primarily run by large conglomorates?  Give one example of synergy (you can use an example from the present if you wish). 

Yuppie Guilt in Contemporary TV

After reading "Yuppie Envy Vs. Yuppie Guilt" by Jane Feuer and from our screenings of "thirtysomething", "Moonlighting", and "Miami Vice", we have seen that yuppie guilt is characterized by glorification of consumption, but a nagging conscience of an idealistic past. Is the portrayal of a yuppie limited to just the 1980s, or can we find examples of it in modern TV? In which genres is it most prevalent? How might this new version of the yuppie be different from the one explained by Feuer? (Also, post YouTube clips of the shows you're discussing! YouTube clips are fun.)

Guilt and Reaganomics in the Postmodern Age - Section Prompt Nov. 13

Hello!

Here are the things I'd like you to consider for section this week:

1. According to Feuer, what are some important characteristics 80’s TV as a medium and in its relationship to the government, Reaganism, and postmodernism (key terms: complicitous critique, MTV, art/commerce, cable flow, authoritarian populism)? 
2. What is a yuppie? What is yuppie guilt, how is it integral to being a yuppie, and how does Feuer argue it was portrayed on TV in the 80’s? How are yuppies tied to her larger argument about TV in the 80’s? What are some examples from our screenings that expound yuppie culture and yuppie guilt? How do they appeal to both leftist and rightist viewers through giving multiple subject positions to identify with/through?
3. Please bring with you any questions you have about the final essay that pertain to the class (ie more general issues about writing, argumentation, narrowing your topic, etc. -please bring individual questions about your particular project for office hours). Over the next few weeks I’ll be taking some of each section to talk about tips for writing research essays.

And here are two videos to get you in the postmodern mood: 

Blondie's "Rapture" (Please note the goat: the running joke in the class I took last year on PoMo theory/performance was that it isn't truly postmodern without a goat.)

And, of course, "Safety Dance." Because awesome. 

Cheers!

Josh

Class in 1980s TV (Worth 2 Blog Posts!)

Watch one of the three 1980s television episodes linked below and write 400 words on the representations of class within Roseanne, LA Law, or COPS.  This post will count as two blog posts.  

LA LAW, s.1, ep.1

Roseanne, s.1, ep. 1

COPS, pilot (please watch all of the parts on youtube)

Yuppie Guilt

Based on your viewing of our screening of Thirtysomething as well as Feuer's analysis of the program--what role do you think yuppie guilt plays on the show and how is it represented?  

MTM vs. Lear

From your viewings of All in the Family, Good Times, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show and your reading of Kirsten Lentz’s essay, how do you think Norman Lear’s shows differed from MTM’s?  Why do you think the term “quality” was often used to refer to MTM’s shows and “relevance” to label Lear’s programs?  How does Lentz see these productions as differing?  

Changes to Josh's Section and Office Hours Week of Nov. 5-8

Dear Students,

This week I will be unable to attend section and my normal office hours time due to an event series I'm running of the intersections of Queer Theory, Film Theory, and French Cinema (flyer here, you should come out if you're interested in these topics!)

As such, you will be combining your section with Nathan's, who will teach both simultaneously. Section will be held in Studio A in the basement of North Quad in the production wing. If you don't know where this is I suggest you head over a few minutes early as it can be weird to locate. If you go down either set of stairs or the elevator that are near Space 2345 and the two accessible bathrooms on the ground floor of the academic (not residential) tower you'll be in the right area.

Also, my office hours this week will be Thursday from 9-11am (rather than 11-1). Please note this if you need to see me, and if you can't make those times, email me to set up an alternate appointment.

Thanks for your flexibility everyone.

Josh

Smothering TV

Why did CBS censor The Smothers Brothers? How did The Smothers Brothers respond to CBS’s attempts at censorship?  How did questions of what constitutes appropriate content for network TV play out in the late 1960s and early 1970s and how do they play out today?