Hello section!
For this Wednesday, please prepare to discuss the following:
1) What is Streeter's argument in "Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows," especially regarding the discourse around cable television in the late 60's and early 70's? How does his piece fit into the history of cable/CATV that Dr. Moore discussed in lecture last week? How does Streeter deploy discourse analysis to make his case?
2) What is Lentz's argument about quality vs. relevant TV? How does it connect to the larger issues about the representation of race, gender, and sexuality that we have been discussing throughout the term? How do our screenings of All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, and Good Times explain, explore, or contend with the arguments of this essay?
3) Come prepared with a YouTube/internet-accessible video 2-4 minutes in length that relates to one or both of the questions above from our contemporary moment and be ready to explain why you think it is relevant to our discussion.
Also, please note, we will be doing group work that requires that each group have a laptop, so please bring yours along if it is convenient.
See you Wednesday!
Josh
Ashley, Elizabeth, Erin
ReplyDeleteThe opposition between race and gender in the 1970s is discussed on television through the conflict between “quality” and “relevance” programming. “Quality” television has a focus on feminism, which is developed through greater character development and complex style techniques. It is through “quality” television that there is a modernized image of womanhood and feminism is discussed. This is used as a tool to show that television is also new and modernized. “Relevance” programming brought more social and political ideas to television that were significant at the time. “Quality” and “relevance” programming offered a critique of themselves, through humor and presentation of issues that were not previously seen on television. Maude offered viewers an image of an older, divorced woman who is dealing with issues regarding abortion, children, and relationships. One show that Lentz feels discusses quality television is The Mary Tyler Show. One unique aspect of this show is that it critiques the lack of feminism on television prior to the 1970s by insinuating that the inclusion of feminism makes for quality television. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is based around the production of The Six O’clock News, which is represented as bad television in order to prove that The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a “good” show because of its positive representation of feminism.
The clip that we found is called “Shit White Girls say… to Brown Girls”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQXboElx_V8
This relates to relevance because it brings up racial stereotypes in a humor format. This is done in the video by discussing the stereotypes of the Indian culture by an actress that is Indian but she is pretending to be White, which is part of the humor. This video is as much a critique of White culture as it is of Indian culture. It is also a representation of an absent culture that is not often found on television. This culture is not found on television because advertisers do not feel that there would be enough viewers to offset the cost.
Good job engaging with Lentz's arguments. I like your engagement with the way that MTM used feminism as a vehicle for critiquing TV as a medium, and using the two together to elevate the MTM show as "good" (ie quality) TV. I think that you are right to point out that Maude also has a very critical (feminist) edge to it, but I would like to see more about how that is carried out. In particular, whereas MTM critiqued TV as a medium, Lentz argues that Maude has some interesting critiques of (white) liberal feminism at the time that are also quite self-reflexive, but in a different way.
DeleteI like the clip you chose; may of the "shit x say to y" videos are quite incisive (though not all of them!). I like that you bring up how its format simultaneously engages in using tired negative racial stereotypes in a funny way, while also pointing out how ridiculous it is that white people say these things in a completely uncritical way, adding to is relevance. I might ask though if the message of this video is far clearer than much relevance TV of the 70's, as it's pretty clear who the protagonist is in this video, and who is being insensitive, whereas in All in the Family and Maude, characters often alternate between being vehicles of social critique through saying/doing deeply problematic things uncritically and delivering a social lesson by calling out those same behaviours in others. Does this signal a shift in the way relevance is carried out on the internet/as cable has evolved?
Streeter makes the argument that cable’s emergence came from a rebranding of it as the newest, revolutionary technology and a unity between different groups with varying interests who saw cable as an opportunity to have their opinions heard. Streeter states that the discourse around cable, “was characterized by a systematic avoidance of central issues and assumptions, and by a pattern of unequal power in the discussion and its outcomes; the discourse of the new technologies was shaped not so much by full fledged debate as by a lack of it” (222). By avoiding a specific discussion of cable many dissimilar groups made up of both corporations and minority groups were able to each “interpret the discourse as embodying their own interests, while at the same time ignoring the substantial difference between themselves” (233). This relates to what we discussed in lecture as Dr. Moore discussed how economists, public policy makers, liberal leftist groups began to work together to get pay-tv during the “Blue Sky Period,” for which the article is named.
ReplyDeleteStreeter concludes his article by stating that today, “The danger is also that the visionaries’ efforts will ultimately contribute to the reproduction of the limiting social structures that they dream of overthrowing” (240). Streeter discusses how cable was seen as a revolutionary technology that would lead to a utopian future where minorities would be able to express themselves and their opinions, but this ends up getting lost in corporations’ larger, more profitable interests. The advertisement below illustrates how technology is often looked at as embodying the future when often it ends up being integrated in society’s corporate structures already in place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEv8jAme0_I
Katrina Shafer, Adam Mondry, Ethan Warren
This is a great explanation of the "blue sky" element of Streeter's argument that saw generalized discourses about cable avoiding an actual discussion of its material issues/implementation, which allowed disparate groups to unite behind the push for greater pay TV services being offered. You inclusion of Streeter's caution at the end of his piece is also timely, and useful for the exercise of making a link to our contemporary moment.
DeleteThis is a great commercial to use since is shows so many examples of the technology Samsung is selling being thought of ahead of time in TV. Paradoxically, they are marketing it as something "new" when in fact that have already shown us how much people have thought about making this a reality already, and we've likely had the technology to do so for some time, which questions the very "newness" that the commercial rests its pitch on. Also, I love that Babylon 5 was in that montage.
In "Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows," Streeter argues that contrary to the popular discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, the advent of cable television ultimately failed to revolutionize the television industry to the degree that "1960s media activists, traditional liberal groups, industry lobbyists, and Republican technocrats" had all argued. Streeter's argument is structured upon analysis of the discourse and fervor that surrounded cable television in the 60s and 70s- this discourse and fervor, in turn, was largely based upon the assumption that cable television was a technological revolution, comparable to the print and industrial revolutions of earlier eras. However, in his analysis, Streeter makes it clear that these assumptions were highly faulty; he argues that cable was less of a revolutionary development and more so a continuation of an existing evolution of televisual/communication technologies, an evolution that encompasses the advent of radio, telegraph, computer, satellite, and, of course, cable technologies. This disconnect between the evolution of technology and our anticipation of technological revolution continues to this day; with each minuscule update, people anticipate a life change - like the update from iOS 6 to iOS7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzpREIBqDR0 This clip depicts how the expectations of cable television would give viewer more diverse options of learning and family values.
ReplyDeleteTracey Harris
Madison Cruz
Nick Alderink
This is a very concise and well written summary of the (important) part of Streeter's argument about how "new" technologies are more often than not an evolution of advancements already in the making in many other technologies. This helps him make the argument, based on his discourse analysis, that the mobilization of discourses of "newness" allows for a certain sidestepping of substantive debate about the changes that a technology might bring with it, and its possible shortcomings.
DeleteI think that this ad is actually perfect for this discussion as it says that the mother in the ad somehow made a career change that the ad links to cable which lets her be home to pick up her kid and watch TV with her, but it doesn't actually tell us what the job is, nor if it is connected to the cable industry (somehow). I also like how you extended this line of reasoning to the somewhat ridiculous hype over ios7, which saw people skipping school and work to download it and the apocalyptic doom shared over the twittersphere when it wasn't perfect. Talk about being swept up by discourse over something that's not all that different than what came before....
In "Quality versus Relevance", Lentz discusses how television can't posses both quality and relevance simultaneously; audiences don't wish to see the realities of life in television, therefore this "quality" acknowledges the social and political issues behind the program without drawing critical attention to them. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" demonstrates the quality side of Lentz's argument. There is a present feminist agenda within the show, but it doesn't explicitly draw attention to itself; there is no reference in regards to the feminist issue, yet they show how certain characters are built around the issues without directly addressing them. "Maude," on the other hand, is an example of what Lentz discusses as relevance. In the episode of "Maude" we viewed, there was a specific social/political issue being referred to throughout two episodes. By blatantly addressing this problem, as opposed to Mary Tyler Moore's narrative suggestions on feminism, we see how "Maude" falls into the category of relevant television as opposed to quality.
ReplyDeleteModern Family: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aSzTVrP5FQ
Cameron, Danielle, Michelle
Good job pointing out how MTM managed to acknowledge contemporary feminist discourses without discussing them, which did allow it to skate around being seen as too political, and give it a certain escapist quality. What did Lentz say about why relevant TV took such a blunt approach, and how did it present characters as uncertainly satiric, critical, or complicit in the social issues being foregrounded in the episodes?
DeleteBy: Jessie, Emily and Dominic
ReplyDeleteLentz argued that television returned to quality television at the start of the 70s. Quality television was defined by many aspects including both technical quality and quality of content. In technical terms, the picture was clearer and sharper, with more depth and better lighting, and the sets were a more realistic depiction of the program’s world (the program’s world looked like it was actually a world rather than a set). In terms of content, the quality shows did not stray very far from traditional television content, and addressed issues covertly. Quality television would address issues such as sexism by depicting them without really mentioning the issues outright. Relevant television, on the other hand, focused more on social issues in an overt sense. Relevant TV wasn’t extremely concerned with visual quality (compare the aesthetics of MTM and All in The Family) due to its focus on the depiction of relevant social issues. Relevant television would address issues such as racism or sexism by talking openly about it and centering narratives on them. The depictions of race and ethnicities are considered to be far more realistic and true to the real cultures in relevant TV.
Quality TV was trying to further push the concept of television as an art form, on the same level as film or theater, which means that they were straying from social issues in order to avoid the “low-brow”. Relevant TV did not shy away from the “low-brow” but used this concept to connect with the viewers and send the right message. Quality television was more concerned with how things were said, while relevant television was more concerned with what was actually said.
Comparing the quality program of MTM and the relevant program All in The Family, this becomes more obvious. MTM was a show about a woman in a job that would typically be reserved for a man, so MTM is addressing the issue of sexism. However (at least in the episode we watched) Mary’s status as a woman is not cause for concern or question among the characters. Contrastingly, All in The Family addresses issues of race by having Archie Bunker be bigoted. His overt racism within the program means that the program was consistently addressing the issue of racism. It’s easy to ignore the feminist messages in MTM, while it’s much harder to ignore racial issues in All in The Family.
A contemporary example of quality and relevant TV can be found in the same program: Modern Family. The show is high quality in visual aspects and the writing quality. It is also relevant because there is the homosexual couple, Mitch and Cam, who are raising a daughter together. In some episodes their homosexuality is addressed and is treated as a social issue, however some episodes don’t address the issue at all. The focus isn’t solely on quality or relevance; it’s on the combination of the two. Rather than being concerned with how they say it or what they say, contemporary TV shows try to focus on both how and what is said.
Ex: http://bit.ly/HfkFLf
In this clip, Cam and Mitchell struggle with social depictions of their relationship and family, and how it is in contest with how they view themselves.
This is a fabulous discussion of Lentz's argument, and I particularly appreciate the work you did to discuss the issues of low- vs. high-brow appearance of the shows, and how that informed the way that they dealt with social issues.
DeleteThis is an interesting argument about Modern Family, and I like how you're engaging with both types of discourses to ask if they've perhaps merged over time. I wonder, do you think MF might tip one way more than the other? It does deal with socially relevant issues more directly than MTM did, however it does it in a way that I find less gritty and far more resolved than Maude or All in the Family, both aesthetically and narratively. Just a thought.
In "Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows", Streeter argues how cable would user in a new era of television. Cable companies used a traditional sales approach to promote the technology. Though it wasn't new (the cable mechanisms had been around since television's inception), "cable" became so much more than just wires and connections. The diversity and representation it promised, a new and more complete spin on the notion of the "public good", attracted diverse progressive and social groups to also jump on the bandwagon of cable promotion.
ReplyDeleteThe implications of cable television in the 60s and 70s were not discussed in their entirety. Rather, cable became a sort of idealistic icon. For the liberal, minority, and public interest groups that championed cable, the technology was viewed in terms of "blue skies"-- the changes it would bring were at the forefront of discourse, but critical analysis did not really stray from this broad idealism. Cable was not a debate: other qualities besides its promise of representation and innovative technology were barely discussed by these interest groups. Streeter's discourse analysis (that groups were blinded by the positive opportunity that cable promoted and that its consequences were unrealized) tells us not only about thoughts on television at the time, but that tellingly, such diverse groups were able to put aside their differences in other social matters and support something that seemed so universally beneficial (again, only because the broader argument of cable was never really developed).
In the present day, the same types of discourse that Streeter discusses can be seen in commercials for sensational technologies like the iPad. Like cable television, these ads appeal to a universal good. Technology is moving forward and the possibilities that it can bring forth are endless. Its universality also applies to others owning the product. Ads imply that everyone will own an iPad, and those who don't would be left in the dust of old and outdated technology (like cable vs. just network TV).
To really understand this discourse, it's necessary to step outside of TV and look at another medium. Streeter's argument is based on the use of the technology of cable being a jumping-off point for this idealism and icon status, and there is no better place to look for examples of this than to look at today's technology.
http://youtu.be/o9gLqh8tmPA
Chloe Gilke
Matt Ward
Bridget Labe
This is a fabulous and thorough discussion of Streeter's arguments, particularly around how and why there was no debate about cable, just a whole lot of agreeing about big ideas. Well done.
DeleteI love the ad you chose because of the way it showed a pencil for the whole commercial, then said "you know what? our iPad is going to be so ubiquitous that it can replace the pencil, that's how new and awesome it is!" It really drives home how much we are still inundated by discourses of "newness" and "revolutionary" technology to sell products that aren't all that different than what came directly before it.