Television in Black-and-white America: Race and National IdentityUniversity Press of Kansas, 2005 - 224 páginas Alan Nadel's provocative new book reminds us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences. Television did not invent whiteness for America, but it did reinforce it as the norm—particularly during the Cold War years. Nadel now shows just how instrumental it was in constructing a narrow, conservative, and very white vision of America. Nadel depicts a time when television effectively hijacked and monopolized the nation's vision of itself to create a virtual but severely distorted civic space. On Cold War TV's three channels there were no double beds, no liberated housewives, no social criticism, and no homosexuality. And the few available black faces overwhelmingly belonged to athletes, musical entertainers, and actors playing menial roles. Even America's beloved Walt Disney promoted his highly popular TV and theme-park versions of society as utterly homogeneous representations of reality. During this era, prime-time TV was dominated by "adult westerns," with heroes like The Rebel's Johnny Yuma reincarnating southern values and Bonanza's Cartwright family reinforcing the notion of white patriarchy—programs that, Nadel shows, bristled with Cold War messages even as they spoke to the nation's mythology. America had become visually reconfigured as a vast Ponderosa, crisscrossed by concrete highways designed to carry suburban white drivers beyond the moral challenge of racism and racial poverty and increasingly vocal civil rights demands. Television in Black-and-White America revisits a time and space that some might miss for its simplicity and relative innocence. Nadel, however, entreats us to look beyond such nostalgia to see how, even in its earliest days, television had already become a powerful mediator of social norms that both controlled and warped our sense of reality. |
Contenido
Television Reality and Cold War Citizenship | 15 |
Disneyland the Interstate and National Space | 43 |
The Adult Western and the Western Bloc | 86 |
Rebel Integrity Southern Injustice and Civil Rights | 112 |
The New Frontier | 157 |
Conclusion | 182 |
201 | |
Términos y frases comunes
Adams adult Westerns adventure Alamo amusement park audience black-and-white Bonanza broadcast Bronco buffalo soldiers Cartwright cattle drive Cavalry civil rights Cold War Cold War television Colt commercial cowboys created Culture Davy Crockett decade Derringer destiny Disney's Disneyland Dodge City drama episode fact Faubus Favor federal film Findlay frontier Frontierland Gunsmoke highway Ibid ideal Indian industry interests John Slaughter Kennedy Kimble Little Rock live Magic Kingdom Magic Lands manifest destiny Marling Maverick McCarthyism medium Mexican narratives Negro norms political Ponderosa postwar premiere prime-time production programming public space race racial Rangers reality Rebel represented Richard Kimble role segregation show's sion slavery social soldiers South Southern story suburban television show television's Texas Texas John Slaughter theme tion town TV Guide United University Press urban values viewers Wagon Train Walt Disney West Wyatt Earp York Yuma Zane Grey Theater