Lecture 4:
Liveness, Spectatorship and Commerce in
The First Golden Age of Television
In This Lecture
• PART ONE: Liveness
• PART TWO: Spectatorship
• PART THREE: Commerce
• The Link: unique qualities of the
medium.
PART ONE: Liveness
• Critical Hierarchies
• Live Writers
• Live Directors
• Postmodern Comedy
Critical Hierarchies
•
•
•
•
•
•
William Boddy “Live Television: Program Formats & Critical
Hierarchies”
“Aesthetic distinctions offered by television critics in the early 1950s
were often argued on essentialist grounds.”
TERM: “Essentialist.”
Immediacy: viewer in two places at once.
Jack Gould: “The emphasis is more on stereotypes.”
Combines radio, theater and film
Live Demands
• Simple sets
• fluid transitions
• careful scripting
• thorough rehearsals
• improvisation
• small cast
Writers
•
•
Theater vs. Screen....Live TV vs. Taped/Filmed
Lucille Ball: “We never discuss anything with them.”
• “Hollywood television took a leaf out of
the notebook of the motion pictures and
shoved its authors into a professional
Siberia.” - Rod Serling. (Patterns,
Requiem for a Heavy Weight)
• “The writer has a whole new, untouched
area of drama in which to poke about.
He can write about the simplest things,
the smallest incidents, as long as they
have dramatic significance.” - Paddy
Chayefsky (Marty)
Marty
• (pause lecture. Under Learning Tasks
view Marty. This live TV teleplay was
written by Paddy Chayefsky. Consider
how it uses the medium of live
television to highlight the dramatic
significance of small moments.)
Further Viewing: Network
• Writer: Paddy Chayefsky
• Director: Sidney Lumet
• Why this withering critique of the
medium that launched their careers?
The Death of
Liveness
• Was this a fall from grace?
Directors
• Sidney Lumet
• LIVE TV: Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One
• FILM: 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict
• Richard Lester
•
•
(American born, British-based)
LIVE TV: The Idiot Weekly (TV version of the Goon Show), A
Show Called Fred, Son of Fred
FILMS: Hard Days Night, Help!
• Robert Altman
•
•
LIVE TV: Kraft Television Theater
FILM: MASH, Nashville
• John Frankenheimer
•
•
LIVE TV: Playhouse 90 (Days of Wine and Roses)
FILM: The Manchrian Candidate, Birdman of Alcatraz, Seconds
Live Comedy
•
•
•
•
•
Sid Caesar (b. 1922)
Raised in Yonkers, New York, son of Jewish immigrants.
Played sax in Catskills age 14.
During WWII in Coast Guard, musical revues, comedy.
First series, The Broadway Admiral Revue, signed by Pat
Weaver.
Your Show of Shows
(1950-1954)
• 90 Minute weekly sketch comedy show,
NBC Saturday night.
• Q. Sound familiar?
Improvisation
• No cue cards
• No jokes
• Stretching and collapsing time
• “Double-talk”
• (pause lecture. Under Learning Tasks
view Your Show of Shows. Consider
how the cast gets laughs within the
constraints of live television.)
The Writing Room
•
•
•
Head Writer: Mel Tolkin (father of Michael)
Writers: Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Carl Reiner.
Caesars later writers: Larry Gelbarth (M*A*S*H) and Woody Allen.
Funny Fallout
• The Dick Van Dyke Show (Reiner
Produced)
• My Favorite Year (Brooks Produced)
• Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Neil Simon
wrote)
Postmodern
Aesthetics
• Media about media (Flying Film Spoof)
• Defamiliarize (double-talk)
• Repurpose (quarrel to Beethoven)
• Deconstruct (the Haircuts)
Postmodern Theory
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Started as architectural style, then art, then anti-philosophy
Rejects notion of “objective truth”
Rejects concept of “Great Men”
Rejects “master narratives.”
Rejects rigid binaries (male/female)
Perspective determined by language
power relations
TV as Postmodern
Medium
•
•
•
•
•
•
Brings media into the home.
Juxtaposes narratives, genres, worldviews.
Immediacy of liveness: two minds.
Time to fill.
Low budget
“Commercial” entertainment.
PART TWO:
Spectatorship
Media Theory
• The ancient Greeks debated about the
influence of media.
• Plato feared the medium of the written
word.
• Thought it would atrophy memory.
• It also “froze” meaning, ending dialectic.
Media Effects
•
•
Plato also feared the advent of
Theatre. He felt that the
“mimetic” (or mimicking)
impulse would cause some
audience members to copy
what they saw on stage.
Aristotle (Plato’s student) felt
the theater could provide a
healthy “cathartic” experience,
allowing audiences to
experience passionate and
even violent impulses
vicariously at a distance.
Media Effects Today
• The debate continues and
is often politically charged.
• Conservatives often claim
the media triggers violent,
transgressive behavior.
William Bennett
• Liberals often claim the
media “manufactures
consent,” generating
conformity and mindless
consumerism.
Noam Chomsky
Effects and Contexts
• Because human beings are complex,
we are never entirely unpredictable.
• In different contexts, different people
behave in different ways.
• Thus no overarching theory of media
effects can predict our behavior in all
situations relating to all kinds of texts.
Example: Scarface
• Is Tony Montana a Role Model or a
cautionary tale?
• Depends on who we are, where we live
and how we see the world around us?
• How we are affected by the text is
deeply influenced by social context.
•
•
A middle class teen viewing the
film Scarface may consider the
gangster Tony Montana a tragic
figure he would never wish to
emulate (catharsis).
Yet a culturally disenfranchised
teen from a less privileged
background might consider
Montana--a rebellious hero,
living the high life and going out
in a blaze of glory--an attractive
figure to model his behavior
after (mimesis).
Different Media Influence
us in Different Ways
•
•
The advent of Gutenberg’s
printing press ushered in mass
literacy, the end of the Middle
Ages, the Protestant Reformation
and the Renaissance.
A “text-based” worldview became
dominant. Linear thinking was
privileged, the pursuit of long
intricate strands of thought.
The Industrial Revolution &
the Birth of the Mass-Media
• In the 19th Century, the world’s
wealthiest nations were transformed
from agrarian to industrial economies.
• Twin revolution: advent of mass-media.
• The camera, telegraph, phonograph,
telephone, film camera and film
projector - all invented in the 19th
century.
• The advent of the mass-media, and in
particular, the cinema, radically altered
the way we see ourselves and the world
around us.
From Linearity to Juxtaposition
• The text-based era inspired people to
think in terms of fixed hierarchies, the
linear pursuit of a single aim, idea or
goal. (modernism)
• Mass-media culture inspires us to think
in terms of juxtaposition and irony.
(postmodernism)
The Revolution Has
Been Televised
•
•
Since the 19th Century, traditional cultural
hierarchies have been radically
destabilized.
New technologies and modes of
representation (film, TV, the internet) have
encouraged us to juxtapose multiple
worldviews and to question the presumed
dominance of any single perspective.
The Revolution has
been Commodified
• However, the mass-media
not only challenges
traditions. It also reinforces
and reinscribes them.
• The modern media is a
double edged sword, both
subverting and maintaining
cultural norms.
Media Theory
•
•
•
WWI first modern industrial
conflict, also first massmediated conflict.
Media studies initially focused
on media effects, specifically
the new “science” of
propaganda.
The notion of direct “effects”
has since been called into
question, but theorists still
debate how the media
influences us and how we
influence it.
Reactive audience
(behaviorism)
Active Audience
(“media savvy”)
PART THREE:
Commerce
• Modern or Postmodern?
• Cultural Paradoxes
• Marketing Mickey
• Multi-platforming
• Synergy
Term: Modernism
• Confusing terms, as now related to both
innovation and “traditional” perspective.
• Represents a time frame (modernity)
and a state of mind (self-determination).
The Modern Era
•
Period from the Renaissance on (including the Enlightenment)
•
OR...from early 20th century until 1960s (related to Modern art).
Characteristics of
Modernism
•
•
•
•
•
•
Belief in objective truth.
Self-determination, boot-strap success
Individual geniuses
march toward perfection
justified hierarchies: elitist, essentialist
white, western male dominant
The Disneyland Story
• (pause lecture. Under Learning Tasks
view The Disneyland Story. Is this a
modern or postmodern text? Note: in
media studies, we refer to all forms of
media as “texts.”)
Disney as Modernist Text
•
Mickey as Horatio Alger
•
Walt as patriarch
•
•
Davy Crocket as heroic white western
individual
Disneyland as magical invented world
Disney as Postmodern Text
•
First “infommercial”
•
Repurposing content of films
•
Marketing tie-ins (Coonskin caps)
•
Juxtaposing genres (Adventure Land,
etc.)
Modernism vs.
Postmodernism
•
•
Jackson Pollack (modernist)
Andy Warhol (postmodernist)
Cultural Paradoxes
• Tension between modernist
“exceptionalism” and postmodern
“commercialism” in the Disney brand
create paradoxes.
Term: Paradox
• Para: beside or against
• doxa: belief
• Disney is the ultimate wholesome brand
(modernism), but sex sells so its stars
must be somewhat sexualized
(postmodernism)
• Disney celebrates the heroic individual
(modernism), but by carefully controlling
and branding young generic talent, it
can reap maximum profits
(postmodernism)
Marketing Mickey
•
•
•
•
•
Reading: C. Anderson, “Disney”
Disney diversifies in 1940s, bad result
Disney diversifies in 1950s, good result.
Why the difference?
When is diversifying a bad idea in terms of both cultural moment and
brand?
Term: Multi-Platforming
• Single franchise/multiple variations:
Davy Crocket record, cap, show, comic,
and even a flashlight!
Term: Synergy
• Various franchises within a corporation
or even different corporations, working
cooperatively in mutually beneficial way
(Disney theme park and films, ABC TV)
Next Time:
THE CREEPING RED MENACE AND THE
ELECTRONIC HEARTH