I know I gave you all a warning about the Wertham article I posted on Tuesday, but this time, for real, viewer discretion advised. I found these at the same website as the article. Some of these comic book covers are in fact quite nasty. Particularly the first one.
WARNING: Contains radium, melting faces, decapitated heads, possibly zombies, bullet holes, snakes, ants, and the suggestion of women turning tricks for diamonds.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
What do you do when fiction becomes fact?
Chapters 7 though 11 of The Ten-Cent Plague take the reader through the evolution of the comic book. Hadju describes how, within just a few years, the comic book went from being focused on crime, to sex, to horror, to humor. Ultimately, Hadju argues that the hoopla over comic book censorship increased and decreased over time with these different genres; however, the legislation and ethical arguments surrounding the text and images of the comic book never fully went away...it just hibernated for awhile here and there until some new societal problem reared its ugly head and Americans needed something to point to and blame.
I have to admit, though not much of a comic-reader myself, I was shocked and upset to learn that children were practically brainwashed to burn comics by the hundreds. Once I read that even The Boy Scouts were forced to burn comics as part of their “civic duty” I immediately began to think of the book Fahrenheit 451. Having not read the book since middle school, I went to sparknotes.com to remind myself of the book’s main plot and found this:
“.. special-interest groups and other ‘minorities’ objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.”
Reading this passage made me buy into Hadju's argument even more. Censoring and/or banning the comic book so as to not risk offending or damaging members of society is to stifle creativity, and an act that ultimately paves the way for complete government control of all American rights.
I have to admit, though not much of a comic-reader myself, I was shocked and upset to learn that children were practically brainwashed to burn comics by the hundreds. Once I read that even The Boy Scouts were forced to burn comics as part of their “civic duty” I immediately began to think of the book Fahrenheit 451. Having not read the book since middle school, I went to sparknotes.com to remind myself of the book’s main plot and found this:
“.. special-interest groups and other ‘minorities’ objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.”
Reading this passage made me buy into Hadju's argument even more. Censoring and/or banning the comic book so as to not risk offending or damaging members of society is to stifle creativity, and an act that ultimately paves the way for complete government control of all American rights.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
And from out of the shadows, a hero emerges...maybe?
I was about to discuss the absence of a response to the anti-comic movement that Hajdu builds up throughout the first 130 pages. Then I read David Pace Wigransky’s letter (Hajdu 113). It was this kind of backlash that I was looking for, but did not find for the most part in the book. I cannot totally fault Hajdu for this. Maybe there was little to no response to the crucifixion that the comic industry was undergoing, but I tend to doubt that. No matter what the issue is that raises the hairs on mainstream America’s neck, there is always a group that doesn’t see the harm (usually Hollywood). The fact that Hajdu describes the cultural maelstrom as a “debate” at times implies that there were two sides to the story. Perhaps we will see the resistance as we read on, but so far it is not even on the horizon.
Granted, in any free market economy the dollar speaks louder than a Led Zeppelin encore and the comic industry was generating $72 million on roughly 90 million comics in circulation in 1948 (Hajdu 112). What I was looking for, however, was the voice of those who were arguing that the reading of comic books was not the brain melting, ethics raping, drivel that it was made out to be. Part of the problem was most likely that the two groups most noticeably on the side of the comic book industry were its writers and its readers. Its readers being mostly children did almost nothing to give voice to their opposition of the rich, old, white guys that had crept up again in national outrage. On the side of the industry’s creators, a similar problem existed in that even Will Eisner conceded that comic book creators, “lived in a bubble, and lived, breathed, and ate comic books. The world could blow up outside the studio, and the average comic-book man wouldn’t notice” (Hajdu 103). With one group lacking any real voice and the other lacking any real impulse to speak up, there was a void created where there needed to be fist, raised in defiance.
The story about how Sam Kweskin’s mother swept the table scraps onto Sterling North’s, “A National Disgrace” made me wonder where these people were on a national stage (Hadju 43). There needed to be comic book advocates that came from outside the industry. No one was going to listen to the perpetuators of such filth, and certainly not to the brainwashed children it ensnares, so a voice from somewhere else had to pick up the reins. Where was the Bono of the late 1940s? Where was the Bob Geldof of the comic book scene? Someone needed to step in and challenge Winters v. New York, and with the comic book industry’s creation of the Comics Code at the hands of its creators, it seems as though it was not going to come from within (97, 129).
Perhaps there was no one waiting in the wings. If that is the case then my hat is off to you David Hajdu, your argument is damn near bullet proof. If that is not the case, however, then where is the masked crusader ready to step in and take a stand against the beating that the industry was taking? A beating worthy of any panel in Crime Does Not Pay.
Granted, in any free market economy the dollar speaks louder than a Led Zeppelin encore and the comic industry was generating $72 million on roughly 90 million comics in circulation in 1948 (Hajdu 112). What I was looking for, however, was the voice of those who were arguing that the reading of comic books was not the brain melting, ethics raping, drivel that it was made out to be. Part of the problem was most likely that the two groups most noticeably on the side of the comic book industry were its writers and its readers. Its readers being mostly children did almost nothing to give voice to their opposition of the rich, old, white guys that had crept up again in national outrage. On the side of the industry’s creators, a similar problem existed in that even Will Eisner conceded that comic book creators, “lived in a bubble, and lived, breathed, and ate comic books. The world could blow up outside the studio, and the average comic-book man wouldn’t notice” (Hajdu 103). With one group lacking any real voice and the other lacking any real impulse to speak up, there was a void created where there needed to be fist, raised in defiance.
The story about how Sam Kweskin’s mother swept the table scraps onto Sterling North’s, “A National Disgrace” made me wonder where these people were on a national stage (Hadju 43). There needed to be comic book advocates that came from outside the industry. No one was going to listen to the perpetuators of such filth, and certainly not to the brainwashed children it ensnares, so a voice from somewhere else had to pick up the reins. Where was the Bono of the late 1940s? Where was the Bob Geldof of the comic book scene? Someone needed to step in and challenge Winters v. New York, and with the comic book industry’s creation of the Comics Code at the hands of its creators, it seems as though it was not going to come from within (97, 129).
Perhaps there was no one waiting in the wings. If that is the case then my hat is off to you David Hajdu, your argument is damn near bullet proof. If that is not the case, however, then where is the masked crusader ready to step in and take a stand against the beating that the industry was taking? A beating worthy of any panel in Crime Does Not Pay.
Monday, April 20, 2009
IT'S STILL MURDER: What Parents Still Don't Know About Comic Books
While poking around online (hoping to find the Catholic stuff mentioned in the reading, of course), I came across a "forgotten" Wertham article from the 9 Apr. 1955 edition of The Saturday Review of Literature. Follow the link below for a good time*.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF KNIVES, BEARDS, STATUES, ROPE, AND HATS.
"IT'S STILL MURDER" by Dr. Wertham
*I accept no responsibility for the actions you make take after viewing some of the comic samples. None whatsoever.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF KNIVES, BEARDS, STATUES, ROPE, AND HATS.
"IT'S STILL MURDER" by Dr. Wertham
*I accept no responsibility for the actions you make take after viewing some of the comic samples. None whatsoever.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Hide In Plain Sight: Un Travail Bien Fait!
It feels natural to advocate for today’s reading, since Buhle and Wagner accomplish what they set out to do in chapters 5 and 6, heavily supporting their claims while at the same time not forcing the reader to sift through tedious lists of examples. In chapter 5, they reveal the ways in which the blacklistees succeeded in lifting the “cultural iron curtain.” The victories they catalogue transcended the silver screen: these exiles pushed forward off-camera through press releases and public appearances in the more welcoming political climate of Western Europe.
The section I found most fascinating was the description of the Hollywood victims’ experience abroad. As someone who loves the French language and culture, I was particularly interested in the French reaction to the American blacklistees. I was surprised to learn that while the English reception was at best lukewarm, the French accepted the blacklistees with open arms, offering them a “hero’s welcome!” (137). It seems counterintuitive for a few reasons – not only did the French have a language barrier not faced by the English, but it’s a generally accepted truth that they look down upon American culture. Buhle and Wagner dispel this myth of French cultural superiority with their accounts of Hollywoodites mingling with famous artists like Picasso and Braque and (incredibly awesome) poets such as Jacques Prévert!
The authors go on to provide even more compelling evidence of the strong French support for the exiled Hollywood stars with the example of Eddie Constantine, an American actor “whose face on billboards would become as familiar to Parisians of decades as Humphrey Bogart’s” (138). One minor problem I had with this example was the ambiguity of the language Constantine spoke French in these films. Was he fluent in French, or was the unlikely alternative the case: that the French had embraced one who hadn’t mastered their language as a cultural icon? (This brings to mind the final scene in the South Pacific, where Nellie tries to communicate to Emile’s children in mangled French.) I ended up finding out that Constantine was indeed francophone with a little help from my trusty friends google and youtube; maybe Buhle and Wagner neglected to mention it because it’s an obvious fact to those with any shred of cinema literacy (i.e., not me).
My favorite parts of these chapters were the authors’ occasional musings on what the film industry in the 1950’s would have been like without the blacklist, since it’s something I’d never thought about before and Buhle and Wagner are probably two of the most well-qualified people to speculate on that alternate world.
The section I found most fascinating was the description of the Hollywood victims’ experience abroad. As someone who loves the French language and culture, I was particularly interested in the French reaction to the American blacklistees. I was surprised to learn that while the English reception was at best lukewarm, the French accepted the blacklistees with open arms, offering them a “hero’s welcome!” (137). It seems counterintuitive for a few reasons – not only did the French have a language barrier not faced by the English, but it’s a generally accepted truth that they look down upon American culture. Buhle and Wagner dispel this myth of French cultural superiority with their accounts of Hollywoodites mingling with famous artists like Picasso and Braque and (incredibly awesome) poets such as Jacques Prévert!
The authors go on to provide even more compelling evidence of the strong French support for the exiled Hollywood stars with the example of Eddie Constantine, an American actor “whose face on billboards would become as familiar to Parisians of decades as Humphrey Bogart’s” (138). One minor problem I had with this example was the ambiguity of the language Constantine spoke French in these films. Was he fluent in French, or was the unlikely alternative the case: that the French had embraced one who hadn’t mastered their language as a cultural icon? (This brings to mind the final scene in the South Pacific, where Nellie tries to communicate to Emile’s children in mangled French.) I ended up finding out that Constantine was indeed francophone with a little help from my trusty friends google and youtube; maybe Buhle and Wagner neglected to mention it because it’s an obvious fact to those with any shred of cinema literacy (i.e., not me).
My favorite parts of these chapters were the authors’ occasional musings on what the film industry in the 1950’s would have been like without the blacklist, since it’s something I’d never thought about before and Buhle and Wagner are probably two of the most well-qualified people to speculate on that alternate world.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Done Right
This is sort of a compare an contrast followup to my last blog post... usually I think dissenting is easy and assenting is hard but it seems this week is the opposite, because Buhle and Wagner do exactly what they are supposed to do: make an argument, then back it up convincingly, and on top of that they actually made it interesting to read.
Somewhat ironically I think they used up their best example for the Critque From the Margin chapter in the introduction, which was the analysis of Planet of the Apes as a commentary on McCarthyism and the blacklist. I'd seen Planet of the Apes before but I'd never thought to put it in a social/political context, but when Buhle and Wagner put it all together it became pretty clear, both within the text and behind it: the ties of Wilson and Serling to blacklistees, as well as the thematic component of the story, such as the power of speaking among those who are otherwise silent, and the threat that speech has to those who would like to hold on to power.
This next part goes on kind of a tangent, but Chapter 4 actually led me to make something of a modern connection to blacklistees and the critique from the margin idea. The connection comes from Joseph L Breen, the hollywood censor, and it was the name Breen which reminded me of another Breen: Wallace Breen from the video game Half-Life 2. I'll try to give a brief synopsis of the plot of the game to put things in context: Aliens from another dimension have invaded and taken over Earth, and have installed an ostensibly human-run puppet government, headed by said Wallace Breen, who appears throughout the game on TV sets making speeches about how much better off humanity is under the new alien domination, and condoning the aliens main method of oppression: some sci-fi system to suppress the ability to procreate. The part that brings me back to the Planet of the Apes comparison is one of the subtle facets of the game: while everyone in the world is very strongly characterized (for which the game won many awards) the character you play as never says anything, is silent.
Now maybe I'm making a big stretch here and there really is no connection, but after reading these sections I can't help but think that the censorship/Breen theme had an influence.
Somewhat ironically I think they used up their best example for the Critque From the Margin chapter in the introduction, which was the analysis of Planet of the Apes as a commentary on McCarthyism and the blacklist. I'd seen Planet of the Apes before but I'd never thought to put it in a social/political context, but when Buhle and Wagner put it all together it became pretty clear, both within the text and behind it: the ties of Wilson and Serling to blacklistees, as well as the thematic component of the story, such as the power of speaking among those who are otherwise silent, and the threat that speech has to those who would like to hold on to power.
This next part goes on kind of a tangent, but Chapter 4 actually led me to make something of a modern connection to blacklistees and the critique from the margin idea. The connection comes from Joseph L Breen, the hollywood censor, and it was the name Breen which reminded me of another Breen: Wallace Breen from the video game Half-Life 2. I'll try to give a brief synopsis of the plot of the game to put things in context: Aliens from another dimension have invaded and taken over Earth, and have installed an ostensibly human-run puppet government, headed by said Wallace Breen, who appears throughout the game on TV sets making speeches about how much better off humanity is under the new alien domination, and condoning the aliens main method of oppression: some sci-fi system to suppress the ability to procreate. The part that brings me back to the Planet of the Apes comparison is one of the subtle facets of the game: while everyone in the world is very strongly characterized (for which the game won many awards) the character you play as never says anything, is silent.
Now maybe I'm making a big stretch here and there really is no connection, but after reading these sections I can't help but think that the censorship/Breen theme had an influence.
Hide in Plain Sight: Primary Sources?
Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner’s Hide in Plain Sight is really difficult for me to dissent because it is, for me, one of the most interesting and historical texts we’ve read this semester. Despite my own interest in science fiction and fantasy as vehicles for social commentary I must put away my pom-poms and cast the death ray of cynicism. As a genealogy of blacklistee work, the book is very successful, so I only have a few points that I feel would make it more effective. Since it is considered a film studies book (per the category printed on the back), I think inclusion of more primary sources and figures is important to grounding their argument. My own knowledge base in much of the things they cover is minimal, so I cannot say whether or not they are stretching or coloring their information to make a point that isn’t there. It does seem however, that the sections we’ve read so far are more storytelling than textbook; while the conversational style makes it a fun read, it does lend to questioning where they come up with some of their claims.
In Chapter 3, there is a discussion of Irving Rapper’s The Brave One’s international filming. They make the claim that a scene that “takes place in a schoolroom where the boy learns about the history of his Mexican people and how illiterate Indians won a nation’s freedom from the armies of European aristocrats. So appealing are the boy and the story that no on […] saw through the plot to the didactic crypto-Marxist center” (90). While I have no reason to necessarily dispute their argument, or their assertion that this was “a true internationalization of film,” they don’t offer any evidence beyond their own argument. As a survey or textbook, I am compelled to see evidence from a primary source to support their claim. Though they may have information that supports their claim, it would be more effective (and less disputable) to have that source clearly in the text. I see the importance of documenting the groups of blacklistees that formed, and the implications of the projects they undertook, but when they jump to make claims about the INTENT of the filmmakers without evidence, they lose me. I’m also more curious about the mention of low-cost filming in Spain and Yugoslavia that they gloss over and never mention in any depth.
Maybe it’s just my hypersensitivity to the hard-boiled and noir (because of the courses I’m enrolled in this semester), but I think that looking at the influence of hard-boiled as a means for social commentary, and its influences on science fiction, horror, and fantasy would have strengthened their argument. They focus their attention across the pond, at noir made in France by blacklistees, without much mention of the origins of American noir, or the process of being defined as noir by the French after the war. I guess whether or not such information is necessary depends on the intended audience of this book. I get the impression that it is very much a survey, so I think that the inclusion of a bit more background would help that purpose. If this book is intended for people with more background in film and television than I have, I suppose it would seem redundant or unnecessary.
Finally in Chapter 4, they give some the hard and fast quantitative evidence that I was wanting, but this does more for me to highlight the lack of such statistics in their other arguments. The kind of production figures given for the section on westerns (112) would have given a lot of strength to their argument, or more girth to the story they’re telling. Though I enjoy the story that they’re telling, it does lose me a bit in the way that they summarize their way through with very little primary evidence IN the text. While it all sounds plausible (and I believe them) I think the text is deficient of primary evidence. I don’t have a sufficient background to find faults in their claims, but I am left needing to know where they find the evidence for their claims.
Also, since I had never seen Gerald McBoing Boing I found it on youtube to share (reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books Harold and the Purple Crayon)
In Chapter 3, there is a discussion of Irving Rapper’s The Brave One’s international filming. They make the claim that a scene that “takes place in a schoolroom where the boy learns about the history of his Mexican people and how illiterate Indians won a nation’s freedom from the armies of European aristocrats. So appealing are the boy and the story that no on […] saw through the plot to the didactic crypto-Marxist center” (90). While I have no reason to necessarily dispute their argument, or their assertion that this was “a true internationalization of film,” they don’t offer any evidence beyond their own argument. As a survey or textbook, I am compelled to see evidence from a primary source to support their claim. Though they may have information that supports their claim, it would be more effective (and less disputable) to have that source clearly in the text. I see the importance of documenting the groups of blacklistees that formed, and the implications of the projects they undertook, but when they jump to make claims about the INTENT of the filmmakers without evidence, they lose me. I’m also more curious about the mention of low-cost filming in Spain and Yugoslavia that they gloss over and never mention in any depth.
Maybe it’s just my hypersensitivity to the hard-boiled and noir (because of the courses I’m enrolled in this semester), but I think that looking at the influence of hard-boiled as a means for social commentary, and its influences on science fiction, horror, and fantasy would have strengthened their argument. They focus their attention across the pond, at noir made in France by blacklistees, without much mention of the origins of American noir, or the process of being defined as noir by the French after the war. I guess whether or not such information is necessary depends on the intended audience of this book. I get the impression that it is very much a survey, so I think that the inclusion of a bit more background would help that purpose. If this book is intended for people with more background in film and television than I have, I suppose it would seem redundant or unnecessary.
Finally in Chapter 4, they give some the hard and fast quantitative evidence that I was wanting, but this does more for me to highlight the lack of such statistics in their other arguments. The kind of production figures given for the section on westerns (112) would have given a lot of strength to their argument, or more girth to the story they’re telling. Though I enjoy the story that they’re telling, it does lose me a bit in the way that they summarize their way through with very little primary evidence IN the text. While it all sounds plausible (and I believe them) I think the text is deficient of primary evidence. I don’t have a sufficient background to find faults in their claims, but I am left needing to know where they find the evidence for their claims.
Also, since I had never seen Gerald McBoing Boing I found it on youtube to share (reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books Harold and the Purple Crayon)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Workingman's Wife
Workingman’s Wife brings up an insightful, but obvious, suggestion – companies need to advertise and sell to the working class consumer if they want to become a “billion dollar” corporation. Due to the great increase in this class’ size and the major market it provided to the producer, this point is rather obvious; however, the book still provides quite a few statistics as evidence for the claims that they make. Take the introduction for example; the reader is bombarded with evidence, making an annoying piece to read but one that attempts to convince you with the sheer amount of facts it has to back up its case. This doesn’t mean that the facts are not supportive or not convincing in their own, but I think the author would have been wise to keep from assaulting the reader with all of these statistics at once so that the message might be heard a little more clearly.
This entire essay does seem to me to be rather convincing, once again, due to the many pieces of evidence it provides. The inclusion of “True Story” and the comments from the readers was intriguing. This provided some interesting insight to the mind of those who read it, primarily the working class woman, and what kind of advertising they responded to the most. In one instance, the woman responding actually states that she likes “lots of real splashy color in ads” deciding that this element “helps to sell stuff” (149). It makes sense that a working class woman, one who works around the house and with her children, would be drawn to attractive colorful advertisements with fewer words, and so it is an interesting conclusion, but one that I found pretty obvious.
It may be because I do not yet know too much about 1950s culture, but the idea of always trying to pay for things in cash intrigued me. The authors go on to conclude with some testimonies that working class women would rather pay for things in cash than with credit. I had always thought that the arrival of credit cards had produced an influx of credit holders and users; this was probably still true, however, some of the women who were quoted in Workingman’s Wife talked about having learned their lesson having to deal with the hidden dangers of credit.
Also, much stress seemed to be placed on bargains and social interactions. The women responded most to the products that were either a good deal or involved interacting with people. The consumer would rather buy something if, for instance, her friend were selling it to her or the sales woman was kind in greeting her as well as if she had a coupon for it. The working class woman like to know how much she will have to pay before she gets to the store, so advertisements with prices and discount prices greatly appealed to her.
Overall I think this work gives substantial evidence, allowing us to understand what the working class woman would respond to when it comes to advertising and buying. Maybe I have found my place in the social ladder, since all of the ideas in Workingman’s Wife were so obvious to me as well as relatable. I want something that looks expensive but is a bargain; I want to know what I am going to have to pay for something I want; I want to be treated well when I walk into a store. I don’t know if others feel this way as well, maybe you are willing to pay more for the real thing as opposed to getting an awesome bargain on a good knock-off. Not me, and apparently not the working class woman either.
This entire essay does seem to me to be rather convincing, once again, due to the many pieces of evidence it provides. The inclusion of “True Story” and the comments from the readers was intriguing. This provided some interesting insight to the mind of those who read it, primarily the working class woman, and what kind of advertising they responded to the most. In one instance, the woman responding actually states that she likes “lots of real splashy color in ads” deciding that this element “helps to sell stuff” (149). It makes sense that a working class woman, one who works around the house and with her children, would be drawn to attractive colorful advertisements with fewer words, and so it is an interesting conclusion, but one that I found pretty obvious.
It may be because I do not yet know too much about 1950s culture, but the idea of always trying to pay for things in cash intrigued me. The authors go on to conclude with some testimonies that working class women would rather pay for things in cash than with credit. I had always thought that the arrival of credit cards had produced an influx of credit holders and users; this was probably still true, however, some of the women who were quoted in Workingman’s Wife talked about having learned their lesson having to deal with the hidden dangers of credit.
Also, much stress seemed to be placed on bargains and social interactions. The women responded most to the products that were either a good deal or involved interacting with people. The consumer would rather buy something if, for instance, her friend were selling it to her or the sales woman was kind in greeting her as well as if she had a coupon for it. The working class woman like to know how much she will have to pay before she gets to the store, so advertisements with prices and discount prices greatly appealed to her.
Overall I think this work gives substantial evidence, allowing us to understand what the working class woman would respond to when it comes to advertising and buying. Maybe I have found my place in the social ladder, since all of the ideas in Workingman’s Wife were so obvious to me as well as relatable. I want something that looks expensive but is a bargain; I want to know what I am going to have to pay for something I want; I want to be treated well when I walk into a store. I don’t know if others feel this way as well, maybe you are willing to pay more for the real thing as opposed to getting an awesome bargain on a good knock-off. Not me, and apparently not the working class woman either.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
It's called the American Dream for a Reason
Analyzing working Americans in the 1950s from a top-down perspective, including how products were marketed, prevalent attitudes regarding home ownership, and hope for upward mobility, it is apparent that two distinct groups appear. These groups are the working class and the middle class. The former tends to prefer cash purchasing (due to a distrust/lack of knowledge of indebted financial planning), seeks sturdy yet modest housing and “decent” neighborhoods, and has little hope for upward mobility. Publications such as True Story enforce these attitudes, instilling pride in the blue collar class regarding their lot in life. The middle class comes across as more financially savvy, seeks a more glamorous lifestyle (even with respect to the home), and has dreams of lavish vacationing, even bigger consumption capacity, etc. Newman basically takes this approach, and therefore it’s easy to see why she comes to this conclusion.
However, from a bottom-up perspective, it is apparent that the so-called middle class and working class are quite similar in their behaviors, and therefore it is understandable that the U.S. Department of Labor declared in the early 1950s that the two had merged. Essentially, although the “working class” had divergent attitudes regarding consumption, home ownership, and plans for the future compared to the “middle class,” their behaviors led them down similar pathways. Working class families, despite their strong preference for cash transactions, often gave in to their desires for necessary appliances and took on financially taxing installment plans to acquire said appliances. This is shown in the Workingman’s Wife when it says, “Many working class housewives do not like time payments; they prefer cash purchases…This only summarizes the attitudes toward cash payments as opposed to installment planes. Their behavior can be summarized in quite a different way: in our study sample, on the day we interviewed them, about two-thirds of the working class respondents were in some kind of installment planned debt” (pg. 166).As well as this, they also sometimes spent frivolously despite their need for frugality (which was expressed strongly in almost everything they did). This excess spending was far more prevalent in the middle class lifestyle (because it was affordable), yet still existed in the working classes. (it is important to note, however, that this spending undermined many of the goals of the working class, whereas for the middle class, there wasn’t much effect).
The root of this argument is that the American Dream bound both “distinct” classes together in a common struggle for a better life, epitomized in home ownership and a well-stocked household. This is also shown in a study from the Workingman’s Wife when it says, “Those working class families who do not own their own homes look forward very much to being able to do so, and much of their consumer behavior is conditioned by the planning for that nicer, more permanent dwelling” (pg.164). They, as a working class wanted different things, but like the middle class, they were looking towards the future just the same. Although one subset of Americans took a more frugal outlook and had a dimmer attitude toward the future with respect to this dream, all working Americans (both colored collars) shared the same goal.
However, from a bottom-up perspective, it is apparent that the so-called middle class and working class are quite similar in their behaviors, and therefore it is understandable that the U.S. Department of Labor declared in the early 1950s that the two had merged. Essentially, although the “working class” had divergent attitudes regarding consumption, home ownership, and plans for the future compared to the “middle class,” their behaviors led them down similar pathways. Working class families, despite their strong preference for cash transactions, often gave in to their desires for necessary appliances and took on financially taxing installment plans to acquire said appliances. This is shown in the Workingman’s Wife when it says, “Many working class housewives do not like time payments; they prefer cash purchases…This only summarizes the attitudes toward cash payments as opposed to installment planes. Their behavior can be summarized in quite a different way: in our study sample, on the day we interviewed them, about two-thirds of the working class respondents were in some kind of installment planned debt” (pg. 166).As well as this, they also sometimes spent frivolously despite their need for frugality (which was expressed strongly in almost everything they did). This excess spending was far more prevalent in the middle class lifestyle (because it was affordable), yet still existed in the working classes. (it is important to note, however, that this spending undermined many of the goals of the working class, whereas for the middle class, there wasn’t much effect).
The root of this argument is that the American Dream bound both “distinct” classes together in a common struggle for a better life, epitomized in home ownership and a well-stocked household. This is also shown in a study from the Workingman’s Wife when it says, “Those working class families who do not own their own homes look forward very much to being able to do so, and much of their consumer behavior is conditioned by the planning for that nicer, more permanent dwelling” (pg.164). They, as a working class wanted different things, but like the middle class, they were looking towards the future just the same. Although one subset of Americans took a more frugal outlook and had a dimmer attitude toward the future with respect to this dream, all working Americans (both colored collars) shared the same goal.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Antennae (in a Freudian sense)
Newman's first chapter, "Burlesque with an Antennae" works to combat the notion that the landscape of 1950's, American television was littered with compliant housewives, mud-pie smudged children, and a reining patriarch wrapped in his tweed cape. She make a very good argument for the presence, and even domination, of working class, urban ghetto comedy. Borrowing form the familiar, notably Gleason and his incredibly popular characters, Newman works to legitimate the buffoons and drunks that made us laugh, cry, and identify.
I agree with Alexa and her desire to understand more of the audience. I, more than wanting their political perspective, am craving more of a demographic approach to the audience interpretation. During the years before Donna Reed and June Cleaver cleaned up the backdrop of American television, who was tuning in? How many people owned a television and where are the largest concentration of sets? If the new technology was expensive, and according to the website tvhistor.tv/tv-prices.htm the ranged from just over $100 to more than $1000 in this decade, can we presume that the audience was divided by class/income? If television was limited to people who had never lived in the ghettos or obtained the economic means to escape, was lowbrow 1950's television a form of white minstrel entertainment? Can we not view characters like Ed Norton, Sgt. Bilko, and the poor Italian immigrants as white-face (albeit sometimes with an olive complexion), soft-shoe, dance for your money poor man stage show?
I want to concentrate on Newman's title and the a larger theme of the decade we have studied this semester, the role of gender and the American social/domestic space. The most compelling arguments of this chapter, following a well researched historical perspective of lowbrow television production, appear in the conclusion. On page 66 Newman writes, "Lowbrow comedy offered a challenge to the suburban, middle-class hegemony of the 1950's." She then follows this with a discussion of the role of women in lowbrow entertainment and the difficulty these women present for the contemporary, domesticating movement. What I find in these last couple of pages is the real grit of the argument, postwar America was moving toward a female oriented, suburban social structure, but not without a fight. These burlesque comedians, emerging out of the "nudie" clubs of postwar New York, brought to the small screen a sense that it was still a man's world. The problems facing the characters, whether male or female, were masculine concerns; income, work schedule, and attainment of wealth. Whereas the suburban setting of later shows represented the female domain early 1950's television located life in the urban/male jungle of daily complications. I think a further exploration of the idea that "...mainstream culture was not ready for women to be lowbrow and left - to reject class aspirations, domesticity, materialism, and family-in fictional narratives..." will provide a better understanding of the cultural transformation in the 1950's.
On a more gendered psychological note, Newman does bring up the animated satirization of the Honeymooners through the Flintstones (1960-1966). This show may only further the argument that television promoted the feminization of the domestic sphere when it relocated a popular urban/male sitcom to the stone age. I hope we have an opportunity to watch/read some examples of the satirization on the 1950's in later American culture and look at how lowbrow 1950's culture is represented decades later.
I agree with Alexa and her desire to understand more of the audience. I, more than wanting their political perspective, am craving more of a demographic approach to the audience interpretation. During the years before Donna Reed and June Cleaver cleaned up the backdrop of American television, who was tuning in? How many people owned a television and where are the largest concentration of sets? If the new technology was expensive, and according to the website tvhistor.tv/tv-prices.htm the ranged from just over $100 to more than $1000 in this decade, can we presume that the audience was divided by class/income? If television was limited to people who had never lived in the ghettos or obtained the economic means to escape, was lowbrow 1950's television a form of white minstrel entertainment? Can we not view characters like Ed Norton, Sgt. Bilko, and the poor Italian immigrants as white-face (albeit sometimes with an olive complexion), soft-shoe, dance for your money poor man stage show?
I want to concentrate on Newman's title and the a larger theme of the decade we have studied this semester, the role of gender and the American social/domestic space. The most compelling arguments of this chapter, following a well researched historical perspective of lowbrow television production, appear in the conclusion. On page 66 Newman writes, "Lowbrow comedy offered a challenge to the suburban, middle-class hegemony of the 1950's." She then follows this with a discussion of the role of women in lowbrow entertainment and the difficulty these women present for the contemporary, domesticating movement. What I find in these last couple of pages is the real grit of the argument, postwar America was moving toward a female oriented, suburban social structure, but not without a fight. These burlesque comedians, emerging out of the "nudie" clubs of postwar New York, brought to the small screen a sense that it was still a man's world. The problems facing the characters, whether male or female, were masculine concerns; income, work schedule, and attainment of wealth. Whereas the suburban setting of later shows represented the female domain early 1950's television located life in the urban/male jungle of daily complications. I think a further exploration of the idea that "...mainstream culture was not ready for women to be lowbrow and left - to reject class aspirations, domesticity, materialism, and family-in fictional narratives..." will provide a better understanding of the cultural transformation in the 1950's.
On a more gendered psychological note, Newman does bring up the animated satirization of the Honeymooners through the Flintstones (1960-1966). This show may only further the argument that television promoted the feminization of the domestic sphere when it relocated a popular urban/male sitcom to the stone age. I hope we have an opportunity to watch/read some examples of the satirization on the 1950's in later American culture and look at how lowbrow 1950's culture is represented decades later.
Dissenting Newman Chapter Burlesque with an Antenna Lowbrow Comedy on Television
This chapter was mostly factual, describing various television shows from the 1950s and classifying them as either lowbrow or middlebrow. The fact based nature of the work coupled with my lack of experience with the vast majority of the shows discussed makes dissenting quite difficult. However there were two points that I felt needed to be discussed with while reading.
First, I wish that the audience’s perspective would have been more prominent throughout the chapter. Aside from small references such as the discussion of the Honeymooners where Newman writes, “Ralph was not alone. His audience laughed at his failures, but they also felt his pain,” (Newman 53). I feel that although the facts are important to present, the reader also needs personal perspective. It is tough for someone of my generation to read so much information on unfamiliar television shows without getting a sense of how the viewers saw it. For example, Newman discusses how the possibility of a celebrity being Communist resulted in sponsors pulling their money out of shows, causing some to be cancelled. How did the average viewer feel about the implication that a celebrity might be Communist? Was this an issue at all; were they extremely concerned? It would be helpful to have the public perspective so that the reader can develop a stronger sense of the climate in which these shows were being produced. In other words, Newman presents an almost insiders look on the television industry in the 1950s (as we are privileged to have interviews and retrospective looks on the subject from those who lived it) while a cultural review would be interesting as well.
Another reason that a look at the general population would be helpful, as well as another issue I had with the chapter is the insinuation that the honeymooners had a political agenda. Gleason denied that these plots had any political significance. "Gleason professed to see no political agenda in his depiction of the poverty and thwarted materialism of the working classes." He insisted that Ralph was ‘no symbol, no metaphor…’ (Newman 50). Could this be true? It seems very possible to me that Gleason did not see any political commentary behind his character, Ralph. Instead, he may have seen a typical man of the era. It seems slightly confusing to assume that Gleason was making his show to convey an agenda when it seems like the show was just mirroring the times. Life during this era did seem hard (this would be another good time to get a viewer’s perspective on how they related to the characters they watched) and perhaps Gleason was just attempting to make the viewer feel comfortable watching someone with problems just like theirs.
I understand that the direction of this chapter is meant to be informational, leaving little room for anecdotal accounts. However, the use of interviews or statistics on viewership from the 1950s might give the reader a better understanding of the climate these shows were premiering during.
First, I wish that the audience’s perspective would have been more prominent throughout the chapter. Aside from small references such as the discussion of the Honeymooners where Newman writes, “Ralph was not alone. His audience laughed at his failures, but they also felt his pain,” (Newman 53). I feel that although the facts are important to present, the reader also needs personal perspective. It is tough for someone of my generation to read so much information on unfamiliar television shows without getting a sense of how the viewers saw it. For example, Newman discusses how the possibility of a celebrity being Communist resulted in sponsors pulling their money out of shows, causing some to be cancelled. How did the average viewer feel about the implication that a celebrity might be Communist? Was this an issue at all; were they extremely concerned? It would be helpful to have the public perspective so that the reader can develop a stronger sense of the climate in which these shows were being produced. In other words, Newman presents an almost insiders look on the television industry in the 1950s (as we are privileged to have interviews and retrospective looks on the subject from those who lived it) while a cultural review would be interesting as well.
Another reason that a look at the general population would be helpful, as well as another issue I had with the chapter is the insinuation that the honeymooners had a political agenda. Gleason denied that these plots had any political significance. "Gleason professed to see no political agenda in his depiction of the poverty and thwarted materialism of the working classes." He insisted that Ralph was ‘no symbol, no metaphor…’ (Newman 50). Could this be true? It seems very possible to me that Gleason did not see any political commentary behind his character, Ralph. Instead, he may have seen a typical man of the era. It seems slightly confusing to assume that Gleason was making his show to convey an agenda when it seems like the show was just mirroring the times. Life during this era did seem hard (this would be another good time to get a viewer’s perspective on how they related to the characters they watched) and perhaps Gleason was just attempting to make the viewer feel comfortable watching someone with problems just like theirs.
I understand that the direction of this chapter is meant to be informational, leaving little room for anecdotal accounts. However, the use of interviews or statistics on viewership from the 1950s might give the reader a better understanding of the climate these shows were premiering during.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Decline of *The McCarthy Show*
In this final chunk of Doherty, he accomplishes what he set out to do with this book. Although, as we’ve pointed out, this book isn’t as argument driven as some of our other course texts, that doesn’t mean that Doherty doesn’t have a clear task in the project. Doherty’s task is to rewrite what he calls the “conventional wisdom” regarding television in the McCarthy era: the view of TV as “Purveyor of sedative pabulum, facilitator of the blacklist, handmaiden to McCarthyism” (2). In Doherty’s introduction he quotes Eric Barnouw as saying that TV “would learn caution, and cowardice” during the McCarthy period; Doherty undermines this assertion, however, by appending that TV “would also utter defiance and encourage resistance” (3). Illustrating this resistance and, in doing so, illuminating the ways in which McCarthyism and McCarthy were addressed, exposed, articulated and critiqued by television of the 1950s is just what Doherty does in this last section.The televisual defiance of McCarthyism that comes across in this section is especially vivid because Doherty has set it up so that this section figures the decline of McCarthy, his downfall. For instance, Joseph Welch, articulating the vox populi, famously asks Senator McCarthy if he retains any sense of decency. In this moment Welch speaks for the entire contingent of the television audience that had grown tired of the McCarthy Show, which was a sort of rerun before such a thing existed in that, despite the fact that the McCarthy Show ran on different networks and under different names, the plot was conventional, the characters often the same, and even the script and punchlines predictable. As Doherty illustrates, 50s Americans got a kick out of reciting “Are you now, or have you ever been, a communist?” and shouting “Point of order!” Audiences had enjoyed it for a time, but as Welch illustrates, many TV viewers were ready for the McCarthy Show to be cancelled.
Perhaps feeling that his readers were also growing tired of McCarthy coverage, Doherty offers us a bit of a relief in Chapter 10 by taking the spotlight off of McCarthy and onto some glittery 50s celebrities, Christine Jorgensen and Liberace, and then suggesting that these two queer icons have more in common with “McCarthy and his men” than we might have ever suspected. Although it’s very easy today to look back and shake our heads, imagining that McCarthyism’s connection of homosexuality with communism is a logical conclusion of a xenophobic era, there’s more to learn from this point than simply a confirmation of our assumption that people in the 50s were closed minded. Doherty wants to assert here and elsewhere that the 1950s was a period of acute worry and anxiety on multiple fronts: communism, homosexuality, the decline of religion, momism, new expectations for men, and so on. That these things were seen related is far from outrageous: communism, for instance, was connected to irreligiosity because Marx extolled atheism; homosexuality was related to those “gender troubles” because it was seen as a dysfunction that was produced by dominating mothers or too-soft fathers.
As we’ve learned during this semester, these anxieties are linked to real things: a postwar climate in which men had returned from war and women had returned to home from the workplace, a rise in domestication whereby a new model of the nuclear family had become—very quickly— taken for granted, and so on. What these worries all had in common was that they were commonly believed to be readily preventable if only people would recognize the problems and cling to the “Judeo-Christian heritage” that was so often invoked in this era.
The remainder of Doherty’s book largely concerns fictional treatments of McCarthyism that were undertaken after the fact. With the relative immunity afforded by time, these films and television shows are unafraid to take on McCarthyism and blacklisting; in the case of The Front, for instance, Doherty mentions the notations of blacklisting that accompanied its closing credits and vividly shows us that “a scar of shame in the 1950s has become a badge of honor in the 1970s” (253). That’s no surprise, of course; today we’re allowed to say with all impunity that McCarthy was a scoundrel. But what Doherty’s text has shown us is that the dissent seen in media after McCarthy was really not all that different than the dissent seen in television during the height of McCarthyism.
Ultimately we can say that the McCarthy Show was never truly cancelled but instead, due to popular demand, reinvented after the decline of its protagonist. It wasn’t a one-way process, though: while the McCarthy Show was reinvented after the decline of its protagonist, it was simultaneously reinvented in order to facilitate that decline. In this way the McCarthy Show is much like the Howard Beale Show in Paddy Chayefsky’s 1975 film Network, in which Howard Beale is killed on the air in order to save the poor ratings of his show. He was pretty popular for a while. We all got a kick out of his ranting and raving. But then we just plain got tired of him.
“One may never know when the homosexual is about, he may appear normal.”
Utterly fascinated by chapter ten of Doherty’s book, I want to evidence the argument by attempting to fill some gaps. Resembling many of our other discussions concerning Cold War, Cool Medium, the chapter “Pixies” expounds upon knowledge Doherty assumes his audience possesses. The author launches into a discussion of the underlying fear of homosexuality prevalent in American culture up to, and exploding in, the 1950’s. What the author fails to do is establish the environment that would harbor and foster such fears. Although it seems that Doherty wants to create the argument that television initiated the movement of alternative lifestyles into mainstream entertainment, this does not happen (if it has) for decades. What the chapter lacks is an effective example of what charges of homosexuality truly implied in 1950’s culture. If Doherty is gong to spend time discussing the tabloid probes into Liberace’s marital status and examining the body language of the McCarthy hearings, he needs to present a “why” to support his “how.”
Accusations of homosexual activity carried stronger social implications in the 1950’s than they do today. Not seen then as a fashion trend or a vehicle for comic relief, the psychological origins and effects of homosexuality were serious problems. Consider that the American Psychiatric Association did not remove homosexuality from the official list of mental illness until 1973 and, until this point; the “condition” was closely linked to pedophiles, kidnappers, and murderers. It was also widely believed that homosexuality rose out of the absence of a boy’s father and the domineering, female oriented influence of his mother. If a boy did not grow up with the appropriate father figure he could not become a real man and therefore not a real American. Suggesting, especially publicly, that a person was a homosexual also suggested that they were “un-American.”
Doherty does attempt to connect the dots, i.e. how being “gay” could be as bad as being “commie,” but he lacks the historical/sociological explanations necessary. The film I am posting along with my dissent was produced in affiliation with the
What the chapter does highlight is the notable exclusion of gay/lesbian characters on television in the 1950’s. Even checking through studies of such characters through television history, very few references appear to anyone before the 1960’s.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Life Is Worth Living Now That I Have a New Comedy Routine
So, though it's not my turn, I've got to show you all this if you haven't looked it up. I grew up Catholic and my mother and grandparents also went to Catholic schools, so Life Is Worth Living is a large fascination to me. I'm pretty sure that my grandparents both watched this one.
Anywho, Doherty was not kidding when he said Fulton Sheen cracked some sweet jokes. These are pun-riffic, and I do love me a pun. And then he cranks out mad propaganda. Wow. This guy is good.
Also, if you go look at these clips at the YouTube website, you can have the added bonus of all the lovely and ever-thoughtful comments by intelligent YouTube users, which are often my favorite component of any clip.
Enjoy heartily.
Anywho, Doherty was not kidding when he said Fulton Sheen cracked some sweet jokes. These are pun-riffic, and I do love me a pun. And then he cranks out mad propaganda. Wow. This guy is good.
Also, if you go look at these clips at the YouTube website, you can have the added bonus of all the lovely and ever-thoughtful comments by intelligent YouTube users, which are often my favorite component of any clip.
Enjoy heartily.
"White Knight of the Airwaves"
Doherty maintains a fresh prose that serves to make some of the most dramatic moments in history seem even more theatrical. His eighth chapter's ode to broadcasting hero Ed Murrow does this with a twinge of irony: Murrow, the fabled hero, slays the dragon McCarthy on live television. Sensationalist for sure, tongue-in-cheek a bit, but Doherty is serious. Murrow is the "patron saint of broadcast journalism" (161), the bearer of truth in a sea of spin. Andrea supplied this quote below from Doherty's argument (which she rightly says is overarching) that, "through television, America became a more open and tolerant place" (2). While I can't agree that Doherty consistently supports this hard-to-prove point throughout the text, I do think that the particular case study of Murrow vs. McCarthy amicably backs up Doherty's assessment (minus one pretty crucial thing; but I'm advocating, so I'll save it for the afterthought).I'm inclined to agree with Andrea's post below in that See It Now is praised as a unifier, somewhat out of context with Doherty's point about tolerant America; in fact, it is intolerance that spurned Murrow to unravel his opponents. But what I can agree with is that See It Now does in fact offer a level playing field that did not previously exist to such a degree in American media. Albeit through an unmistakable bias likely encouraged by crystal-clear hindsight, Doherty is presenting Murrow and the show as a moral compass that quite literally allowed its viewers to navigate their own opinion. The difference with See It Now, and what appears to have made it so special, is that it offered two sides to the same story and was unafraid to tell them, leading to social change in some cases. There's a good visual anecdote of this when Doherty is describing the dual coastal monitors: San Francisco on the left, Brooklyn on the right, Murrow in the middle. I think, and I can't say that he is 100% successful, Doherty is accurately locating Murrow's crusade as one of the first instances of media, particularly moving media images, as being aware of itself as a very powerful political tool. It's unmistakable how much this is true today (just one thought back to this past election and I'm sure we'd all have mouthfuls to say about media representation and its relationship to political agenda).
I am, however, left feeling somewhat confused by this last chapter, as I can't say I know where Doherty's laid his cards as far as the book's argument goes. On the one hand, he praises Murrow at times so gratuitously, one can't help but see how Doherty's own personal bias has structured his use or non-use of evidence. Don't get me wrong: I think Ed Murrow was a brilliant figure (incidentally, I just finished watching 2005's Good Night, and Good Luck, which was a little underwhelming compared to the real-life stuff) and I agree that he, along with the CBS writers and crew etc., pioneered the kind of talk-back, take-back liberal pundit journalism that circulates so widely today. On the other hand, though, there are moments where Doherty can't properly filter this admiration in an objective way, which signals alarms for myself as an analytical reader regardless of the subject matter. My issue is with Doherty's odd deconstruction of what reads as Murrow's "free verse" (174) poetry (his transcripts from the broadcasts); his interjections seem a little peculiar. But, as I'm advocating, I digress.
Advocating or dissenting, though, I think there's an important question that rises from the Murrow/McCarthy exchange, and that is regarding the issue of representation. I'm not entirely convinced that Doherty offers a fair balance between Murrow and McCarthy, but is that even possible considering the nostalgic historical perspective from which we look? Even during its time, did something so subversive as See It Now, even with its political inclusivity, really ever allow for a fair and unbiased perspective - that tolerant, even playing field that Doherty's been touching on - to exist between Murrow and McCarthy? On the most superficial level, and Doherty chimes in on this multiple times, Murrow was a fantastic orator; "showstopping" (176), even - but of course he was; he's a TV man, that's his job. Compared with McCarthy's response, which was "poor in quality with spotty cutting and monotonous one-camera shots of McCarthy sitting at a desk directly facing the lens" (186). The editing could be brutal and the audience would be none the wiser. In that regard, I don't agree that America was becoming more tolerant through television media; it seems to me like America was becoming more bifurcated. I do, however, agree that See It Now provided a forum that, for the first time, mediated between the right and left with a subtle subversive swing that makes its success that much sweeter.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Evidence?
While the television may have been the vehicle for encouraging the downfall of Senator McCarthy, I don’t agree that the downfall was the result of a more accepting, open-minded American audience. What I mean is that I don’t think Americans ousted McCarthy for his overt criticism of communism, but instead for the obvious injustices to the American constitution and ideologies in McCarthy's televised hearings. In that regard, Murrow’s unmasking of McCarthy’s political antics was not rooted in accepting difference, but illuminating the injustices of McCarthy’s tyrannical attacks. Therefore, if television did promote a more accepting society, it was a by-product of other intentions, rather than one of television's intentional functions. However, in light of my assenting assignment, I will attempt to illuminate some of Doherty’s observations that I think serve as evidence for his main argument. Although I don’t think he states this directly or even particularly clearly, (thus suggesting that my comments largely depend on my own analysis of his discussion), I do think that chapters seven and eight provide evidence, although questionable, for Doherty’s overarching argument that 1950s television sparked “the expansion of freedom of expression and the embrace of human difference,” and thus, “through television, America became a more open and tolerant place” (2).
First, I must say that I was intrigued by Doherty’s discussion of the multifarious identity of the 1950’s male, and couldn’t help drawing parallels to our current society and political wartime situation. The same task of being American among a variety of other adjectives relates to our current situation wherein I myself face the dilemma of being a female American whose liberal Democratic views were concretized during the Bush Administration (a time in which expected and propagandized patriotism soared), am an Iraq war protestor, an Amnesty International advocator, a corporate bail-out critic, and an individual who absolutely loves this country. How can one person be all of these things; how can one person be all of these things and be “American”? I think Doherty does a fine job of illuminating the individual complexities via psychoanalysis within the larger narratives of patriotism, nationalism, and American-ism, thus, for me, questioning the very nature of such –isms, as I think Doherty attempts to critique. Inherent in determining “Un-American” activities is the need to define “American” ones, and I think its fair to say that this may have caused concern for many postwar citizens, in that not many could fit the rigid expectations of the ideal American, and therefore lead the masses to question the such categorizations. An American can be many things that would obviously differ from neighbor to neighbor. Sympathetic to Philbrick’s situation in I Led 3 Lives, Doherty reminds us that “for the postwar American male, controlled schizophrenia was not a mental state reserved for spies and double agents…[for the American male] the multiplicity of roles played at the same time by the same man had never been so numerous and varied…Philbrick’s plight bespeaks an entire generation juggling shifting identities and mercurial relationships…In watching Philbrick watch himself, perhaps Americans identified less with his political agenda than his psychic agility…at a time when so many were leading three lives or more” (148). I think Doherty’s point here, then, is that audience members viewing various persecutions based on “Un-American-ism” allowed the break down of the condemning gaze with which many Americans viewed difference.
Doherty also highlights how media, for biased political and nationalist reasons, favored the representation of one side of the debate, thus unfairly silencing and condemning the opinion with which the government disagreed. Such practices illuminated the civil rights violation of freedom of speech and, as Doherty asserts, the only way to address such issues would be to “find a court dedicated to the rare principle of equal justice for all” (143, emphasis added). I can see how the recognition of this unjustness would elicit sympathy from American viewers not for the Communists, but for the accused’s situation in the judicial system and society, which possibly, then, may have transcribed into some, even if minimal or unintentional, sympathy for Communist individuals in America (?). Additionally, while I Led 3 Lives “critique[d] anticommunist paranoia” speaking “to the plight of the duped liberal smeared by his past associations” suggests a desire for past associations to be forgiven—to move forward, looking ahead rather than back, with a clean slate. Likewise, Doherty uses the See It Now report on Senator McCarthy as a means to suggest a shift toward greater freedom of expression in the media: “when television, the medium so leery of controversial personalities, so devoted to ‘100% acceptability,’ provided a forum for anti-McCarthyism, the gesture marked a seismic shift in the zeitgeist” (162). This television moment, central to Doherty’s argument regarding the expansive possibility for freedom of expression, opened doors for disagreement, contrasting yet equally credible opinions, and controversy on national television—Controversy is “as American as the Rocky Mountains and the Fourth of July” (171); controversy, rather than conformity, is American.
Finally, I think Doherty’s discussion of the Annie Lee Moss case is vital to his argument; Moss “played her part” according to the stereotypes promulgated through popular shows like Amos and Andy and duped the system which believed in and supported such stereotypes. Playing the uneducated Negress, “she stalled over ‘adjudication,’” and “the gallery chuckled, in sympathy, in condescension, at the limited education of the poor black woman” (182). Doherty asserts, however, that Moss “savored the last laugh” (184). Annie, who, as later revealed by the FBI, was indeed a Communist, essentially forced white American viewers to think critically about the Negro stereotypes infiltrating the airwaves of radio and television, and be more open and willing to the possibility of equality among Blacks and Whites in America.
Through these few instances in 1950s television, Doherty attempts to highlight how television was not only used for political propaganda, fueling anxiety about the war and communism, and instilling fear in the American people; he argues that there were, in fact, also instances where television programs reinforced the freedoms that McCarthyism threatened, thus opening doorways for more accepting, open, and tolerant views.
First, I must say that I was intrigued by Doherty’s discussion of the multifarious identity of the 1950’s male, and couldn’t help drawing parallels to our current society and political wartime situation. The same task of being American among a variety of other adjectives relates to our current situation wherein I myself face the dilemma of being a female American whose liberal Democratic views were concretized during the Bush Administration (a time in which expected and propagandized patriotism soared), am an Iraq war protestor, an Amnesty International advocator, a corporate bail-out critic, and an individual who absolutely loves this country. How can one person be all of these things; how can one person be all of these things and be “American”? I think Doherty does a fine job of illuminating the individual complexities via psychoanalysis within the larger narratives of patriotism, nationalism, and American-ism, thus, for me, questioning the very nature of such –isms, as I think Doherty attempts to critique. Inherent in determining “Un-American” activities is the need to define “American” ones, and I think its fair to say that this may have caused concern for many postwar citizens, in that not many could fit the rigid expectations of the ideal American, and therefore lead the masses to question the such categorizations. An American can be many things that would obviously differ from neighbor to neighbor. Sympathetic to Philbrick’s situation in I Led 3 Lives, Doherty reminds us that “for the postwar American male, controlled schizophrenia was not a mental state reserved for spies and double agents…[for the American male] the multiplicity of roles played at the same time by the same man had never been so numerous and varied…Philbrick’s plight bespeaks an entire generation juggling shifting identities and mercurial relationships…In watching Philbrick watch himself, perhaps Americans identified less with his political agenda than his psychic agility…at a time when so many were leading three lives or more” (148). I think Doherty’s point here, then, is that audience members viewing various persecutions based on “Un-American-ism” allowed the break down of the condemning gaze with which many Americans viewed difference.
Doherty also highlights how media, for biased political and nationalist reasons, favored the representation of one side of the debate, thus unfairly silencing and condemning the opinion with which the government disagreed. Such practices illuminated the civil rights violation of freedom of speech and, as Doherty asserts, the only way to address such issues would be to “find a court dedicated to the rare principle of equal justice for all” (143, emphasis added). I can see how the recognition of this unjustness would elicit sympathy from American viewers not for the Communists, but for the accused’s situation in the judicial system and society, which possibly, then, may have transcribed into some, even if minimal or unintentional, sympathy for Communist individuals in America (?). Additionally, while I Led 3 Lives “critique[d] anticommunist paranoia” speaking “to the plight of the duped liberal smeared by his past associations” suggests a desire for past associations to be forgiven—to move forward, looking ahead rather than back, with a clean slate. Likewise, Doherty uses the See It Now report on Senator McCarthy as a means to suggest a shift toward greater freedom of expression in the media: “when television, the medium so leery of controversial personalities, so devoted to ‘100% acceptability,’ provided a forum for anti-McCarthyism, the gesture marked a seismic shift in the zeitgeist” (162). This television moment, central to Doherty’s argument regarding the expansive possibility for freedom of expression, opened doors for disagreement, contrasting yet equally credible opinions, and controversy on national television—Controversy is “as American as the Rocky Mountains and the Fourth of July” (171); controversy, rather than conformity, is American.
Finally, I think Doherty’s discussion of the Annie Lee Moss case is vital to his argument; Moss “played her part” according to the stereotypes promulgated through popular shows like Amos and Andy and duped the system which believed in and supported such stereotypes. Playing the uneducated Negress, “she stalled over ‘adjudication,’” and “the gallery chuckled, in sympathy, in condescension, at the limited education of the poor black woman” (182). Doherty asserts, however, that Moss “savored the last laugh” (184). Annie, who, as later revealed by the FBI, was indeed a Communist, essentially forced white American viewers to think critically about the Negro stereotypes infiltrating the airwaves of radio and television, and be more open and willing to the possibility of equality among Blacks and Whites in America.
Through these few instances in 1950s television, Doherty attempts to highlight how television was not only used for political propaganda, fueling anxiety about the war and communism, and instilling fear in the American people; he argues that there were, in fact, also instances where television programs reinforced the freedoms that McCarthyism threatened, thus opening doorways for more accepting, open, and tolerant views.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Schizophrenic confusion
In chapters six and seven of Thomas Doherty's Cold War, Cool Medium, calmness and anxiety seem to be key opponents to Cold War television. In what sounds like a cross between Flavor of Love and Judge Judy, Kefauver's televised hearings showed the chaos of organized crime. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI is portrayed as calm and collected, in opposition to the bumbling cops of local offices. Bishop Sheen serves in direct contrast to earlier hot-headed and caustic Catholic priests in media (159). And McCarthy also will be shown to be an enraged and irrational beast by Howard Murrows. In analyzing I Led 3 Lives, Doherty posits that "book and telefim" both "[express] the psychic turmoil of the multitasking 1950s male" (142). Using another spy's own term for his double-agenting, Doherty later terms this Philbrick's "controlled schizophrenia" (148, 149). This internal struggle is heightened for the double agent, but according to the reference on page 142, this was a common psychological battle for 1950s men. Where does this idea come from and where does it go?
There is much to say about postwar anxiety, particularly for men in the 1950s, but Doherty doesn't say it, so it's not clear what "multitasking" he means. Also missing from this undercurrent of order/chaos is its connection to communist/capitalist ideologies. Order is necessary to combat the chaos of figures such as corrupt cops, fire-and-brimstone priests, and loony McCarthyites. But as we discussed earlier in the course, order is also the source of suburban anxiety and a counterimaginary. Order is national unity and just progress, but it is also conformity and communal thinking. Individuality is chaos, not calm. Making this paradox of what is seen as "good" on TV further exacerbated, all of these calm figures stem from large institutions: Kefauver is federal and sweeping the nation; Hoover is federal and part of an expanding bureaucracy; Sheen is part of the enormous Catholic Church and endorses religion, a conformed and nonindividualist religion as promoted by Eisenhower (149-150). Murrows is perhaps the only figure who appears as calm reason without a lot of institutional/bureaucratic association. Doherty ignores this paradox between order as good and orderly as communist.
Doherty is very convincing in his explanation of the trumping of spectacle within a spectacular medium, but he seems to ignore the "how" of it. I imagine that the line of thinking runs thus: people are anxious, therefore calm figures are necessary (if not necessarily always popular in ratings, then in ideology). But the counterpoint to these television appearances are the variety shows, surely a form of schizophrenia on stage, which ultimately triumphed for financial reasons if not also for interest. There is (as of yet) no reference in Doherty's argument to how these two forms of entertainment play out on an ideological level and why one wins in service television and the other in entertainment television. Murrows "slays" McCarthy, so the tide does finally fully turn against pro-America fascism, but I'm not sure how to read the differences in popular and service shows, because Doherty combines them into a seamless set of national television programming, even while admitting that they are not.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
McCarthy: From Budding Tyrant to Disgruntled Prepubescent Girl
I want to dissent. I want to dissent oh-so-very badly. ...But since I'm not dissenting, I'm going to just agree with everything I liked and ignore the lack of evidence pointing to his major argument and the fact a lot of his evidence is in fact contradictory to his claim that TV in the Cold War also uttered defiance and encouraged resistance against a hyperconformist culture.
Now considering all I did in high school and college was study the Cold War and make fun of McCarthy, I have to say chapter 5 was a delightfully good time and all I'm going to talk about. McCarthy being a moronic psychopath wasn't very flattering on TV. Still, there was a good 4 year period where McCarthy was on TV, making noise, and getting everything he demanded to the point of being treated even better than former president Truman by the media. A whole fifteen minutes better!
Without a doubt McCarthy being so widely publicized on TV when he blindly attacked the wrong people (Army vs. McCarthy hearings in 1954, for example) with improperly quoted excerpts (like no politician has ever done and never will do again) damaged him. However, a large credit to McCarthy's defamation would better be associated with him taking it too far: attacking the republicans just the same was he did the democrats (pp. 102-3). Props to McCarthy for being an nondiscriminatory brainless moron, but still it's not the best move politically.
While the sudden turn of the media denying McCarthy's air time was significant, and the FCC not forcing it on them was an excellent point (p. 95), I still don't see this as being a sudden change from conformity. There was still a strong sense of conformity: communist imperialism: evil, capitalist imperialism: heavenly. Just McCarthy took his momentary power trip too far by calling everyone everywhere who ever slighted him and made his testicles wither a communist. To make matters worse, once he stopped getting his way he just got more reckless and whinier. That's not exactly the most flattering combination. Consequently he landed face first in a pile of the president and the media's collective vomit.
So long rant short: Doherty's evidence is excellent. The only problem is it tells a story not reflective of his main argument, which I'm going to guess is why he often fails to draw any conclusions and instead creates a running cultural and historical dialogue rather than any strong argument. ...That counts as assenting, yes?
Now considering all I did in high school and college was study the Cold War and make fun of McCarthy, I have to say chapter 5 was a delightfully good time and all I'm going to talk about. McCarthy being a moronic psychopath wasn't very flattering on TV. Still, there was a good 4 year period where McCarthy was on TV, making noise, and getting everything he demanded to the point of being treated even better than former president Truman by the media. A whole fifteen minutes better!
Without a doubt McCarthy being so widely publicized on TV when he blindly attacked the wrong people (Army vs. McCarthy hearings in 1954, for example) with improperly quoted excerpts (like no politician has ever done and never will do again) damaged him. However, a large credit to McCarthy's defamation would better be associated with him taking it too far: attacking the republicans just the same was he did the democrats (pp. 102-3). Props to McCarthy for being an nondiscriminatory brainless moron, but still it's not the best move politically.
While the sudden turn of the media denying McCarthy's air time was significant, and the FCC not forcing it on them was an excellent point (p. 95), I still don't see this as being a sudden change from conformity. There was still a strong sense of conformity: communist imperialism: evil, capitalist imperialism: heavenly. Just McCarthy took his momentary power trip too far by calling everyone everywhere who ever slighted him and made his testicles wither a communist. To make matters worse, once he stopped getting his way he just got more reckless and whinier. That's not exactly the most flattering combination. Consequently he landed face first in a pile of the president and the media's collective vomit.
So long rant short: Doherty's evidence is excellent. The only problem is it tells a story not reflective of his main argument, which I'm going to guess is why he often fails to draw any conclusions and instead creates a running cultural and historical dialogue rather than any strong argument. ...That counts as assenting, yes?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Stand for Something or Fall for Anything
Make a stand Tom! I’m still looking for an instance in which Doherty really comes out and takes a side on any of the issues that he raises, which has only made my dissention that much more difficult. That said, I suppose that this ambivalence in Doherty’s presentation of the events he covers is itself a problem. Too often we find him walking the line between cool acceptance and moderate indignation without tying himself to one or the other. His fluid and skillful prose style, while perfectly enjoyable to read (someone needs to take the initiative and send a copy of this book to our friend Leerom), masks it more of a historical account rather than a cultural commentary.
I fully agree with Janice’s aggravation when she notes how Doherty seems to resist delving further into the emergence of the black actor on television. He brings up how, “the African American press worked both sides of the street, attacking the show on the editorial pages while puffing up the black actors on the entertainment pages and pocketing the revenues” (79). Great! This is where I felt that the conversation should begin, rather than end. Were the portrayals of African Americans in Amos n Andy nothing but backhanded racism, or necessary growing pains in the rise of the black actor? Both positions could easily be argued, but the question not only goes unanswered, but is never even raised.
Another instance in which we could use more of a “for or against” standpoint is in the view of the FCC. It would seem that the creation of the “highway patrol” of the airwaves is a defining moment in both the history of television and the government’s first steps down a path that leads to decisions of what is and is not appropriate viewing material for the public at large (60). (It’s birth being the dark clouds on the horizon for Janet Jackson) Here is a polarizing agency if ever there was one, and we still get only a brief hint as to Doherty’s goal in including it in his book. One would think it nearly impossible to mention a group that creates the guidelines for public airwaves without inserting some emotion, yet Doherty remains oddly apart from it. He begins to make a point when talking about the influence the FCC had on executives and its close ties to the Republican party and McCarthy when he says that, “the early actions of the Republicanized FCC seemed to confirm the worst fears of the networks” (93). Even after this, however, I find myself wishing he had gone further. Like many other places in the book, I’m left wanting more.
I fully agree with Janice’s aggravation when she notes how Doherty seems to resist delving further into the emergence of the black actor on television. He brings up how, “the African American press worked both sides of the street, attacking the show on the editorial pages while puffing up the black actors on the entertainment pages and pocketing the revenues” (79). Great! This is where I felt that the conversation should begin, rather than end. Were the portrayals of African Americans in Amos n Andy nothing but backhanded racism, or necessary growing pains in the rise of the black actor? Both positions could easily be argued, but the question not only goes unanswered, but is never even raised.
Another instance in which we could use more of a “for or against” standpoint is in the view of the FCC. It would seem that the creation of the “highway patrol” of the airwaves is a defining moment in both the history of television and the government’s first steps down a path that leads to decisions of what is and is not appropriate viewing material for the public at large (60). (It’s birth being the dark clouds on the horizon for Janet Jackson) Here is a polarizing agency if ever there was one, and we still get only a brief hint as to Doherty’s goal in including it in his book. One would think it nearly impossible to mention a group that creates the guidelines for public airwaves without inserting some emotion, yet Doherty remains oddly apart from it. He begins to make a point when talking about the influence the FCC had on executives and its close ties to the Republican party and McCarthy when he says that, “the early actions of the Republicanized FCC seemed to confirm the worst fears of the networks” (93). Even after this, however, I find myself wishing he had gone further. Like many other places in the book, I’m left wanting more.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Television: a way to unite humanity, or just a large scale marketing ploy?
When I first read that “…television was a sympathetic, even breakthrough, medium for African Americans…long before Rosa Parks refused a backseat bus ride in Montgomery , Alabama, in 1955” in the Hypersensitivity chapter of Thomas Doherty’s Cold War, Cool Medium I was intrigued (71). It was surprising and interesting to learn that the interactions portrayed between different races on television shows were years ahead of their time in terms of racial equality and integration.
However, as I continued to read I became less and less intrigued and more and more angered as I began to realize that the racial equality portrayed on TV had almost nothing to do with promoting civil rights and instead had everything to do with making as much profit as possible. Black actors and actresses were seen as just pawns in the American television economy. They were used in order to entice a “15 billion dollar Negro market” to watch the shows, and they were treated as equals only to placate the network’s black viewers and keep them returning for more. As Doherty puts it, “show business producers worried that offending African Americans might be more costly than amusing white Americans” (76).
I obviously agree with Doherty that “behind the ethical qualms were economic fears” (76). However, I wonder why he did not probe and question the subject further. Did the black audience know they were being exploited? If so, did they even care, or were they just so happy to see someone on TV who looked like them that it didn’t matter? It is hard to deny that even though the network producers clearly had hidden agendas and motives when casting African American actors, hiring them did in fact promote a message of equality that was never before acknowledged. Thus, I wonder if Doherty simply feels that the ends justify the means?
However, as I continued to read I became less and less intrigued and more and more angered as I began to realize that the racial equality portrayed on TV had almost nothing to do with promoting civil rights and instead had everything to do with making as much profit as possible. Black actors and actresses were seen as just pawns in the American television economy. They were used in order to entice a “15 billion dollar Negro market” to watch the shows, and they were treated as equals only to placate the network’s black viewers and keep them returning for more. As Doherty puts it, “show business producers worried that offending African Americans might be more costly than amusing white Americans” (76).
I obviously agree with Doherty that “behind the ethical qualms were economic fears” (76). However, I wonder why he did not probe and question the subject further. Did the black audience know they were being exploited? If so, did they even care, or were they just so happy to see someone on TV who looked like them that it didn’t matter? It is hard to deny that even though the network producers clearly had hidden agendas and motives when casting African American actors, hiring them did in fact promote a message of equality that was never before acknowledged. Thus, I wonder if Doherty simply feels that the ends justify the means?
Doherty: Cool Author, Cold Evidence
I agree with Quetzal – it is hard to advocate for this reading since the author has laid down his thesis but hasn’t provided much support for it yet. Luckily I’m the dissenting post! In the first 59 pages of Cold War, Cool Medium, Doherty does a better job convincing me of the “conventional wisdom” he’s trying to disprove than of his belief that television allowed America to become a more tolerant place.
Quetzal mentions the NBC live news program in which McCarthy answered difficult questions from a studio audience as one of the few examples that supported Doherty’s argument. However, even the NBC broadcast doesn’t work as evidence for television as a force of unprecedented tolerance and open-mindedness. In Doherty’s words, “the members of the audience… behave[d] pretty much the way Americans have always behaved in the presence of their elected representatives: respectful but skeptical, the questions polite but probing, sometimes downright hostile” (17). If their actions were merely representative of typical American behavior towards politicians, then even this piece of evidence fails to support Doherty’s radical claims about the “cool medium.”
In the second chapter, “The Gestalt of the Blacklist,” Doherty’s description continues to support his counterargument rather than the point he’s trying to prove. Although he mentions one comedian who makes light of Communist party allegations by making jokes about attending parties thrown by communists, Doherty follows this shred of evidence with the admission that “rare was the entertainer who could muster black humor about the blacklist. For every television actor who stood firm, dozens more quaked and complied” (32).
In the third chapter, I was looking forward to Doherty using his case studies to better support his thesis. After all, writers have to lay down a foundation before their arguments make sense; maybe Doherty was waiting for more specific cases to make his argument clear. However, the blacklist and eventual suicide of Philip Loeb and the allegations against Lucille Ball do not demonstrate television aiding America in becoming more tolerant. In fact, almost none of the manifestations of anti-McCarthy sentiment – the Sponsor article of 1951, Merle Miller’s The Judges and the Judged, and Actor’s Equity meetings – were transmitted through television. The only example I could glean from the reading was the first episode of the new season of I Love Lucy, when Desi Arnez assures the live studio audience and millions of viewers that his wife was not and had never been a communist. But even that action was a tangent, an aside: “Before we go on,” Desi prefaced, “I want to talk to you about something serious” (55). As we can see from this almost apologetic preamble to the episode, Desi must have known that a beloved television show was not the place to vouch for his wife’s political affiliation. Clearly television was at best an awkward and ineffective way of trying to clear one’s name.
Although Doherty does do a good job detailing the opposition to the blacklist, it is not through the medium of television but rather “before congressional committees, at union meetings, and in pages of entertainment trade press” that his evidence abounds (33).
Maybe it was her Vitameatavegamin...
I’m going to have to agree with Quetzal’s notion that it is a bit tough to assent for this section of reading since Doherty has yet to truly prove that "During the Cold War, through television, America became a more open and tolerant place." However, I can see the way his argument is starting to come around to that conclusion.
So far, Doherty has explained that television became the more popular medium in the
Doherty explains the relationship between the Cold War and TV stating that the “temporal bond […] suggested a codependent relationship” (3.) What better medium to spread propaganda to the masses than something new, exciting, and accessible? Doherty explains later that Americans had gained greater media literacy post-WWII: “after four years of screen propaganda, Americans has developed a keen sensitivity to the ideological currents of the popular media” (20). Doherty’s point that TV was accessible not only because it was not as laborious as reading, but that American’s had a more discerning eye for propaganda is very important. Despite the mild blacklisting hysteria that erupted in
The final chapter in which Doherty contrasts the tragic and triumphant results of blacklisting is the key to writing an assenting post for this section. Though The Goldbergs has a 17-year run on radio, and was relatively popular, the inclusion of Philip Loeb in Red Channel led to his blacklisting, and, likely, his eventual suicide. I Love Lucy has unprecedented popularity, with Philip Morris purchasing $8 million worth of advertising during its time slot and an estimated 44 million viewers for the episode where Lucy and Ricky welcome Little Ricky. There are more differences between the two shows than just popularity and sheer money-making capacity. Lucy and Desi Arnaz were not just TV personalities, but true show business people. After the accusations of Lucy’s Communist ties, Desi used the TV as a vehicle to dispel the claims; they used the most popular, intimate medium to tell ensure their viewers that their trust in their favorite TV family is not ill-placed: “Welcome to the first I Love Lucy show […] We are glad to see you back and we are glad to be back ourselves. But before we go on, I want to talk to you about something serious […] Lucy is no communist […] Lucille is 100 percent an American.” (55-56).
Doherty claims that “TV was too public a medium to keep all its business private” (37). For me, the I Love Lucy case study is where the tables are turned; as Doherty states: “TV was too public a medium to keep all its business private.” It is not until TV personalities understood the power that they held, as the characters families welcomed into their homes at night, that the medium could make the shift into influencing a more tolerant
Also, I found a clip of The Goldbergs:
And the episode of I Love Lucy Doherty mentions when "Little Ricky" was born:
Bonus: One of my favorite Lucy bits of all time:
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