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.
Monday, March 30, 2009
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:
Assenting?
My task for today is assenting, but I've found that very hard to do for this reading. Not because I feel the argument being made is wrong, but rather that I found the evidence for it rather lacking. Doherty sets out his argument at the end of the first paragraph on page 2 (continuing from page one):
"During the Cold War, through television, America became a more open and tolerant place."
This is set against the conventional argument that TV contributed to conformism rather than openness and tolerance. The argument is clear, but in reading through the following 58 pages I just didn't find anything that definitively backs it. The only example that came close was the account of the show where Joe McCarthy appeared as the guest politician and was asked critical questions by the members of the audience (or in some cases only statements were made). This was the only example I could find of television that was broadcasted that goes with Doherty's argument. On second thought, there was also the example at the very end with Lucille Ball having her real life pregancy correspond with Lucy's on air pregnancy.
Yes, there was plenty of exposition and discussion of the many incidents where prominent TV stars were accused of Communist ties and fought back (or did not fight back) against them, the Goldbergs, I Love Lucy, etc, but it seems almost all of that transpired off-screen, which I felt detracted immensely from Doherty's argument. The title is Cold War, Cool Medium, and so I felt that to really back his point Doherty needed to show that events on-screen backed his viewpoint. Of course, he has another 200-some pages to do this so maybe this is just laying the ground work.
On a side note, I was a somewhat shocked to read about the numerous televised broadcasts of atomic bomb tests. I mean, I've seen some of the various tapes replayed in movies or tv shows and so on, but I guess I never realized that those tapes were actually broadcast to people at the time that they happened -- I assumed that they were more like archival footage that was later re-used. The idea of watching a live atomic bomb go off almost gives me shivers.
"During the Cold War, through television, America became a more open and tolerant place."
This is set against the conventional argument that TV contributed to conformism rather than openness and tolerance. The argument is clear, but in reading through the following 58 pages I just didn't find anything that definitively backs it. The only example that came close was the account of the show where Joe McCarthy appeared as the guest politician and was asked critical questions by the members of the audience (or in some cases only statements were made). This was the only example I could find of television that was broadcasted that goes with Doherty's argument. On second thought, there was also the example at the very end with Lucille Ball having her real life pregancy correspond with Lucy's on air pregnancy.
Yes, there was plenty of exposition and discussion of the many incidents where prominent TV stars were accused of Communist ties and fought back (or did not fight back) against them, the Goldbergs, I Love Lucy, etc, but it seems almost all of that transpired off-screen, which I felt detracted immensely from Doherty's argument. The title is Cold War, Cool Medium, and so I felt that to really back his point Doherty needed to show that events on-screen backed his viewpoint. Of course, he has another 200-some pages to do this so maybe this is just laying the ground work.
On a side note, I was a somewhat shocked to read about the numerous televised broadcasts of atomic bomb tests. I mean, I've seen some of the various tapes replayed in movies or tv shows and so on, but I guess I never realized that those tapes were actually broadcast to people at the time that they happened -- I assumed that they were more like archival footage that was later re-used. The idea of watching a live atomic bomb go off almost gives me shivers.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Klein -- Assenting
It seems as though no one can ignore or even really disagree with Klein’s claim of familial ties creating political obligation. I find that I also agree with her idea and if it did not create an actual political obligation it at least created a definite sense of responsibility in the Western world. The family is supposed to be a close-knit community where one should be mentally and physically nourished; those who need help are given it and those who are searching for compassion can easily find it. Since American families could not really relate to Asians, what better way to bring them together than in a family setting? Klein shows that if a new member is introduced into the family circle, they will be tended to when in need, for those who are in bad shape are nursed out of it with the care of the other members of the family. This could be the case of the impoverished Asian child – a family feels compelled to adopt and support this child, wanting to make their living situation bearable.
With the media attention surrounding first the Hiroshima Maidens and then the CCF effort, the Western world could not help but be bombarded with the issues. By helping either of these groups, the American was in turn fighting communism from spreading its evil wings. Particularly with the CCF, the idea of adoption as a way to become involved and educated in Asian relations was popularized. As Klein points out, adoption of Asian children was actually being seen as an “effective means to fight the Cold War” (153). The most interesting thing about this idea is that actual breakdown of how this fights the Cold War: war leads to poverty which in turn leads to starving children, and those children are susceptible to communist promises – if we adopt and support these children, they will be saved from falling into communist hands and will not prove to be a threat to the security of the United States. Since “the hungry children of the world are more dangerous… than the atom bomb,” if we harness them and invite them into our families we can prevent the explosion and destruction of our culture (154). It is so interesting the ‘adoption’ almost became synonymous with ‘foreign aid’ and, in turn, ‘American preservation and expansion.’
The most telling part of Klein’s argument, in my opinion, is not the analysis of South Pacific, but rather the example she provided in Kennedy. Kennedy’s reliance and exploitation of America’s “political-obligation-as-parenthood” in a speech he gave made it clear that this was actually a rather common feeling in the Western world. “If we are not the parents of little Vietnam… then surely we are the godparents… this is our offspring – we cannot abandon it, we cannot ignore its needs” (189). This speech completely infantilizes and personifies South Vietnam, making it something that we must comfort and rock gently back to sleep before we can further nourish and raise it. He is using the obvious metaphor of adoption for expansion. Until her inclusion of this speech I thought the argument was only loosely based, but once I read this it became clear to me that this idea tapped into the feelings of a large chunk of Americans.
With the media attention surrounding first the Hiroshima Maidens and then the CCF effort, the Western world could not help but be bombarded with the issues. By helping either of these groups, the American was in turn fighting communism from spreading its evil wings. Particularly with the CCF, the idea of adoption as a way to become involved and educated in Asian relations was popularized. As Klein points out, adoption of Asian children was actually being seen as an “effective means to fight the Cold War” (153). The most interesting thing about this idea is that actual breakdown of how this fights the Cold War: war leads to poverty which in turn leads to starving children, and those children are susceptible to communist promises – if we adopt and support these children, they will be saved from falling into communist hands and will not prove to be a threat to the security of the United States. Since “the hungry children of the world are more dangerous… than the atom bomb,” if we harness them and invite them into our families we can prevent the explosion and destruction of our culture (154). It is so interesting the ‘adoption’ almost became synonymous with ‘foreign aid’ and, in turn, ‘American preservation and expansion.’
The most telling part of Klein’s argument, in my opinion, is not the analysis of South Pacific, but rather the example she provided in Kennedy. Kennedy’s reliance and exploitation of America’s “political-obligation-as-parenthood” in a speech he gave made it clear that this was actually a rather common feeling in the Western world. “If we are not the parents of little Vietnam… then surely we are the godparents… this is our offspring – we cannot abandon it, we cannot ignore its needs” (189). This speech completely infantilizes and personifies South Vietnam, making it something that we must comfort and rock gently back to sleep before we can further nourish and raise it. He is using the obvious metaphor of adoption for expansion. Until her inclusion of this speech I thought the argument was only loosely based, but once I read this it became clear to me that this idea tapped into the feelings of a large chunk of Americans.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Who assigned us the role of teacher?
It is difficult to dissent this week since I was convinced by Klein’s argument regarding Family Ties as Political Obligation. She ties in cultural references with political issues of the time very well. However, I could not help but think of the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” as Lieutenant Cable sings in South Pacific. After watching the film, South Pacific for the first time in class, I found the love and connection between Nellie and Emile’s children less convincing than Klein describes. If I hadn’t seen the film in class the other day, I would find it hard to dissent this week.
I think it is appropriate that Klein uses the word obligation because this idea of “familial love” as a method for bringing the U.S. and Asia closer seems forced rather than selfless. Klein describes the last scene when Nellie accepts Emile’s children as her own when she says, “Overcoming racism becomes here a precondition for successful expansion, and expansion the reward for overcoming racism. At the heart of this process lies Nellie’s embrace of motherhood.” (pg. 164) In the film, the scene does not seem as embracing as Klein says it is because Nellie is hesitant towards the children. This idea of love conquering all and something as complicated as racism especially in the 1950s, seems too Hollywood. Klein references Nellie in this scene and explains her position, “‘Now you have to learn to mind me when I talk to you, and be nice to me, too. Because I love you very much.’ Repudiating her racism, Nellie declares maternal love in its place.” (pg.165) Although Nellie may be trying to declare her love for Emile’s children, there is a feeling of force behind her declaration of love. Even when we as a class watched the scene, we laughed because although it may be Mitzi Gaynor’s acting skills, this line seems extremely coerced.
Like Alexa described in her post, I have seen the “adopt a child” commercials and I see where Klein’s argument that adoption was a way to relieve Americans of guilt. However, I look at those commercials thinking more about why we need to adopt these children out of guilt and not because we are all humans no matter their race it’s still important to help. There are plenty of children in the U.S. that need help and need to be adopted as well. Klein describes American’s adopting these Asian children because they can teach and mother them to proper human beings. According to Klein, Nellie embraces this idea and challenge to assume this role as mother but also as teacher for Emile’s children. This idea that Americans have to teach these children from other cultures in order to bring the U.S. and Asia closer seems backwards in regard to the effort. In South Pacific Nellie who was “carefully taught” to think of other races one way now has to be taught to think another. At the same time she needs to assume power over her new Polynesian children, but what does she know better than they do? Similarly what gave us Americans, the right to domesticate these Asian children in the 1950s, while racial issues between whites and African American were only growing.
I think it is appropriate that Klein uses the word obligation because this idea of “familial love” as a method for bringing the U.S. and Asia closer seems forced rather than selfless. Klein describes the last scene when Nellie accepts Emile’s children as her own when she says, “Overcoming racism becomes here a precondition for successful expansion, and expansion the reward for overcoming racism. At the heart of this process lies Nellie’s embrace of motherhood.” (pg. 164) In the film, the scene does not seem as embracing as Klein says it is because Nellie is hesitant towards the children. This idea of love conquering all and something as complicated as racism especially in the 1950s, seems too Hollywood. Klein references Nellie in this scene and explains her position, “‘Now you have to learn to mind me when I talk to you, and be nice to me, too. Because I love you very much.’ Repudiating her racism, Nellie declares maternal love in its place.” (pg.165) Although Nellie may be trying to declare her love for Emile’s children, there is a feeling of force behind her declaration of love. Even when we as a class watched the scene, we laughed because although it may be Mitzi Gaynor’s acting skills, this line seems extremely coerced.
Like Alexa described in her post, I have seen the “adopt a child” commercials and I see where Klein’s argument that adoption was a way to relieve Americans of guilt. However, I look at those commercials thinking more about why we need to adopt these children out of guilt and not because we are all humans no matter their race it’s still important to help. There are plenty of children in the U.S. that need help and need to be adopted as well. Klein describes American’s adopting these Asian children because they can teach and mother them to proper human beings. According to Klein, Nellie embraces this idea and challenge to assume this role as mother but also as teacher for Emile’s children. This idea that Americans have to teach these children from other cultures in order to bring the U.S. and Asia closer seems backwards in regard to the effort. In South Pacific Nellie who was “carefully taught” to think of other races one way now has to be taught to think another. At the same time she needs to assume power over her new Polynesian children, but what does she know better than they do? Similarly what gave us Americans, the right to domesticate these Asian children in the 1950s, while racial issues between whites and African American were only growing.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Family Ties as Political Obligation- Assenting
I found this argument quite persuasive because, to be honest, I had never really considered it before. Klein presents us with the overwhelming subtext behind the movie South Pacific. Although, after our brief viewing I was aware that there was a great deal of racial commentary happening within the film, I was not prepared for the amount of depth and information that Klein uses to back the images and plot.
Klein presents the reader with the notion that the relationship among the newly created family at the end of the film is quite symbolic. She writes, “South Pacific anticipates the postwar alliance of Americans and French designed to manage, as it were, Indochina’s transition from colonial status to independence. It visualize and narrativizes America’s emerging role in Southeast Asia,” (Klein 168). It is surprising that such a film could be so politicized. With the awkward color changes in the midst of scenes and sometimes-comical singing, it is interesting to consider Klein’s true message of the film.
This relates directly to the adoption issue that Klein discusses throughout the chapter. As Klein points out, Nellie must overcome her racism in order to create a family with the man she loves. This issue did not come up in the part of the movie we watched, but I feel that Klein clearly makes a case for why this was such a big issue at the time. Klein argues that this issue is problematic in America at the time, which is once again, a new issue for me. I never considered where or why the “adopt a child” commercials that come on television so frequently originated. Most people sit there, feeling guilty while comfortably sitting in front of their televisions while images of hungry and impoverished children flash across the screen. The narrator assures the viewer that “just a few cents a day” would be greatly helpful. I am no exception. These commercials make me feel quite guilty. At one point in high school my community service organization adopted a Chinese girl in this way. One day we were devastated to receive a letter saying that she had “suddenly moved” and we were assigned to another child. Klein points out the fact that people were paying money to relieve their guilt about the atomic bomb. This guilt, although not the optimal reason for donating, seemed to need to happen in order to get the American people to wake up to what they had done. It is important to recall that this money, however it was earned, was doing good for people that had been so horribly hurt by going to war with America. These children needed help, and no matter how they got it, it was going to help them.
Klein shows that by attempting to educate the American public about different cultures and trying to reduce racism the film and political movements forced Americans to look at the world around them. She makes it clear that people at the time began to understand that if they expanded their world and accepted others, their lives would indeed be better. This was especially important at a time when there was so much tension surrounding the Cold War.
Klein presents the reader with the notion that the relationship among the newly created family at the end of the film is quite symbolic. She writes, “South Pacific anticipates the postwar alliance of Americans and French designed to manage, as it were, Indochina’s transition from colonial status to independence. It visualize and narrativizes America’s emerging role in Southeast Asia,” (Klein 168). It is surprising that such a film could be so politicized. With the awkward color changes in the midst of scenes and sometimes-comical singing, it is interesting to consider Klein’s true message of the film.
This relates directly to the adoption issue that Klein discusses throughout the chapter. As Klein points out, Nellie must overcome her racism in order to create a family with the man she loves. This issue did not come up in the part of the movie we watched, but I feel that Klein clearly makes a case for why this was such a big issue at the time. Klein argues that this issue is problematic in America at the time, which is once again, a new issue for me. I never considered where or why the “adopt a child” commercials that come on television so frequently originated. Most people sit there, feeling guilty while comfortably sitting in front of their televisions while images of hungry and impoverished children flash across the screen. The narrator assures the viewer that “just a few cents a day” would be greatly helpful. I am no exception. These commercials make me feel quite guilty. At one point in high school my community service organization adopted a Chinese girl in this way. One day we were devastated to receive a letter saying that she had “suddenly moved” and we were assigned to another child. Klein points out the fact that people were paying money to relieve their guilt about the atomic bomb. This guilt, although not the optimal reason for donating, seemed to need to happen in order to get the American people to wake up to what they had done. It is important to recall that this money, however it was earned, was doing good for people that had been so horribly hurt by going to war with America. These children needed help, and no matter how they got it, it was going to help them.
Klein shows that by attempting to educate the American public about different cultures and trying to reduce racism the film and political movements forced Americans to look at the world around them. She makes it clear that people at the time began to understand that if they expanded their world and accepted others, their lives would indeed be better. This was especially important at a time when there was so much tension surrounding the Cold War.
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