#i .*t: ,i'.t Ê tr, tL. tr. T; l.Ì,; â :ìÌ t: af i' ì. i I LEGITIMATING TELEVISION
Media Convergence and Cultural Status
Michqel Z. Newman and Elono Levine
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Another Colden Age? l5 with the curturar s."tus of the medium in the not-so-distant television's pasr. craims of presenr-day value abound, ;; desc¡ibed rri" ,..r*u.lof admiring terms: today's television is ,.complex,,,""; ,,great " it is art,,, we are experiencing "rich television age,', the mediuÁ,s .,Golden a ,á.orrj-o. third Age.,, ANOTHER GOLDEN AGE? The contemporary discourses oflegidmation figure convergence-era as an improvement terevision on the teievision we knew before. This discoune cites a number of phenomena as causalry reiated to television,s i*p.o""; ,;;te: the fragmentation of,audie.r.., chiefly, of distribution technologicai ".rd.*.rrtiplication outrets, the and aesthetic convergence ornlrrr, television, and the internet, and the viewer âgency afforded by ,r.i, ,..frrroiogl.r. These forces are indisputably central to the producrion and reception of terevision in the contemporary Yet simply conrext. recognizing these fo.c.s does not contextualize them adequateiy, nor does it explain their curturar import. These shifs have nor r.d il;i;t kinds of TV programming ro cerrain any more so than they have legitimation. to discourses of Instead, the connecrion that has been forged berween these ¡ndustrial, technological, and experientiaì developments and discounes upon ofregitimation builds many of the same curturar hierarchies that kept terevision" a deiegrtimated The idiot box has gained some serious IQ points in the last decade. So let us for so many years. Hierarchies of crass, 1ed]um gender, and social position animare behold: Television as fulfiiling as anything et your 1ocal multiplex. the legitimation of teievision and *"t . t'. p."sendsr assumprions Salon,20061 Golden of the new Age discourse an assertion of taste po*.r. To denaturarize such discourse' we turn here to a more ".rd historicized conception of discourses of 1n7969, cntic Richard Burgheim surveyed the state of TV reviewing in the United legidmation, delegitimation, and quality across LJ.S. terevision history, the considering States, finding the enterprise to be an ultimately fruitless task. To him, television ways that terevision has figo..d ioth ", euatiry TV and its porar opposite at was no more than a clunky household appliance, the product of corpotate various historical moments. machination, ruled by the plebeian tastes of the masses. It was thus impossible for him to imagine a robust television criticism. "Great criticism springs from a Television as Mass Culture: The Delegitimated fount of affection for an art or from anguish lest that love be debased - - . How Medium do you ìove a 19-inch Motorola or a network vice-president?"2 Forry years later, Television has been the chiefrepresentafive ofAmerican mass cukure throughout by academics, professional its existence- And mass television criticism is in full flower, seriously Practiced curture has aimost never been seen Patrick as .*rJ-ro"o. journaiists, citizen bloggers, passionate fans, and even more casual viewers. Brantiinger has outlined: " ^, According to critic Jaime Weinman, we are in "A Golden Age of Taking TV very Seriously."3 Whether in the pages of the upscale New York rnagazíne or in a little has been written about mass curture, the masses, or the mass media that has Facebook status update, teievision now receives thoughtfirl consideration by many; not been colored by apocalyptic assumptions "mass . . . the phrase indeed, taking television seriously is a given, even among cultural elites. As currure" usuany needs to be unåerstood ,., idea, behind Alessandra Stanley has written in the pages of the N¿¿v Yorþ Tímes: which lies a concem for the ", "po."lyptic preservation of civilization as a whole.5 These Television used to be dismissed by elitists as the idiot box, a sea of ideas circulate throughout western culture, but have been especiary and intelligent debate. Now people who prominenr in mediocriry that drowns thought the discourses of inteile*uars and ott". School arær.ì;ii. i."rro*., ignore its pools and eddies of excellence do so at their own Peril. They are theorists' concerns about the rinkage b.;;;'..;ä*iì#.0 missing out on the main topic of conversation at their own table.o culture and fascism ro rhe more ....n, ,ri-,-..r;;räïr"iut* -^, Postman' * *.u commerciar curture, mass media, ,rr. pubric's invesrmenr in them The very fact of Stanley's column, along with innumerable other such instances, have been seen âs detrimenal to "iJ childrenjs developmenr, to critical inquiry, speaks to the way the contemporary legitimation of television contrasts drasticaiiy artistic expression, to and to the very health of democracy. Another Colden Age? 17 l6 Another Golden Age? escapefromrealiry,anditsappealtolowerclassesratherthantoelites'References upon individuals and uPon the Concerns about the impact of mass culture "vast echoing FCC Chairman Newton Minnow's writes: to television as a *"'åi""d," placed telet'ision at their center' As Brantlinger the of cliché' E¡nie Kovacs Iarger public have often famous remark, have long been familiar to Point because it is neither rare nor quipped that "televisio,t i' medium' so called " aptþ' at least during the Fromitscommercia]beginningsinthelatelg40s,televisionhasbeenaccused well done," which captured its cultural status quite moreoften-andf.om"moreideologicalperspecdves-ofcausingcultura] network era. than has any earlier communications medium' have been especialiy caustic and political decadence Beyond such colloquial portrayals, intellectuals .Whateveritbroadcastsisapttobeinterpretedasantitheticaltohigh conceive of as a threat to in thei. appraisal of t.ltt'isìo", which they often of visual for verbal appeals and its culture.6 learned culture, especially in its substitution to Promotionofentertainmentasthesurestmeanstowardcommercialsuccess.These as its prime instance-is regularþ articulated and intellectual discourse into Mass currure-with terevision attributes supposedly make televisual discourse Wallace argued that TV has made themostvulnerableandmanipulablemembersofthesociery,thosedeemedleast naturâl enemies- For instance, David Foster lndeed' television's mass audience wrote that television capable of criticism and most devoid of taste' and cynical'lo Mark Crispin Miller their attention American society passive to herds of cattle being prodded into gving fræ U".., compared culturetrivializescriticism,"'htot"actionthatcouldstillcounteractTV"'a.W..S. comrnerciais'7 As Lynne Joyrich reflects: ..vast badness.,,li George Trow to television's Programs and medium he claimed is characterized by a bored denouncedtelevisionbaldlyinawidelyadmiredNewYork.eressay:..Nogood viewer is imagned as passive' lazy' v't\gat' or stupid-a The typical has come of tt-"12 n"ttit'¿ many critiques of the medium as be especially harmful to housewife or lethargic thll¿' Television's eft-ects have often been assumed to trivial, and inane lies an unacknowledged disdain obesiry' in-attentiveness and expioitative, sensatio-nal, chiidren. Television is blamed for causing that is deemed infantile and feminine'8 behavior' t: nÎ ont" O:t: suspected for an audience hyperactivity, and violent and aggressive 1Îd 13 Drug' an anti-television academic ln The Plug-In actual children of compromising and feminizarion is appried not only ro the "thil"t"*t"t'effects on children' Mane'W'inn This infanrilizârion tirade from 1'977 {oatsingespecialiy on *':T.1 refers, but also to the elderþ' the disabled' and communlcâtlon' but r v and women to whom it most obviously young people need to learn self-drrection model of that as all those that do not fìt the She refers to television viewing the unemployed and under-employtd' viewing is passive and inculcates dependency' expected of contemporary western sophisticaàd taste and robust productiviry is rarely aformofaddiction,likenshearryviewerstozombies'andblamesTVforblotting a class makeup of television's audience remnant of the past' To this day' cukural and social privilege. Tie out the real world. Such rhetoric is not a lurking beneath the surface oflow discussed, U''t ltÏs e Present absence' explicitþ "glaring' widelyobserved..TumoffWeek,'promotedinschoolsandpubliclibrariesevery as "three-ring circus" and medical and educatìonal culrure metaphors to describe television such and endorsed by prominent features September and April and implicit ìn comparison of television's tTtdt:Ï-l]t blaring midway," with associationsatteststo"t'o"goittg'widelyhelddisdainfortelevisionasathreatto Television's legitimation arises in negotiation with those of aurhentic aìs.e the welfare of children and families'14 social isolation and civic themedium'suaditionaþlowreputationanditsassociationwiththeseunder- Television has been frgured as a cause of perspective figures television as valued publics. disengagement across its hisioty' as well'.This politic who prefers TV enterainment Discoursesoftelevision,sdeiegitimationcircuìatewidely,bothinAmerican breeding an ignorant and apathttic body come from a range of network era and in the convergence era, and television,s politics' overalrothermodesofdiscorrn..rnThelrnage,publishedinrgîr,DanielBoontinfor the academy, primary and secondary education' *.dia in general but television in particular spheres, including of blamed electronic ,lrral culture- In many respects' the disparagement experience' causing us to misrecognize medicine, science, and high substituting inauthentic for authentic the late twentieth and even the which "vivid image has been a culturai commonplace of and for creating a world in television "chewing the inauthencic as authentic, example,lasual dismissals of televisìon as Mander television earþ rwenry_fìrsr century. For overshadow pale reality'"1s In 1978'Jerry -g".t1 jhit an easy but carne to the "one-eytá b"by'itt"t"' make TV out to be is real and what is not'"16 Neil Postman's gum for the eyes," or causes "utter .ot'ft'åt' *h"' "' 'o in 1985 and continuing through a unedifiingandjuvenilewayofpassingleisuretime'Nameslikethe"boobtube" work continued in this tradition' beginning tt'at *atcftng makes people stupid or' more charitably' of damagng public discourse through and "idiot box" suggest 2005 update. Postman accused television ât the expense of informed and reasoned thatTVnaturallyappealst'oviewersoflesserfaculties.Teilingly,thesubstitution..the its emphasis on spectacular showbiz as opiate of the masses,' bespeaks of television for religion in its condemnadon discussionsofpublicaffairs.Televisionimposesonsocierya..vasttnvialiry''of narcotizing function as an âr ônce television,s cuitural centrality, its ideological l8 Another Colden Age? Another Golden Age? 19
images which have transformed the public's ways of thinking from the coherent, Past lnstances of Legitimation: Struggles for Validation serious and rational mode of the "Àge of Typography" to a shriveled, absurd, fragmented, and aitogether dangerous mode of the "Age of Television," in which The convergence era is not che only penod of legitimation in the history of American television. everything musr be reduced to entertainment.lT In his influential sociologica_l srudy Throughout the life of the medium, a range of parties- among them from 2000, Bowling Alone, Robert Purnam blamed television for declining social the broadcast industry, progrem creators, and journalistic and scholarly critics-have capital and civic participation in post-war America, isolaring citizens and damaging sought to validate the medium and its outpur. The convergence-era legitimation political culture.ls Across television history, the medium has often been of television seeks to distinguish the present from these past efforts, even while undentood as e wâste of people's time. More pemiciously, it has been undentood it repeats many of the same discourses- In so doing, this discourse even further reinforces its ahistorical as a danger to democracy, public health, and moral order. This message comes tendencies, insisting upon a fundamental break, rather than a passage continuities from a multitude of authors and scholars, but it is a perspective wirh vast reach of and discontinuities, between the present and the pasr. within the popular imagination. It is the logic underwriting the bumper stickers The effort legitimize and punk rock anthems imploring, "Kill your television." to ,tmerican broadcascing predates television; indeed, struggles for cultural validation and respect saturate the history of u.S. nerwork Ironically, one of the most notable champions of the mass characteristics of radio. As Michele Hilmes has explored, the very origins of NBC as a radio electronic new media, Marshall Mcluhan, has been a key influence on the broadcaster were rooted in claims of cultural legrtimation. As she writes, "NBC denigration of television in the popular imagination. Much.of the anri-television announced its arrival in November 1926 by promising 'qualiry' in broadcasting literature and popular discourse is explicitly Mcluhanist in its concern nor so . . . Radio's ofiìcial social role would be one of uplift, of cultural improvemenr."22 much with specific genres or programs on television (though it is certainly The earþ days of radio broadcasring were rife wirh insrances of this uplift efforc- concemed with these things in many instances) as with television itselfas a feature and with challenges to it by more populist conrent. Shawn vancour details the of the media environmenr. ,\s Mcluhan told Playboy magazíne in 1969, "Eftective tensions around the piace of classical music in nerwork radio, pointing our rhar study of the media deals not oniy with rhe conrenr of the media but with the programrning such as New York Symphony composer Walter Damrosch's Musíc media themselves and the toral cultural environment within which the media Appreciation Hoør (NBC) "promised ro reach across social and geographical divides function." The medium is the message to television's most negative critics, and and effect an unprecedented transformation of popular taste."23 Yet the musical the medium's effects are seen ro be pervasive and devastating. Television is figured elites with an investment in classical forms inevitabiy found fault with radio's in such discussions as a cultural pollutant, analogous to a carastrophic ecoiogical handiing, feanng that radio adapcation altered the meaning of classical music and hazard: "It is stiil possible ro rum off rhe television set. It is no longer possible encouraged only superficial aesthetic appreciation as it exposed classicai works to to turn off the television environment."le Thus the and-television critic sees popular taste. cultural e]ites thus stniggled to make sense of radio's cultural role, television as one thing rather than as a diverse array ofdiscourses, and generalizes positioning the new medium as "at once the greatest boon and greatest threat to freely about "the very nâture of the television experience-"20 This ecological music appreciation that the countqr had ever known."2a Similar battles surrounded approach has gone so far as to liken the medium to carcinogenic agents such as earþ radio figures such as Samuel "Ro*y" Rothafel, host of station'WEAF's RorT tobacco, X-rays, and nuclear power plants.21 and His Cang. As a theater manager, Roxy was known for his efforts to bring It is against the overwhelming force of this cultural positioning that discourses high culture to the masses, marÐ'ing classical music, films, and gracious customer of legitimation have struggled to redefine television. the rypical insrances In of service, moving culfure "away from the hands of the elite and the wealthy and the convergence era, they do so by rearticulating many of these same negative making it available to al1."2s Bringing rhis sensibiliry ro radio proved more ideals-of television as an ac best useless and ât \Mo¡st dangerous medium-as they contentious, however. Indeed, 1n 1925, the WEAF executives worried that Roxy's work to distinguish the legitimated television forms of the present from the folksy, sentimental, populist style "exceeded the bounds ofrespectable, professional delegitimated medium of the past, as well as from forms of conremporary delegiti- speech" and threatened the starion's image as a site for business advertising.26 In mated TV- Convergence-era discourses of legitimation make particular programs, other words, they feared that Roxy's wide appeal delegitimated their eft-orts to styles, technologies, or practices the excepcions to the rule oftelevision as a whole. be a resource for serious businesspeople. In WEAF's attempts ro contain Roxy, while such exceptions get figured as displacing rhe television of the past, they can as well as in the anxieties over radio's handling of classical music, the U.S. radio only achieve their stature by lending credence ro the long history of the TV-as- networks strove for cultural respectabiliry, a position more hoped for and hyped comrpter-oÊail-that-is-good theme. The television of today achieves legirimation than ever securely attained. by accepting the delegitimating discourses as true television of overall, bur unrrue Broadcast nefwork radio was eventually as well known for its perpetuation of of the contemporary television that the speaker highlights and values. the low and the crass âs it was for its more eiite strivings. r[r'hi]e advertisers and Another Golden Age? 21 2O Another Golden Age?
programming, and the their ad agencies were initially reluctant to suily the culturally benefìcent world freestanding, original teleplay each week-34 This kind of 1ed journalist critics of radio with overt sales pitches, the practice of advertiser sponsonhip (rather concomitant belief in liveness as television's inherent best, Age. than direct selling) soon became seen as a way to use the new medium without to give this period the label of Golden designation gave early television the kind of culturai status abusing its uplifting potential.2T The ad world also believed some kinds of The Golden Age stâge the $/ork of literature. lndeed, programs and times of day to be more appropriate for hard selis than others- For more frequently reserved for the Broadway or "artist-playwright" and industrial discourse example, understanding ad pitches as a special kind ofassistance for listeners led the privileging of the in critical dramas these other media. In addition, while the era advertisers to embrace daytime radio as â site for their sales messages. Because ârticulated the live TV to the 1950s, much as the daytime programming was addressed ât women audiences, advertisers could see overall has been given the Golden Age moniker, in in present, was really only certain kinds of programming that were so elevated themselves as helping the homemaker care for her home and family, as well as it years, filmed programming and other kinds of her own eppearance, and they thereby justified using harder sales tactics there culturally. During the same both daytime's serial dramas and prime time sitcoms and than in evening programs.2s The easy fìt between daynme radio and women helped live programming-including fìlled the broadcast airwaves. As Levine has written: ad agencies reconcile the new medium with their long-standing conception of variety shows-aiso consumers as a feminized mass beset with poor taste.2e ânthology dramas in the 1950s The combination of batd ad appeals and feminized content soon brought The high praise that distinguished primetime's television programming, programming derision and scorn to daytime radio. Cultural commentators of many stripes- masked the fact that other kinds of than celebrated, were also broadcast live . . . Thus it upper-middle-class women's club members, intellectuals, social scientists-joined more often derided \À/as liveness of particular genres that eamed them the distinction rogerher to criticize the populism and pandering of daytime radio and especially not the iabeled rather a host of gendered and classed cultural the serial dramas thar dominated it.30 This sort of criticism would give daytime of being art, but associations that allowed some liveness to be heraided while other instances broadcasting a disreputable air for years to come and, more generally, would serve . were ignored or even disparaged.3s as the shameful identiry against which efforts at legitimation would be pitched. Dayrime radio-in particular the serial dramas that soon dominated it-eventually In this respect, American television's first Golden Àge was as dependent on cultural gave all of newuork radio the taint of feminized commercialism, an association exclusions as is the effort at legitimation in the convergence era. that would carÐ/ over to television- Perhaps as a result, TV never carried the hierarchies and 'Whiie Age wouid end with the demise of the anthology discursive potentiai to be a site of cultural elevation that radio drd in its early the 1950s Golden drama, other periods in U.S. television history have also seen efforts to improve years. and reputation the medium by emphasizing its most ediflting Sull, American television of the 1950s did witness its own struggles over cultura.l the status of 'William the early 1960s, for exampie, the broadcast nerworks sought such legitimacy. As Boddy points out, television did not weather a debate capabihties. In an in response to a climate of criticism that peaked with Minnow's over commercialism as did radio-the advertiser-supported logrc of the nerwork improvement "vest wasteland" disparagement. As Michael Curtin details, Minnow and the radio business was assumed to carq/ over to'1V.31 The kinds of debates that did public affairs programming, in particular the network- surround early television centered more on what kinds of programming wouid networks focused on produced documentary, as a corective for the medium's perceived failings- best suit the new medium, as well as how the new medium might be taken up "The documentary was characterized as the key genre for by audiences. In these respects, the efforts at legitimating early television According to Curtin, the superficial and commercial aspects of the medium. Produced by concentrated primarily on aesthetic and experiential concerns. The journalistic transcending professionals, it promised to educate and uplift the audience."36 The critics that debated the essential nâture of television in the medium's earþ years nerwork news documentary boom worked âs â short-term public relations fix but it focused on differentiating TV from motion pictures. These writers zeroed in on early 1960s did little to change large-scale culrural attitudes toward the medium, in part because what they saw as television's most unique trait, "the electronic medium's capaciry the documentaries vinually disappeared after a Gw years and because their overall to convey a simultaneous distant performance visually."32 The power of the live for legitimation, in this case eiites television performance was seen not only as an artistic and technological viewenhip was quite low. As in other struggles legitimate the medium by highlighting those qualities that fit their achievement but also a profound experience for the viewer, who could be both attempted to in his home and in the on-screen world simultaneously, experiencing an ov/n tâstes and interests. But the broader TV audience wâs not necessarily seeking irnmediacy that allowed for an understanding of "authenticity, depth, and truth-"93 the kind of uplift that such efforts emphasized. also attempted repain of television's culturally This belief in television's humanist essence led to a pnvileging of one earþ TV Other programrning of the 1960s means of appealing genre, the dramatic anthology series, in which an "ârtist-Pla)'wright" penned a low reputation, m'ore rypically as a commercially motivated 22 Another Golden Age? Another Golden Age? 23 to the youth audience that was then abandoning TV than as a public service or 1970s U.S. prime time was fìlled with mass-appeal programs that used sexual a grab at elite status. Aniko Bodroghkozy has explored the programming that titi-ilation, expiicit violence, and conventional plotting to appeal to the wide spoke to and about the mounting youth counterculture of the late 1960s. In these viewership long valued by advertisers.a3 That this sort of programming was instances ofstriving for cultural relevance, relevision grappied with various social rourinely attacked and criticized, charged with perpetuating all manner of social issues, sometimes in the potentially radical space of the comedy-variety show (e.g., ills, illustrates how dependent television's cuitural elevation is upon a disparaged The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour), and sometimes in the more contained realm other. In fact, MTM president Grant Tinker described the "anti-MTM" pro- of the episodrc drama (e.g., The Mod Squad, The Young Latuyers, The BoId Ones).37 gramming as "witless . . . candy for the mind . . . tight leotards and short skirts," These eûorts had varying degrees of success in attracting viewers and critical praise, while TV critics juxtaposed the MTM shows to the "pratfalls, adolescent and they did not cohere into any kind of notable shift in cuitural status for the ignorance, and cheesecake" that came to dominate in the later 1,970s.4a As such medium. In other words, they did not elicit rhe ourpouring of critical praise and juxtapositions make clear, in this era both the economic rationale and the cultural academic attention that programming seeking to rarget young, socially aware hierarchies upon which the legitimation of television is based came into relief. viewers would in the 1970s, perhaps because the 1960s fare did nor occasion rhe From this point on, the discourses of Qualiry and legitimation that animate the same comparisons to the more legrtimated worlds of theater and literature as would present period became a permanent part of the medium's discursive landscape. their 1970s successors.3s The discourses of legitimation surrounding programming of the early 1970s The Golden Age Returns: Quality TV in the 1980s clearly foreshadow more recent legitimating discourses. In addition, rhen, as now, the programming that occasioned such validation resulted from the strategic business The convergence-era legitimation of television has deep roots in the Qualiry practices of the television industry. In the early 1970s, number one ranked CBS TV of the 1970s and the programming that carries on its tradition in the 1980s. canceled its slate of sitcoms appealing to rural and older viewers and replaced them A major figure across both decades is MTM Enterprises, the independent with a trifecta of "relevant" sitcoms meant ro appeal to a 'Quality' audience of production company that created The Mary Tyler Moore Show for CBS, and younger, more urban, more socially liberal viewers. The populariry of The Mary continued to produce Qualiry series into the 1980s. In fact, in the late 1970s, Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, and M*A*S*H certainly improved the cuitural one critic labeled MTM "the Great White Hope of intelligent television."a5 status of CBS and nefwork TV overall, but the turn to these shows was primarily Alongside producer Norman Lear's Tandem Productions, MTM spun off new calculated as a means of improving the bottom line-3e AsJane Feuer has explai.ned: hits from its initial successes, as well as spinning off creative talent who would train on one MTM show then head up their own, new show soon thereafter.a6 The crucial change that began to occur around 1970 was a de-emphasis By the early 1980s, MTM and a number of the company's creative graduates had on [overall ratings] numbers and a greater emphasis on "demographics", rebounded from the influx of mass appeal programrning, including Three's i.e. directing television shows toward specifìc audience groups . . . [ieading Company, The Lnue Boat, and The Dukes of Hazzard, which had seemed to replace to a] mania for young adult demographics in the form of a "relevance" Qualiry fare in the late 1970s. Critics and industry folk alike deemed Programs drive on all three neuworks, featuring "now" programmes.ao such as HíIl Street Blues and St. Elsewhere a return to form for MTM, albeit in dramatic rather than comedic genres. The fact that these programs-ând the audiences they were designed to attract- As a result, when Grant Tinker left MTM to take over the presidency of NBC were described as Qualiry helped to obscure the economic rationâle for their in 1981, he was widely seen as pursuing "his MTM strategy of transforming existence. The Quality label for both people and programs privileged those 'quatity' into profits," which helped the demographically oriented turn begun in audiences with the actual and cultural capital to appreciate the "literate" and socially the 1970s become industry wisdom.aT As journalist Michael Pollan explained in conscientious appeais of these series.4l As newspaper critic Gary Deeb wrote in 1983, Tinker's NBC was rejecting the conventional logic of the TV business by 1,979, "the fint half of the 1970s truly was a 'golden age' for teievision," one of accepting a lower rating and share in exchange for more impressive rankings "wit and style, and . . . a gentie gospel of brotherhood, civiliry, and social amongst highiy valued demographics. In the 1982-1983 season, NBC's share of responsibiliry."a2 As his coÍrnents intimate, these programs helped U.S. television 1,8- to 49-year-old viewers had increased 12 percent over the previous season, of the 1970s achieve a kind of cultural legitimacy more like rhar ascribed to the whiie the other networks' share of the same group had dropped. And NBC's 1950s Golden Age than had any other programs in the intervening years. programs were also quite successful in u¡ban markets, increasing profits at the The culturally legitimated TV of the 1970s was especially notable for the way network's owned and operated stations in those locales. The fact that Hill Street in which it was distinguished from the rest of the television scheduie. Much of Blues (Figtre 2.7) and another MTM-influenced NBC hit, Cheers, did better in 24 Another Colden Age? Another Golden Age? 25
homes that subscribed to cable than they did in non-cable households was also a key marker, for it suggested rhat the Qualiry brand would be a bulwark againsr the coming incursion of rhe multi-channel cable universe .48 HiIl street Blues anð, the other programs that flourished on the Tinker-era NBC schedule thus crucially cemented the economic logrc behind Quality fare, a logic that would only intensify in its relevance in the convergence era. The praise that accompanied H\II street was crucial to its abiliry to rnaintain this Quality status. Even in its fìrst season, critics distinguìshed rhe show as some- thing different from-and more valuable rhan-mosr TV. As Tom Shales wrote rn the washington Post, "Is there room on television for a program that is truly in a league by itself?"ae Pollan's 1983 assessment was quite asture abour rhe economics of the program's existence, yer ir also participated in the very legrtimation that secured the show's capital. Praising the program's sryle above all else, pollan declared that it "demands a new way of watching television," and is "bnlliant" in its blending of the feminized and mascuiinized genres of the soap opera and the cop show.s. Other takes on the show were at ieasr as effusive, aithough-like much of the praise of today's cuiturally elevared TV-they ofren negiected to address the industry logic that made rhe show's Quatiry as much a calculated business decision as an artistic tnumph. For example, in 1985, novelistJoyce carol oates took to the pages of TV cuide to declare the series "one of the few television programs watched by a fair percenrage of [her] Princeron colleagues" because it was "as intellectually and emotionally provocative as a good book," a judgment she demonstrated with analysis of the program's themes, plotting, and chanctenzations.5l with HíIl street Blues and some other, major programs of the 1980s, then, discourses of legitimation began to circulate more and more widely. It was during this decade, as well, that the mounting comperirion to broadcast TV from the rapidly growing cable industry encouraged all kinds of akerations in the network business, from changes in ownership to techniques of audience measurement. M*y of these developments furthered the movements towerd niche audience targeting and programming with demographically specific appeals. For example, as Philip Sewell has analyzed, the neñ,vorks experimented wirh a new, hybrid genre, the "dramedy," in the late 1980s as a way ro conrinue to draw the 'Qualiry' audience while stiil generating easily syndicared, halÊhour (rather than hour-long, dramatic, and more serialized) episodes. These programs initially achieved their intended purposes, but conrroversy over their fir within the Qualiry TV category limired their long-term impact.s2 Meanwhile, the Nielsen ratings system introduced the Peoplemeter, a new audience measurement device that distinguished berween the demographically disrinct viewers in a single Nielsen househoid, providing quanrirative supporr for the industry's pursuit of FlcuRE 2.1 The casr narrower audience segments. Across this penod, of Hill street Brues, the epitome of euariry TV in the 19g0s advertisers, producers, broadcast nerworks, and the new cable channels all struggled ro remake the TV business into one that still sought out populariry and cultural buzzbtt that valued reaching specifìc audience segmenrs through targeted programs. This was a sysrem thar 26 Another Colden Age? Another Colden Age? 27
would conrinue to benefit from the discourses of legrtimation swirling around_ appeal but still be successful."se As with some of the coverage of Hill street Blues, select instances of television. then, some of the discourse around Twín Peaks did acknowledge that the program's existence was indebted, in part, to a parricular industrial conrexr in Twin Peoks and the New TV of the 1990s which TV networks would seek to sarisf,r the sophisticated tastes ofupscale viewen. The cntical wonder over Twin Peaks also contained the occasional dose of With the 1990s, the popular discourse of teievision's cultural elevation continued. moderation. This wæ especially so in the progrâm's second seâson, when its ratings A particularþ prominenr insrance peaks surrounded the appearanc e of Twín on feli and many began to see it âs ân arristic failure. But there were some intimations the A.BC schedule. created by Hitl street Blues arum Mark Frost (in the MTM of its limitations at the very beginning, as well. Amy Taubin conrrasred the program tradirion ofspinning off"grads" ro new series) and feature filmmaker David Lynch, with Lynch's feature ffun Blue Veluet, wh\ch also starred Peaks' leadrngman, Kyle Twin. Peaþs was hailed âs something completely new, somerhing downright Maclachlan. She found Peak wanting in both its visual majesry and irs erotic revelatory in its capaciry ro "resrore one's faith in television.,'s3 ..the Haiied as daring. She concluded rhat Peaks' "decadence [was] all compressed into the mid- series that change peaks [would] TY," Twin recejved an enormous âmount of runge," and that, "As movies go, the Twín Peaþs pilot seems like an exploitation attention upon rhe airing of its pilot episode in April 1990.54 central to the hype picture made by an extremely creative and resourcefi¡l director."60 She ofien praise, around the series was the involvement of the " auteul' Lynch, a filmmaker known to be sure, but it is faint in comparison ro that which she-and the culture more for his bizarrely erotic and violent features, in the conservative and corporare- generally-would bestow upon cinema. managed world peaþs of nerwork teievision- critics understood rwin to be the At the same time, the discourses oflegrtimation around Twín Peaks also offered antithesis of much TV; the village voice entitled its piece on rhe series "cheersrt something new, â sense of television's possibiliry rhar would be amplified in the Ain't," even while press coverage-ând Frost and Lynch themselves-noted the discourse of the convergence era. One strand is the hint that television as a whole series' ties to soap opera and to recent Qualiry drarnas such as HilI street.ss Ãs may be changrng-improving, even-with Twin Peaks as a harbinger. In the past, one critic wrore, "It is more than TV usually artempts, far more than TV usually this discourse had been associated with a parricular production company-such succeeds at."s6 As one indicator of its difference from most TV, much coverage as MTM-but more typically was linked to a single progrâm, such as Hill Street of the pilot casually noted the less-rhan-usual time devoted to commercial breaks B/øes. Some of the discoune around Twin Peaþs suggested that its radical deparnrre in the ABC airing.5i In these respects, Twín pealthirtysomething,,, cinema, internet, and digital forms more generally-it could more readily share, explaining, "'we've come to understand shows can be much more narrow rn or even supplant, the cultural status of those media. This articuiarion begins with 28 Another Colden Age? Another Colden Age? 29
Twín Peafu fandom, weli before digitization, convergence, and intemet culture conveniendy enough, it also serves the interests of the television industry by had a wide reach- Nonetheless, the Twin peaþ.s fans that gathered the on promoting additional consumerism in the form of DVDs, episode guides, action alt.w.twinpeaks (Jsenet group believed that technological developments were figures, comic books, and other ancillary paraphemalia that avid fans covet.To'With central to the experience of the series. As one remarked "can you tmag¡ne , Twin the growth of cult television, then, rve see an increase in television's legitimation Peaks coming out before vcRs or without the net? would k have been Helll,' but also the ways that this legitimation serves capitalisr inrerests. These fans used rheir vcRs "as an analytic tool," poring over details each of As telling as the uptick in cult fandoms may be as an indicaror of television's episode to suss our the puzzle the program offered.63 As Henry points Jenkins changing stâtus, cult practices are by definirion socially marginal. That the "cult out, the (Jsener fans admired the series for these very qualities, praising ,.its blockbuster" would enter cultural circulation in the 2000s, if not before--as rhe complexiry, its density, its technicai precision and virtuosity, its consistency and case of ABC's Lost indicates---peaks to the inrensifying reach of legitimating yet its abiiiry to conrinually pose problems for interpretatjon."6a This cultural 'when discourses over time.7l the textual traits and reception practices associated elevation depended upon a concomitanr degradation of television as a whole, with cult forms gain use in more "mainstream" contexts, the cultural distinction against which rwin Peaþs could serve as a remarkable exception. As one fan claimed by the margrnaliry of cult also rranslates. Legitimation allows a parricular claimed, "TPis not a passive work, like ail too much of terevision... ir is an text to be both "cult" and "blockbuster" ar the same rime, the idea being that active process of parricipation."6s That the audience activity fans saw as demanded the text is ofsuch exceptional quality that a larger audience than the fringe cult by the series intersected with the rechnological developments accompanying their must necessarily appreciate it. That such a belief stiil manages to flatrer the tastes viewing reveals the ways that new technologies, select television programs, and of the "cult blockbuster" viewer demonstrares the ways that distinction remains viewers' conceptions of themselves as exceptional combine in discourses of television's legitimation. a central motivator behind the cult label, even when it is applied to a relatively popular text. This kind of fan investment also signaled television's shifting cultural srarus in The prominence of cult status wâs just one of multiple paths to legitimation that it signaled the starr ofan intensified era ofcult TV and the fandom associated beginning in the 1990s. At this time, elite cuitural voices also began arriculate with it. cult series and passionate fandoms have long exjsted within v/esrem to select instances of television more elevated cultural forms. especially popular culture, and around American television series more specifically. to An prominent such indicator came from the À'Ier¿ York. Times "The certainly, the fandom associared wirh srar Trek,beglnning in the 1960s, could in 1995, heralding Triumph of the Prime Time Novel." Here, Charles McGrath, editor rhe Times be identifìed as cult, as could a number of series and fandoms between the 1960s of and 1980s.66 But the combination of new technologies and increasing cultural Book Review, acknowledged dne Times' reader's cultural milieu of television legitimation would further expand and enable the designarion of series and denial-the widely proclaimed notion that one does nor watch TV. McGrath audience invesrmenr in them as cult. whlle Twín peaks thus offered one step in proceeded to use his piece as a means of persuasion, aiming to convince the TV- this direction, the debur of The x-FíIes in 1993 presented an even grearer âverse to give the medium a try. It would be well worrh their while, McGrath embrace of the cult form; one scholar identifies the series as rhe beginnings of promised, deciaring that "TV is actually enjoying a sorr of golden age-it has the "quality,/cult" phenomenon..T As Sara Gwenllian-Jones and Roberta pearson become a medium you can consistentþ rely on not jusr for distraction but for have written, enlightenment."T2 While he quickly distinguishes between kinds of TV, disrnissing talk shows, sitcoms, prime time soaps, even PBS programs in favor of the The x-File{ release in 1993 coincided with rhe rapid expansion of the networks' weekly dramatic series, he makes claims about "teievision" itself and Internet . . . allowing ir to take advantage of the possibilities rhe Intemet thus participates in a discursive shift that legitimates pârticular kinds of television presented for word-of-mouth promotion, connectiviry between in the name of the medium as a whole. Much as did the journalist crirics of the subcultures, and, above all, the rapid expansion ofactive fandom aft-ected 1950s Golden Age, McGrath celebr¿tes the centrality of the writer to television by the accessibiliry and arrracriveness of on-line fan cuhures.6s and uses his praise for TV writing to favorably compare the medium to literature, film, and the stage. By coining the phrase "the prime-time novel," McGrath helps The cult TV industry serves the interesrs of curt fans by flattering their sense of set in motion a coÍrmon discourse of the convergence era-the articulation of their own disrinction ,,a from the masses. As Mart Hills has described, cult TV is (certain kinds of) television to another, more conventionaily respected medium- form of 'an[i-mainstream' distinction, where curr sratus is about finding qualiry In such discourse, television is legitimated when it no longer resembles television; in unexpected places and revaluing otherwise devalued,/popurar texts."6e In this instances of television achieve prominence when they take on the traits of a more respecr, cult sratus helps to legitimate the television that achieves this designation. culturally validated form. 3O Another Colden Age? Another Colden Age? 31
Cable and the Legitimation of Original programming
with discourses such as McGrath's circulating by the mid-1990s, the television industry increasingly sought to caprralíze upon the growing legitimation of the medium- In particular, this became â promotional tacric of cable channels.T3 Seeking to differentiate themselves from the broadcast networks and to attract the advertisers and/or audiences associated with Qualiry, cable outiets þro¡ected images of themselves as different from, even better than, the TV we have long known- ln 7993, basic cable channel Bravo reran Twin peaks, promoring it with the iine, "TV too good for TY"74 (Figtre 2.2). A few years later premium cable channel HBo would adopt a similar srogan. "It's not TV. It's HBO" quickly came ro be associated mosr of all with the channel's origrnal programming (rather than airings of theatrically released films), and is a tag line HBo has continued to use for more rhan 10 years. As numerous scholars have discussed, even while this slogan has primarily promoted HBo's original series and made-for-TV movies, it has allowed the channel to presenr itself as distinct from "television" and its historically low cultural reputetion. of course, when the slogan came into use in the mid-1990s, Amencan television was already undergoing a process of legrtimation, what with McGrath's article, the ever-increasing audience and programming segmentation encouraged by cable, and the designation of a number of broadcast series as Quality. As a result, as Horace Newcomb points out, "HBO's slogan [has been], in effect, dependent on a set of assumptions about the medium that no longer hold, a retro activation implicit denigration-of yet -and older general meanings and attitudes." HBO has had success with the slogan because, despite the many shifts toward legitimation, "those older meaninp, attitudes, and assumptions fabout television] are still quite prevalent."Ts As with all efforts at legitimation, the distinction upon which HBO has built its contemporary repurarion depends upon a reinvigoration of the long-standing delegitimation of television, indicating the ways that the convergence-era elevation of the medium nonetheless supports anti-television discounes as hoiding fundamental truths. Â,s with many instances of convergence-era legitimation, HBO's reliance upon anti-television discoune is economically motivated, although it has more broadly culturai effects, as weil. As Avi Santo has detailed:
Pay cable must appeâr to oft-er something that subscribers cannot get either on free TV (the nerworks) or for the price ofbasic cable, and which viewers believe is superior to those cheaper alternarives. Thus, HBO must continuously promote discourses of "qualiry" and "exclusivity" as central to the subscripcion experience. These discounes aim to brand not only HBO, but its audience as well- In this manner, pey cable sells cultural capital to
its subscribers, who are elevated above the riffraff that merely consume FIGURE 2.2 Bravo promotes its reruns of Twín Peaþs ìn 1993 with the slogan television.T6 "TV Too Good for TV" F. T
32 Another Colden Age? Another Colden Age? 33
HBO musr, by necessiry, sell itself as a Llnique product, adding value to one's television experience-the value it most rypicaiiy ciaims to add is Quality and the culturai status that designation carries. The cultural status HBO promises is one associated with high and legitimated between HBO's arts. Jânet McCabe and Kim Àkass point out the articulation original programming and the "traditional art forms" of theater, intemational art cinema, and literature, largely through the way the channel Presents itself as "a haven for crearive integnty."l7 This self-presentation is carefuiþ managed and promoted. chnstopher Anderson directs our attention to the massive Production, marketing, and promotions budgets behind HBo shows, which function as part of a powerful public relations machine. HBO's efforts result in an overwheiming amount of (usually fawning) press coverage of its programrning' As Andenon notes:
The Ne¿¿/ Yorþ Times alone has. devoted so many column inches to T7?e sopranos that ir sometimes reads like a virtual house organ for HBO. In the echo charnber of cultural production, HBO then feeds the press coverage of its programs back through the public relations machinery, so that people begrn to speak about the positive press coverage'78 'warner Thus the economics of the HBo system, part of the Time media empire, shape the cultural standing of the channel and its programming' FIGURE 2.3 HBO's promotion for The Sopranos deliberately references the gangster No HBO series has more centrâlly carried the flag of the channel's anti- genre, the rypeface of the title recalling cinema's Godfather tnlogy television, high culture distinction than The Soltranos. Creator David Chase repeâtedly noted that the program simply could not hâve existed on netv\¡ork were Showtimes have a monopoly on compelling, qualiry adult programming."s3 relevision, arguing thar "the details, the complexity, the difrerent pacing" as did Original programming on basic cable channels has been most closely identified only possible on HBO.7e HBO executives regularþ made sirnilar claims, with HBO's premium cable, "not TV" status, and is often juxtaposed with both popular and academic critics- vincent canby, writing in the Nerz York Tímes, a form broadcast fare as a strategy of distinction and iegitimation. The debut of FX's T/ze not only ca1led the program "Dickensian" but labeled it a "megamovie," paper even Shíeld ín 2002 is particularly significant in this regard, in that it was the first of apart from television and more akin to literature or cinema.8o The described the basic cable origrnals to be likened to HBO hits like The Soltranos and p,rUärn.a a book-length version of its writings on the series.81 Newsweek ..smarter, distingurshed from broadcast programs in industrial and critical discourse. TV Guide .h. p.og,"- (along with HBo,s oz) as, on the whole' edgier, better overt critic Matt Roush explicitly connected the series to The Sopranos and the written and better acted" than broadcast TV.82 That The Sopranos was an HBO tradition: "It's a breakthrough in commercially supported television-it refashioning of cinema's exâlted Godfather-a comparison the characters so artistic, really looks like pay cable. It's the closest show yet to come in the wake of Tåe themselves regularþ made-further assisted its positioning as television Soytranos to really put out there a vision."8a Meanwhile, FX's entertainment so cinematic, as to earn the status of "not TV" (Figure 2'3)' president Kevin Reilly distinguished the series from broadcast offerings: "Love 'while Tlie sopranos has been at the forefront of the articulation berween HBO that it or hate it, you won't mistake it for something on ABC."85 The Shield thts and an anri-Tv kind of Qualiry television, the discourses of legitimation fare helped initiate a key transition in convergence-era teievision, one that aliowed surrounded the program have since attached themselves not only to HBO's draw the legrtimated programming to come not just from the exclusive world of premium more generaþ, but also to many other television instances. Seeking to and cable, but also to exist in adverriser-supported spaces. culrural plaudits heaped upon the premium channel, the broadcast ner'úvorks Since this shift, many more basic cable series have been associated with basic cable channels have increasingly appropriated the HBO brand, positioning president Iegitimated premium programs while also being distinguished from broadcast TV. their own programming as si.miiarly "complex" and "cinematic." As the In the popular and industrial discounes that label The Shield, Níp/Tucle, Damages, of basic cable's FX declared ín 2002, "we don't feei that the HBOs and I 34 Another Colden Age? Another Golden Age? 35
Battlestar Galaüica, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and other original basic cable series "3rd Golden ,\ge of Television" uses ABC's Losl as well as AMC's Mad Men as as art, there is a persistent eftort to explain such programs' dift-erence from broadcast its chief examples.se New York magazine's Emily Nussbaum can name-check TV, despite the fact thar such series are aiso advertiser-supported. In order for broadcasts Bffi the Vampíre Slayer, The West Wing, The Ofice, ¿nd 30 Rocfr, as such shows to achieve legitimated sterus, they are necessarily contrasted with a well as many cable series, to declare the 2000s "most centrally and importantþ low other; because the lack of advertisers is nor an explanatory option here, as the fìrst decade when teievision became recognizable âs art, great art."eo And N¿¿r it is with prenium cable, new distinctions ger drawn. Thus, National public Radio York Times columnist Stanley points out that "I arn not ashamed to say I try interviews Shawn Ryan, creator of The shield and rerriers, about rhe difference never to miss Mad Men IAMC] and Curb Your Enthusíasø [HBO] and 30 Rocþ between broadcasc and cable. Ryan and NPR's Linda Holmes detail three main and also Hoase [Fox] and Sleeper Cell [Showtime]."e1 The intensification of points of contrast: cable's anti-hero ieads versus broadcast's more likeabie television's legitimation in the convergence era is most notable in the inclusion protagonists, cable's serialized narratives versus broadcast's episodic procedurals, ofbroadcast series in such lists. and cable's fewer episodes per season.86 Such distinctions make sweeping claims This is not to say that the convergence-era discourses of television's "Golden about the outputs of the rwo distribution entities, making it seem as if cable offers Age" embrace all of TV. Legitimation is ever based in distinction and so there no likeabie protagonists and no episodic sroryrelling, while suggesting that are innumerabie others against which the glorified television is contrasted- serialized narratives are not part of rhe broadcast landscape. writing in the fus sometimes explicitly and sometimes without direct mention. Nussbaum argues Angeles Trø¿s, Neal Gabler explains the difference as one ofworldview and morai that the 2000s "produced the best and worst sho\¡/s in history," the latter complexiry, in which broadcast TV remains mired in the optimism of American identifìed in particular as reality shows.e2 More often, however, the "television" life in the mid-rwentieth century while cabie faces the grim reality of the present: against which the Golden Age is juxtaposed remains unnamed in that it is the television not talked about in the popular and trade presses (not to mention in [Cable has] a cosmology for a different America in a different television age television scholarship), or at least not through the serious, critical lenses brought than the '50s, '60s and '70s, when things seemed so much simpler. It speaks to bear upon legrtimated content. Thus there is little talk of soap opera amidst to our doubts and our debits, to our anxieties and apprehensions. It tells the praise of cable's serialized dramas; little mention of "mass appeal" multi-camera us that we are not necessarily good and that neither is our world. It tells us sitcoms (except to note their baffi.ing populariry or co disparage them and their that not everything can be made righr in the end. It is a joumey into the audience) amidst analyses of contemporary comedic art. American heart of darkness.sT This becomes especially clear when the ignored, non-legtimated programming becomes especially visible. For example, the appearance of more multi-camera More than just an obtusely nostalgic view ofAmerican history, this stance serves sitcoms with laugh tracks at the start of the 2010-2011 TV season inspired one the interests of iegrtimation through its presentism and its universalizing effort to columnist to work overtime to elevate single-camera comedies and disparage the 'When charactenze all of broadcasr and all of cable in one of rwo ways. Gabler multi-cams. He peppered his anaiysis of the renewed nerwork investment in multi- claims of cable drana, "It's nor television. It's life," the relevision he values escapes cztÍrera shows with hierarchizing judgments: these series are cutdng "the heart all of the medium's problematic cultural associations-as does he as its viewer.88 and creativiry out of comedy," while the single-camera programs ere "art," they In the convergence era, eievating rhe television one likes-or the television one are instances of "the medium [television] was meant to be-"e3 Likewise, when creates-elevates one's own tâstes and choices, distinguishing oneself from the feature film actor James Franco played a continuing character on the daytime othe¡ of the mass broadcast audience. soap operâ General Hospital at various points between 2009 and 2011, the extensive, puzzledpress coverage both revisited the long-standing disparagement through Legitimating Broadcast Television in the of soap opera and sought out an explanation for Franco's actions forms. As one website commented on the news, Convergence Era reference to more legitimated Franco's GH appearance was "a total desecration of the time [he] spent on Freaks Despite these persistent efforts to differentiate cable and broadcast, in select and Ceeþs."ea Not only does the remark call a soap opera role a "desecration," instances, broadcast television has also been granted the status of legitimation. it juxtaposes soap opera with a legitimated, Qualiry, cult series. In this That broadcast series can fall under this umbrella is a key discourse of the construction, a daytime soap represents a massive drop in stâtus for Franco, even convergence era. In conceptualizing television more broadly, such discourses appear from his earlier television ro1e. While Franco himself has been respectful in his to encompass the medium as a whole, despite the large swaths of programming direct remarks about his General Hospítal experience, his explanation of the job actualiy discounted in such claims. Thus a blog post declaring rhe present the as an experiment in performance art has helped to legitimate his work- Once the 36 Another Golden Age? Another Golden Age? t7
press and biogosphere were able to quore Franco and his performance artist operâ perpetuate hierarchies of taste and power that have long served dominant colleague, Carter, on this morivarion, the disbelief that marked the initial coverage interests. dissipated.es Soap opera could be placed back in its low, easy-to-dismiss position lVhen the discourses of television's legitimation differentiate the television of and Franco could continue to be seen as an unprerliç¡¿þle, quirþ, yet thoughtful the present from that of the past, assuming à rrz:í)raTized form of progress over and serious ertist. In ruptures such as these, the disrinctions that underlie time, they not only ignore the ways in which television has always been embroiled convergence-era legitimation ger exposed. Today, "television" may be art, bur in stnrggles for legitimacy, but also they separate the "not TV" of the convergence oniy as long as certain kinds ofteievision are excluded from the designation. era from the feminized mass culture of earlier periods. In insisting on the qualitative difference of convergence-erâ, niche-targeted television fiom the Costs of Legitimation broadly cast television of the newvork age, such discourse implicitly characterizes the television of the present in terms that associate it with the more powerfui Across American television history, different interests within and outside the sides of a number of unequal cultural binaries. Convergence-era television is teievision industry have sought to validate the medium. Most often, it has been masculinized, it is of a higher and more elite class, it is sophisticated and adult specific programs, producers, or channels that have achieved legitimated status. (rather than simplistic and juvenile), but sti1l youthfuily hip and cool. In such But the convergence era has seen an intensification of such efforrs. This discourse, convergence-era television is just better than the television that came intensification has resulted in televisioà as a whole being marked âs artistically before. That such a chanctenzation flatters and elevates the speaker's own taste Iegitimate, even while that designation depends upon cerrain kinds of television and position to the detriment of others is inconsequential, for that is the power being excluded from the discussion. The convergence-era intensifìcation ofsuch of legrtimation. discourses is also marked by their ubiquiry. On a near-daily basis, and in reference to a wide range of programming, television is figured as art, as better than ever before, as experiencing another "Golden Age." It is not that this intensificarion of legitimation discourses is inherently problematic. It is arguably a gesture of inclusion and a welcome expansion of what counts as art for television to gain entrance to such stâtus. However, discounes of legitimation are premised upon cultural hierarchies and hierarchies of all kinds require the denigration of some to justif,i the elevation of others. In the case of television, it is not other media that suffer this denigration. Rather, it is certain kinds of televìsion that are denigrated, dismissed, or ignored. It is difiìcult to make the case that the dismissals of realiry comperitions, or multi-camera sitcoms, or episodic procedurals, or daytime soap operas in and of themselves are politically troubling. But television genres and forms of programming carry with them characteristics and assumptions that reach beyond the world of TV. Both rhe legtimated and the non-legitimated television carryr classed and gendered associa- tions, as well, potentially, of associations on the basis of age, race, region, or other markers of difference. Thus, the multi-camera sitcom is articuiated to a mass audience of non-discriminating viewers, people who do not have the cultural capital-not to mention the actual capital-to "appreciate" the purportedly superior appeals of the single-camera comedy. The daytime soap opera is doubly and perhaps even triply denigrated. Its daytime scheduling associares it wirh rhe feminine, the underciass, and the aged- all social identities that mây not have "anything berter ro do" during the nornative hou¡s of productiviry. Add to this rhe feminized nature of soap content and the assumption that more "sophisticated" forms of serialized narrative are available in prime time and the dismissal and denigrarion of daytime soap T
t 174 Notes Notes 175
32 Arnong orhers' see Lynne Joyrich , Re-uíewíng.Reception: Tereukion, 'W.S. Postmodern curtwe cender, and 12 George Trow, Within the Context of No Context (New York: Atlantic Monthly @roomrrg,or, t.rdr".r" uJ".åry pres, 1996); patrice petro, ..Mæs culture and the Femini.,., ih. 'p1"..' .ri.ì."ìsion Press, 1997), 45. Trow's essay was originally published in The New Yorþet \n 1981 in Film Studies,,, cinemaJournal anti-television discourse in depth in "The 25' no' 3 (Spring 1gg6): 5-21; andnl;.'.t. .women,s 1,3 Jason Mittell analyzes this stream of Hil-.s, "Desired and Fea¡ed: 'Plug-In Voices in Radio Hisrory,,, Cultural Power of an Anti-Television Metaphor: Questioning the Drug' and in Mary s.ri-H;io"ich and Lauren nr¡ìio"r,r, .ar., 1,, no- 2 (May 2000): 21'5-238. Teleuision, Hßtoq,, an-d American ê"nrri,-er^ir*, a TV-Free America," Teleuision and New Media press, Crítical Essays (Durham: Duke Universiry 1999), 17_35. 1,4 Center for SCR-EEN-TIME Awareness website, http://www.sc¡eentimeinstitute. 33 Lynn spigel, Maree org/. Room for TV: Tereuisiot.r and* the Famiry postwar ldear ín Ameica 15 Daniel Boorstin, Tl're Image: A Cuíde to Pseudo-euents in Ameñca (New York: aÁ {lhi.iso..u"*ersiry of ciicago press, lisri J. r+ Joynch,40. Atheneum, L961),1'3. 35 lbid., 17. 1.6 Mander, 111. 36 In so doing, this 17 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselues to Death (New York: Penguin, 1985). wo¡k the paths laid by earlier .fo'gws terevision and new media and Reuiual of Anerican Community (New schoiarship. Spigel, Mar