“Reality-television fans have high standards for artifice”
Reality-television fans have high standards for artifice, which needs to seem both believable and intricately produced, bloody and plastic. This was the initial appeal of the “Housewives” franchise, which will swan to its fifteenth anniversary in March. When the inaugural series, “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” premièred, in 2006, audiences were titillated by this […] continued…
“…long before the age of quarantine, kids under the age of six spent a crazy amount of time indoors, watching television, a bleary-eyed average of fifty-four hours a week”
Half a century ago, before “Sesame Street,” and long before the age of quarantine, kids under the age of six spent a crazy amount of time indoors, watching television, a bleary-eyed average of fifty-four hours a week. In 1965, the year the Johnson Administration founded Head Start, Lloyd Morrisett, a vice-president of the Carnegie Corporation […] continued…
“The sessions are extraordinary for the rare glimpses they provide of unscripted conversations at the White House on critical issues”
The chief executive sits at a long wooden table, putting his invited guests on the spot to defend their positions, occasionally needling them with biting comments, often shocking them with blunt talk — all for a rapt television audience. The tableau was a routine occurrence on President Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice,” punctuated each week […] continued…
“The ’90s was the decade…in which conspiracism…became a form of kitschy entertainment”
The ’90s was the decade of Oliver Stone’s “J.F.K.,” “The X-Files” and late-night Roswell documentaries — the decade in which conspiracism, safely removed from the exigencies of the Cold War and domestic upheaval, became a form of kitschy entertainment. It was an antipolitics well suited to a cultural era that favored irony and disillusionment and […] continued…
“The tone-setting awkward sex scene has become a staple of the modern television series opener”
Perhaps you’ve seen the new TV series whose pilot episode begins this way: A man and a woman are having sex, but something soon goes awry, and the whole production wraps up on an ungainly, awkward note. If you’re having trouble naming the show, it’s because there isn’t just one that commences this way. The […] continued…
“Superhero team-building is a venerable comic-book practice, one that flourished in the ’60s and ’70s…more or less contemporaneously with the first voyages of the Starship Enterprise”
Nothing in popular culture, or in consumer capitalism, is ever really new. Superhero team-building is a venerable comic-book practice, one that flourished in the ’60s and ’70s — with the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four — more or less contemporaneously with the first voyages of the Starship Enterprise. The Enterprise, though, is a convenient […] continued…
“There’s room for both kinds of shows, but as ‘Cosby’ recedes from reruns, ‘Roc’ seems especially worthy of reconsideration”
…looking back at “Roc,” I find it interesting to consider that before his acting career, Charles S. Dutton did almost a decade in prison for manslaughter and weapons possession, crimes he has discussed openly. Today, I juxtapose that with Bill Cosby’s life, which was largely spent fostering an upstanding image while reportedly perpetrating a horrific […] continued…
“As a reality TV professional, I would be lucky to strike gold like Donald Trump once or twice in a career”
I’ve been working in reality television for 10 years, and I can tell you that Mr. Trump is exactly what we look for in our casting process. He’s uncomplicated and authentic: You can understand his entire personality from a 15-second sound bite. His brand is blunt self-promotion. His buildings are big and gold, shouting TRUMP […] continued…
“Donald Trump is the presidential candidate that reality TV made”
Donald Trump is the presidential candidate that reality TV made. An electorate trained in voting contestants on and off shows like “American Idol” wants to keep him around because he makes things interesting. Instead of any plausible policy stance, Mr. Trump has built his campaign around an entertaining TV persona. Reality television has always been […] continued…
“The humor and pathos of “Louie” come not only from the occasional funny feelings that he has about his privileges…but also, more profoundly, from his knowledge that the conceptual and imaginative foundations of those privileges have crumbled beneath him”
The humor and pathos of “Louie” come not only from the occasional funny feelings that he has about his privileges — which include walking through the city in relative safety and the expectation of sleeping with women who are much better looking than he is — but also, more profoundly, from his knowledge that the […] continued…
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