The enduring queer feminist engagement with Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann's camp comedy legacy.Catalyzed by her notoriously "dirty," fabulously successful bestseller Valley of the Dolls, the "Jackie Susann Sixties" brimmed with camp comedy that now permeates contemporary celebrations of the author, from Pee-wee's Playhouse to RuPaul's Drag Race and Lee Daniels's Star. First christened "camp" by Gloria Stei...

Examines the reception, formal strategies, production history, and ideological underpinnings of the groundbreaking comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.The highest-rated network program during its first three seasons, comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (NBC, 1968–1973) remains an often overlooked and underrated innovator of American television history. Audiences of all kinds—old and young, square and hip, black and white, s...

The Golden Girls: Tales from the Lanai is an accessible collection that explores the cultural, industrial, and historical impact of that beloved American sitcom. Edited by Taylor Cole Miller and Alfred L. Martin, Jr., this anthology brings together a diverse range of voices that model different media studies approaches to researching and critically analyzing television texts. The Golden Girls reclaims the production history and development of the show, opens new conversat...

Since slavery, African and African American humor has baffled, intrigued, angered, and entertained the masses.Rolling centers Blackness in comedy, especially on television, and observing that it is often relegated to biopics, slave narratives, and the comedic. But like W. E. B. DuBois's ideas about double consciousness and Racquel Gates's extension of his theories, we know that Blackness resonates for Black viewers in ways often entirely different than for white viewers. C...

The first book to address the interaction between the Walt Disney Company and the gay communityFrom its Magic Kingdom theme parks to its udderless cows, the Walt Disney Company has successfully maintained itself as the brand name of conservative American family values. But the Walt Disney Company has also had a long and complex relationship to the gay and lesbian community that is only now becoming visible.In Tinker Belles and Evil Queens, ...

A groundbreaking look at the history of transgender representation in TV and film, by an of-the-moment and in-demand culture reporter.WE SEE EACH OTHER is a personal history of trans visibility since the beginning of moving images. A literary reckoning, it unearths a transcestry that's long existed in plain sight and in the shadows of history's annals, and further contextualizes our present moment of increased representation. The films and television shows that Tre'...

Thought-provoking and "undeniably interesting" essays on this cultural institution of comedy and what it says about our society ( Booklist).Since 1975, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" has greeted late night–TV viewers looking for the best in sketch comedy and popular music. SNL is the variety show that launched the careers of countless comedians, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Adam Sand...

Since first going on the air in 1972, HBO has continually attempted to redefine television as we know it. Today, pay television (and HBO in particular) is positioned as an alternative to network offerings, consistently regarded as the premier site for what has come to be called "quality television."This collection of new essays by an international group of media scholars argues that HBO, as part of the leading edge of television, is at the center of television studies’ interests in...

A new edition that brings the ways we watch and think about television up to the presentWe all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it “good” or “bad.” Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program’s cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context.

Since the show's debut in 2007, Mad Men has invited viewers to immerse themselves in the lush period settings, ruthless Madison Avenue advertising culture, and arresting characters at the center of its 1960s fictional world. Mad Men, Mad World is a comprehensive analysis of this groundbreaking TV series. Scholars from across the humanities consider the AMC drama from a fascinating array of perspectives, including fashion, history, architecture, civil rights, feminism, con...

Essays on the history of HBO, a company designed to please audiences instead of advertisers, and the impact of its distinctive programming: "Recommended." — ChoiceThe founding of Home Box Office in the early 1970s—when it debuted by telecasting a Paul Newman movie and an NHL game to 365 households in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania—was a harbinger of the innovations that would transform television as an industry and a technology in the decades that followed. HB...

Susan Koppelman Award Winner: "A juicy read for those who love the many ways female comics use their art to question the patriarchy." — BustAmy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, Tig Notaro, Leslie Jones, and a host of hilarious peers are killing it nightly on American stages and screens, smashing the tired stereotype that women aren't funny. But today's funny women didn't come out of nowhere. Fay Tincher's daredevil stunts, Mae West's ...