HOW TO WATCH TELEVISION
User’s Guides to Popular Culture
Founding Editors: Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell
Bringing together dozens of tightly focused original essays from today’s leading scholars on popular culture, User’s Guides offer accessible, engaging cultural criticism across a host of media, past and present. Designed to engender classroom discussion by placing popular culture in broader social and cultural contexts, User’s Guides demonstrate how to meaningfully engage what we consume the most.
How to Watch Television
Edited by Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell
How to Play Video Games
Edited by Matthew Thomas Payne and Nina B. Huntemann
HOW TO WATCH TELEVISION
SECOND EDITION
EDITED BY
ETHAN THOMPSON
AND JASON MITTELL
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
© 2020 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thompson, Ethan, editor. | Mittell, Jason, editor.
Title: How to watch television / edited by Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell.
Description: Second edition. | New York : New York University Press, 2020. | Series: How to | “This revised edition includes 22 new essays that expand the scope of the book in a number of ways. All of the new entries come from authors who were not in the first edition (except new chapters from the two editors).… The 18 essays that remain from the first edition were some of the most successful pieces according to faculty and students who used the book, and cover many programs that still remain well-known years later. It was difficult removing the other essays from the original, as they all added important perspectives on a range of programs; thankfully, NYU Press has made all of these first edition essays available on their website so that readers can still access them”— Preface to the second edition. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019029653 | ISBN 9781479890637 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479898817 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479837441 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479890668 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Television programs—United States. | Television programs—Social aspects—United States. | Television programs—Political aspects—United States.
Classification: LCC PN1992.3.U5 H79 2020 | DDC 791.45/70973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029653New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Also available as an ebook
Preface to the Second Edition
The first edition of this book emerged from an idea that Ethan Thompson pitched to Jason Mittell back in 2011. Thompson wrote that there is “a real need for essays that model for undergraduates how scholarly television criticism and intellectual inquiry works by focusing on a particular program in accessible language, applying existing scholarship, and suggesting a way of looking at it—without necessarily trying to break new ground in television studies.” In academia, this was a fairly radical idea: publishing original scholarship whose primary audience was not other scholars but rather undergraduate students and other educated readers interested in learning more about media. The first edition of the book realized this idea through the support and editorial guidance of NYU Press, publishing forty essays, each analyzing an individual television program through accessible language and focused argumentation.
Nearly a decade later, this approach is still unusual within academia, even though “public scholarship” has become more acceptable as an approach. But we were gratified by the reception of the book from a wide range of readers, especially students who seemed excited to use the essays as models for their own critical writing and analysis. We were excited that colleagues in the related field of videogame studies were inspired to create a spinoff of sorts, publishing How to Play Videogames in 2019. And we were inspired to continue this approach by editing a second edition of the book, which we’ve been calling How to Watch MORE Television.
This revised edition includes twenty-two new essays that expand the scope of the book in a number of ways. All of the new entries come from authors who were not in the first edition (except new essays from the two editors), mostly inviting scholars early in their academic careers to the book. We sought out essays that explored ideas and topics that were missing from the first edition, including intersectionality, disability studies, and interpretive communities. We targeted analyses of programs that were more global in origin, and more broadly representing various genres and industrial formations. The result is a more diverse, inclusive, and wide-ranging assortment of essays that we believe will speak to today’s students better than the first edition.
The eighteen essays that remain from the first edition were some of the most successful pieces according to faculty and students who used the book, and cover many programs that still remain well known years later. It was difficult removing the other essays from the original, as they all added important perspectives on a range of programs; thankfully, NYU Press has made all of these first edition essays available on their website so that readers can still access them. We thank the authors of all of these essays for their contributions to the original book and hope that readers continue to reference these online-only essays:
Auto-Tune the News: Remix Video (David Gurney)
The Cosby Show: Representing Race (Christine Acham)
The Dick Van Dyke Show: Queer Meanings (Quinn Miller)
Entertainment Tonight: Tabloid News (Anne Helen Petersen)
Eva Luna: Latino/a Audiences (Hector Amaya)
Family Guy: Undermining Satire (Nick Marx)
Homicide: Realism (Bambi L. Haggins)
It’s Fun to Eat: Forgotten Television (Dana Polan)
Jersey Shore: Ironic Viewing (Susan J. Douglas)
Life on Mars: Transnational Adaptation (Christine Becker)
M*A*S*H: Socially Relevant Comedy (Noel Murray)
Monday Night Football: Brand Identity (Victoria E. Johnson)
NYPD Blue: Content Regulation (Jennifer Holt)
Onion News Network: Flow (Ethan Thompson)
Phineas & Ferb: Children’s Television (Jason Mittell)
The Prisoner: Cult TV Remakes (Matt Hills)
Samurai Champloo: Transnational Viewing (Jiwon Ahn)
Star Trek: Serialized Ideology (Roberta Pearson)
30 Days: Social Engagement (Geoffrey Baym and Colby Gottert)
Tim