Last Core Post

     One of the moments that struck me most in Professor McPherson’s extremely timely chapter, “Reload: Liveness, Mobility, and the Web” was her understanding of the web’s liveness (or, it’s “feel” of such) associated with a “sense of casuality” (202). Drawing from Jane Feuer’s influential work, McPherson argues that one of TV’s most defining factors (especially when comparing the medium to film) is it’s sense of “liveness,” and, as such, this liveness is touted heavy-handedly by the television industry (despite the fact that most of this promoted liveness is, in fact, an illusion). In contrast, the internet is immediately read as exemplifying liveness, many interpreting liveness “as an essential element of the medium” (202). This casuality brings with it a feeling of control for the web surfer, a feeling that their cursor, in real time, is their exclusive guide through the immense World Wide Web- a feeling that McPherson names “volitional mobility” (202).

     When thinking about what to write for this post, I pursued MSNBC’s website, curious about the inevitable change that had occurred on the site since this particular chapter was published in 2002. Once on the site, to my surprise, a bright red button announced to me that a COVID-19 update from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was happening live. Excited and amazed to see such an instantaneous and impossibly well-timed moment of the ever illusive “liveness,” I immediately clicked on the button. As I watched Mayor Garcetti answer questions about homelessness relocation and implementing the new “Slow Streets” program from reporters calling in remotely, I realized that in this moment, there was no sense of “casuality” associated with this piece of liveness.

    Screenshot of my computer screen during Mayor Garcetti's live COVID-19 update

     I realized that I was so struck by this argument because so many of the moments of liveness on the internet at this moment- from this update from Mayor Garcetti to my favorite chef cooking meals with other fun people on Instagram live to donation based dance classes coming live from closed studios all over the country- are in response to the global pandemic we are all facing, and the social distancing practices that are required as a result of it. The virtual closeness replaces physical closeness, and no longer does “the cursor seem. . . to embody our trajectory, an expression of our movement and our will,” but it instead becomes a constant reminder of our inability to physically move in the ways we once did (203). The feeling of control so vital to the concept of volitional mobility has vanished, at least for me, as a result of this pandemic. Perusing the internet now may sometimes "activate [my] very desire for movement and change," but I'm in the midst of understanding how to mobilize that desire elsewhere (207). 

Wildly unnecessary amounts of Joe Exotic content is approaching

I just found out that Joe Exotic’s life is being made into a scripted TV show starring Nicholas Cage as Exotic, and this is not even the first scripted series on him announced within the last year (https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/joe-exotic-nicolas-cage-series-tiger-king-1234574979/). It is fascinating that three serialized projects are being made about the same person in a year, which makes me wonder 1-What else they are hoping to add to an already spectacularly excessive entertainment content that is the Tiger King 2-What does this glorification of a documentary that has so many ethically questionable practices in it tell us about the contemporary landscape of TV production?

Core Post-5

In her article, Lisa Parks rightfully points out how we should think the technological convergence between TV and internet in relation to the politics of gender, race and class. She calls the resulting new industrial model around personalized TV as “ flexible micro casting” (Parks, 134), and argues that this model functions by turning a certain mode of individuality into profit. It commodifies social distinctions and creates a cycle by pushing certain content to the viewers who are assumed to fit into a social group or niche, while keeping the illusion of individual choice at the same time. She analyzes the classical network response to this new convergence era through a case study of the return of quiz show, then looks at two other examples of convergence era TV, the Oxygen Media and Den.

Even though her argument makes sense, I find myself a bit disappointed at her analysis of Oxygen Media. She claims that differences between classical TV and internet are perceived in a gendered way: the former is associated with a passive female audience whereas the latter is directed towards a masculine viewer who is tech savvy enough to take charge and navigate the territories of digital entertainment. According to Parks, we can see Oxygen Media as an attempt to overcome this distinction and emphasize the presence of female audience in the convergence era. She acknowledges how Oxygen Media represents a mainstream feminism that defines empowerment through consumption and encourages women to shop instead of actually creating space for discussing structural problems and encouraging solidarity. It turns feminism into a profitable enterprise, but Parks is willing to accept that in return for the space they provide for female audiences. Do we need to make such compromises? Projects such as Oxygen Media brand themselves as platforms putting women to foreground and emphasizing how women’s media are “ubiquitous as air”, but all they really do is to normalize the idea that female audiences are only a niche, and do the exact opposite of what they claim to be.

The TV Bracket

Without a doubt, the strangest phenomena that I've experienced in relation to television was a partly facetious exercise that turned very real: a bracket made by a friend on Twitter to determine the best television show of all time, culled to a bracket of (if I'm not mistaken) 128 from a very long longlist. From the beginning, it was hopelessly divisive and maddening, which gave people such as myself who weren't nearly as invested a good deal of schadenfreude. Too many turning points came as the competition tightened, but the most surreal moment of all came late: in the round of 16, The Good Place, which was given a top 10 seeding by public voting and which overperformed even with that, somehow came from behind to defeat The Sopranos. Fortunately, the number 1 seeded Twin Peaks barely held on to best it, and no other matchup came close to that shock, but it seemed to define the entire proceedings as some odd mix of campaigning, possible bot manipulation, and plain recency bias. The bracket ended as it was almost certainly destined to: on the final matchup between Twin Peaks and Sesame Street, two immensely incongrous final competitors, the bracket runner left Twitter to a mass of confusion and never resolved the bracket. In essence, the bracket summed up all the contradictions that make up television for me, all of the odd patterns of reception and viewership without which television could not survive.

Science as Narratives

Perhaps the show that has most marked my development, aside from maybe Twin Peaks, was Mythbusters, which I watched up until the last few seasons, though I likely missed some of the early seasons' episodes. Looking back on it now, it's hard to easily encapsulate what made me latch onto it so heavily. The natural charisma and humor of the five hosts' interactions was a key factor, but just as important was the actual process of testing the myths. Though the show dispensed with a dedicated mythologist relatively quickly and just had the hosts and narrator elaborate on the myths, the sense of a constructed narrative remained, and much of it came out of the pleasingly step-by-step nature of the proceedings. While these were all presumably factual depictions of the Mythbusters' process, the documentary element was often subsumed by the simple narrative pleasures, all opportunities for both banter and extremely technical crafts and problem solving. The answer for my love for the show must lie somewhere in the middle, equally indebted both the human and the mechanical.

Modern Forms of Reception

While it might be unfair to very briefly discuss a show I haven't seen, it's fascinating to think about how different the reception and popularity two incarnations of The Twilight Zone — the original hosted and conceived by Rod Serling, and the 2019 reboot hosted by Jordan Peele — differ. Without trying to make too broad a statement, the latter seemed to slip away from the public perception almost instantly, while the former was generally well-regarded and moderately successful even while it aired. Of course, the main difference is the sheer amount of competition for attention and viewership, only compounded by the latter airing on the relatively little-used CBS All Access. Even the presence of Peele, bringing both his extensive comedy TV experience and his newfound acclaim as a horror film director fresh off the splash of Us, barely seemed to make a dent, though the question of whether it would have been more watched had he had an actual significant hand in crafting episodes is up for debate. But there's a certain sense of diminishing returns to most any reboot, the idea of going back to the well that only fitfully works in the realm of broadcasting, and none of the episodes seem to land with any individual impact, something which the original show rarely lacked. Of course, my perception is skewed by the circles in which I run, but this sense of reception seems to affect all but a handful of shows.

Adaptation

Perhaps the biggest televisual surprise I've had in a long time was with the A Series of Unfortunate Events Netflix series, which unspooled the events of the thirteen books over three seasons. I watched all of them for the purposes of nostalgia, given the series' prominence in my younger self's book reading and the continued purchase it holds in my mind. While the events are largely reproduced faithfully, it's the surrounding material and added wrinkles that gave the show much of its heft. The creators, in essence, fleshed out and clarified the background, introducing the mysterious organization VFD in the first few episodes and putting Lemony Snicket as played by Patrick Warburton front and center. It's very much a series made for fans and those with a moderate to deep knowledge of the books, but at least from my perspective, it never felt like it distracted or hindered understanding of the most important parts, instead enhancing the sense of the strange world.