Archive for October, 2006



Deadwood: Reinventing the World

Horace Newcomb, University of Georgia — October 26th, 2006

Raw. Raw material. The opening sequences in Deadwood refresh any sense of "the Western" we have. It looks true, whatever that might mean. Proabably means it just looks dirty. Muddy. Bloody. Bloody animal carcass, chopped chicken heads, blood on the screen. There'll be more blood soon. Bodies fed to the hogs. Murders. More dirt on people. Calamity Jane covered in filth. Al Swearingen's same old suit. "Dirty language." More Fs and CSs and MFs than ever heard before on TV. It's usua [...]
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The Third Kind of Heat: 30 Rock & Overcooked Synergy

Jason Mittell, Assoc. Prof. of Media Studies, Middlebury College — October 24th, 2006

In the pilot of 30 Rock, Jack Donaghy (as smarmed by Alec Baldwin) takes over NBC's oversight of a sketch comedy show based on his acumen in market research honed in GE's appliance division. This clip offers a winking parody of the corrupted logic of conglomeration, where cultural products are treated as mass-produced commodities--programming both televisions and microwaves, this is the illogical extension of Mark Fowler's infamous "toaster with pictures." However the logic twists back around, a [...]
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Holding Out For A Hiro

Henry Jenkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Comparative Media Studies — October 24th, 2006

Hiro Nakamura, salary man, otaku, "superhiro," superfan, has emerged as the most popular character on NBC's new Heroes. Here are a few reasons why. Hiro represents a role model for the series fans, who are more apt to recognize themselves in his giddy excitement, goofy enthusiasms and recurring references to Godzilla, Star Trek, Kitty Pride, and Peter Parker, than in the depressed and anxious responses of the other characters. Fans in American popular media are often represented as immature, [...]
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