My apologies for this post coming up late.
Tomorrow in section we will be looking at Streeter's "Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows" and Bodroghkozy's "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the Youth Rebellion." As you're prepping, start thinking about examples from any TV era that relate to the concepts, theories, and ideas that you're reading about - let's make some connections!
Discussion questions:
- What are the blue skies discourses Streeter discusses? What different organizations, groups of people, and other stakeholders promoted these discourses, and for what reasons?
- Who are the strange bedfellows when it came to pushing for cable policy and distribution? Why are they so strange? What about cable made it possible for these disparate groups to agree with each other?
- Who was the audience of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour? How did the show's audience contribute to the show becoming a political battleground? What changes did they make to the traditional variety show form as part of their audience-getting strategy?
- Outline the trajectory of the Hour's comedic material/intention. How did it reflect or channel social changes happening in the US at the time? What taboo topics did the show engage with that drew in particular audiences? When and how did entertainment slip into editorialization?
See y'all soon!
Josh
PS: Your bonus fun video for today: the every important Buggles. Cable's coming, and it's allllll changing from here on out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ouxuXioCvY
ReplyDeletePushing for cable policy and distribution were many liberals, professional groups, progressives, media activists--a group most would not think could have similar views on anything. However, "the discourse had the specific effect of systematically drawing attention away from political differences...The form of the discourse-it's particular mixture of themes, blindspots, and gaps-make possible an odd alliance between the CATV industry, certain professional groups, and some liberal progressive organizations. The discourse of the new technologies thus made possible some major actions in the policy arena, actions that simple self-interest would not warrent." The utopian promise of cable television was attractive to many, and people believed that it would solve issues surrounding race, poverty and international strife.
ReplyDeleteHowever, among the strange bedfellows pushing for cable as a technological revolution, were many who believed cable would be bad for the country. It portrayed Pay TV as the enemy, and encouraged people to not support cable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESgzWZr5iEY
1. "Blue skies" is a description of the discourse around new technologies, specifically cable, that offered a utopian vision of technology that happens in the early development of television that arose again in 1960s and 1970s. A faith in new technology had been a recurring theme on the American left at various points throughout this century and often the discourse centered around the problem-solving ability of communication technologies like cable.
ReplyDeleteFor cable operators, the interest in the discourse came from the perspective of cable as a new technology to gain leverage against the broadcasters, to carve out their market position, niche. For liberal elites, they were interested in fostering alternatives to the existing commercial television- as a way "to regain constitutional heritage of freedoms and communication." For progressives, their interest lie in fostering more democratic forms of communication. For influential policymakers, they were interested in centralizing the management of the telecommunications system within a government agency. Finally, economist taking part in the discourse were concerned with governmental regulatory problems.
Clip: http://southpark.cc.com/clips/qblqju/the-cable-company-runaround
South Park here is addressing the issue of cable in popular discourse today. More specifically, this clip speaks to the idea of cable as controlling freedom of communication; as the cable worker rubs his nip-nips, he is taking pleasure in the monopoly-industry that cable television has evolved into- the opposite of the utopian vision of cable from the 70s. But hey, at least cable lets shows like South Park exist!
3. Initially, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour tried to appeal to the mass audience. However, as the show continued it became progressively left-winged and appealed to the college kids, hippies and dissident Left. "The Smothers increasingly incorporated oppositional policies into their show."
ReplyDeleteThe underground press written by the audience displayed the audience's approval of the show's dissenting nature.
In contrast to the traditional variety show, the Smothers Brothers appealed to the 19-26 year old group college revolutionaries and countercultural dropouts. Variety shows tended to be politically neutral and appeal to the mass audience.
4. The Smothers Brothers Power Hour ran parallel to societies' controversy by incorporating drugs, gender roles, anti-war ideas, and censorship in their program. This appealed heavily to the younger audience. The show slipped from entertainment to editorialization as the political climate became worse and the show was threatened with censorship.