Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction
- 1 Mass (Mediating) Incarceration
- 2 How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism? Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary
- 3 If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire
- 4 Is Entertainment the New Activism? Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons
- 5 Can Melodrama Redeem American History? Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar
- Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Index
The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2022
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- The Captivating Aspirations of Post-Network Quality Television in the Age of Mass Incarceration: An Introduction
- 1 Mass (Mediating) Incarceration
- 2 How Does Violent Spectacle Appear as TV Realism? Sources of OZ’s Penal Imaginary
- 3 If It’s Not TV, is It Sociology? The Wire
- 4 Is Entertainment the New Activism? Orange Is the New Black, Women’s Imprisonment, and the Taste for Prisons
- 5 Can Melodrama Redeem American History? Ava DuVernay’s 13th and Queen Sugar
- Conclusion: American Politics and Prison Reform after TV’s Digital Turn
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Why did a President of the USA invite a TV showrunner to the White House? And what does it have to do with mass incarceration? This introduction argues that an influential wave of post-network era American television series established their “quality” credentials by advertising themselves as critical interventions into the crisis of mass incarceration. Although these series pushed the frontiers of televisual innovation and helped bring awareness of mass incarceration into the mainstream, their aspirations and achievements cannot be disentangled from their industry patron's perennially capitalist prerogatives. After elaborating on this book's key contexts and theoretical investments, it turns to a quick outline of its methods and briefly previews each of the chapters to come.
Keywords: American television, mass incarceration, post-network era, new golden age of television, political economy of TV
In 2015, President Obama invited a retired journalist to the White House. At first glance, such an event would seem to be nothing too out of the ordinary. However, this particular journalist had long since left the news business to become one of America's most celebrated creators of contemporary TV drama. I am speaking of course of David Simon, the creator of one of the most critically acclaimed TV dramas of recent decades: The Wire (2002–2008).
Although President Obama succumbed to the urge to confess his fandom for the show, calling it “one of the greatest not just television shows but pieces of art in the last couple of decades” (Simon and Obama) and even letting slip his favorite character (Omar Little), the topic of conversation did not revolve around the rising cultural distinction of contemporary television, the technology driving it, nor even consequential shifts in the industry and its practices. Nor did the interlocutors dwell too long on Obama's own fanboy impulses (to Simon's evident relief). Instead, the two sat down to talk about The Wire's ostensible relevance for understanding one of the most pressing, yet often ignored, issues in contemporary American society: mass incarceration.
The USA has the highest rate of incarceration in the world; with just under 5% of the world's population, it accounts for nearly 25% of the world's prisoners (NAACP).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- American Mass Incarceration and Post-Network Quality TelevisionCaptivating Aspirations, pp. 7 - 28Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022