Cinematic TV (Paperback)

Rashna Wadia Richards

ISBN 10: 0190071265 / ISBN 13: 9780190071264

Published by Oxford University Press Inc, New York, 2021

About this Item

Paperback. For decades after its invention, television was considered by many to be culturally deficient when compared to cinema, as analyses rooted in communication studies and the social sciences tended to focus primarily on television's negative impact on consumers. More recently, however, denigration has largely been replaced by serious critical consideration of what television represents in the post-network era. Once derided as a media wasteland, TV is now praised for itsvisual density and complexity. In the last two decades, media scholars have often suggested that television has become cinematic. Serial dramas, in particular, are acclaimed for their imitations ofcinema's formally innovative and narratively challenging conventions. But what exactly does "cinematic TV" mean? In Cinematic TV, author Rashna Wadia Richards takes up this question comprehensively, arguing that TV dramas quote, copy, and appropriate (primarily) American cinema in multiple ways and toward multiple ends. Constructing an innovative theoretical framework by combining intertextuality and memory studies, Cinematic TV focuses on fourmodalities of intermedial borrowings: homage, evocation, genre, and parody. Through close readings of such exemplary shows as Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People, the book demonstrates how serial dramasreproduce and rework, undermine and idolize, and, in some cases, compete with and outdo cinema. Investigating the boundaries between media in an age of convergence, Cinematic TV constructs a new model for exploring how contemporary serial dramas quote, copy, and appropriate American cinema. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780190071264

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cinematic TV (Paperback)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, New York
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190071265
• ISBN 13: 9780190071264
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

For decades after its invention, television was considered by many to be culturally deficient when compared to cinema, as analyses rooted in communication studies and the social sciences tended to focus primarily on television's negative impact on consumers. More recently, however, denigration has largely been replaced by serious critical consideration of what television represents in the post-network era. Once derided as a media wasteland, TV is now praised for its visual density and complexity. In the last two decades, media scholars have often suggested that television has become cinematic. Serial dramas, in particular, are acclaimed for their imitations of cinema's formally innovative and narratively challenging conventions. But what exactly does "cinematic TV" mean?

In Cinematic TV, author Rashna Wadia Richards takes up this question comprehensively, arguing that TV dramas quote, copy, and appropriate (primarily) American cinema in multiple ways and toward multiple ends. Constructing an innovative theoretical framework by combining intertextuality and memory studies, Cinematic TV focuses on four modalities of intermedial borrowings: homage, evocation, genre, and parody. Through close readings of such exemplary shows as Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People, the book demonstrates how serial dramas reproduce and rework, undermine and idolize, and, in some cases, compete with and outdo cinema.

About the Author

Rashna Wadia Richards is Associate Professor and T. K. Young Chair of English at Rhodes College. She is the author of Cinematic Flashes: Cinephilia and Classical Hollywood (2013) and co-editor of For the Love of Cinema: Teaching Our Passion in and Outside the Classroom (2017).