Critical Perspectives on the Hallmark Channel: Countdown to Romance

This multinational, multidisciplinary collection of essays focuses on Hallmark Channel movies and Hallmark’s position in the changing North American media landscape.

This book covers the ‘Countdown to Christmas’ offerings, year-round productions, made-for-TV mysteries and romances, Hallmark’s use of specific filming locations, and its relationship to viewer desires. Chapters examine Hallmark’s position in a changing sociopolitical context and the tensions the company must navigate in creating more “progressive” content; they discuss issues of gender, race, sexuality, and place, as well as analyzing the extensive ranges and reactions of social media participants and interrogating the nature of Hallmark’s popularity.

Suitable for scholars and students of film and tv and popular culture studies, this is a multifaceted look at both Hallmark and its viewers at a particular moment of Hallmark’s market dominance.

Carlen Lavigne, Ph.D., is Head of Communications Studies at Red Deer Polytechnic in Alberta, Canada. She is the author of Post-Apocalyptic Patriarchy: American Television and Gendered Visions of Survival (McFarland, 2018), and Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction (McFarland, 2013). She is also the editor of Remake Television (Lexington, 2014) and the co-editor of American Remakes of British Television (Lexington, 2011).