Bianculli dutifully identifies the best of contemporary TV and its antecedents, but the book lacks the thrill of surprise or...
Let’s all agree on good TV.
In his latest book, prominent TV critic Bianculli (TV and Film/Rowan Univ.; Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” 2010, etc.), the founder and editor of tvworthwatching.com, traces the evolution of TV from its cultural status as a lesser medium to its current lauded “Platinum Age.” The book is arranged by genre, with the author selecting five series that represent the growth of each particular form; for example, he examines the crime show genre by considering the steps taken by Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, and The Shield to get to Breaking Bad. It’s difficult to argue with Bianculli’s assertion that contemporary TV enjoys unprecedented critical and cultural cachet or that today’s series are artistically worthy endeavors. Unfortunately, that’s what makes the book problematic: Bianculli’s premise is so self-evident as to make all of this effort seem a bit pointless, a failing not helped by the author’s adherence to conventional wisdom (his series selections will pop no monocles) and workmanlike style. Performances or creators are described as “wonderful,” and shows are declared “masterpieces” with little explication, and the author fails to meaningfully address the larger technological and social changes that have been instrumental in the growing sophistication and specificity of today’s TV. A series of capsule career biographies of such significant TV creators as Steven Bochco, Ken Burns, David Milch, Judd Apatow, Vince Gilligan, and Norman Lear provide the book’s most useful passages, constituting a concise historical survey of the creative side of the medium. However, the author’s less-than-scintillating wordsmithing lends the proceedings the air of a pro forma exercise.
Bianculli dutifully identifies the best of contemporary TV and its antecedents, but the book lacks the thrill of surprise or the satisfaction of new insight.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-54027-8
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
A sleek, vital history that effectively shows how, “from the outset, inequality was enforced with the whip, the gun, and the...
A concise, alternate history of the United States “about how people across the hemisphere wove together antislavery, anticolonial, pro-freedom, and pro-working-class movements against tremendous obstacles.”
In the latest in the publisher’s ReVisioning American History series, Ortiz (History/Univ. of Florida; Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920, 2005, etc.) examines U.S. history through the lens of African-American and Latinx activists. Much of the American history taught in schools is limited to white America, leaving out the impact of non-European immigrants and indigenous peoples. The author corrects that error in a thorough look at the debt of gratitude we owe to the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican War of Independence, and the Cuban War of Independence, all struggles that helped lead to social democracy. Ortiz shows the history of the workers for what it really was: a fatal intertwining of slavery, racial capitalism, and imperialism. He states that the American Revolution began as a war of independence and became a war to preserve slavery. Thus, slavery is the foundation of American prosperity. With the end of slavery, imperialist America exported segregation laws and labor discrimination abroad. As we moved into Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, we stole their land for American corporations and used the Army to enforce draconian labor laws. This continued in the South and in California. The rise of agriculture could not have succeeded without cheap labor. Mexican workers were often preferred because, if they demanded rights, they could just be deported. Convict labor worked even better. The author points out the only way success has been gained is by organizing; a great example was the “Day without Immigrants” in 2006. Of course, as Ortiz rightly notes, much more work is necessary, especially since Jim Crow and Juan Crow are resurging as each political gain is met with “legal” countermeasures.
A sleek, vital history that effectively shows how, “from the outset, inequality was enforced with the whip, the gun, and the United States Constitution.”Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8070-1310-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.
New York Times columnist Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement, 2011, etc.) returns with another volume that walks the thin line between self-help and cultural criticism.
Sandwiched between his introduction and conclusion are eight chapters that profile exemplars (Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne are textual roommates) whose lives can, in Brooks’ view, show us the light. Given the author’s conservative bent in his column, readers may be surprised to discover that his cast includes some notable leftists, including Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and A. Philip Randolph. (Also included are Gens. Eisenhower and Marshall, Augustine, and George Eliot.) Throughout the book, Brooks’ pattern is fairly consistent: he sketches each individual’s life, highlighting struggles won and weaknesses overcome (or not), and extracts lessons for the rest of us. In general, he celebrates hard work, humility, self-effacement, and devotion to a true vocation. Early in his text, he adapts the “Adam I and Adam II” construction from the work of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Adam I being the more external, career-driven human, Adam II the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.” At times, this veers near the Devil Bugs Bunny and Angel Bugs that sit on the cartoon character’s shoulders at critical moments. Brooks liberally seasons the narrative with many allusions to history, philosophy, and literature. Viktor Frankl, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Tillich, William and Henry James, Matthew Arnold, Virginia Woolf—these are but a few who pop up. Although Brooks goes after the selfie generation, he does so in a fairly nuanced way, noting that it was really the World War II Greatest Generation who started the ball rolling. He is careful to emphasize that no one—even those he profiles—is anywhere near flawless.
The author’s sincere sermon—at times analytical, at times hortatory—remains a hopeful one.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9325-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
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