From Uncle Miltie to the moon launches to Wheel of Fortune, a briskly intelligent decade-by-decade analysis of the TV programs that have indelibly shaped American culture. Now that cable television is in a majority of American homes and 500 channels are in the offing, the once unassailable cultural hegemony of the three networks is rapidly disappearing. Will 7 out of 10 TV sets, for example, ever again be tuned to the same miniseries, as happened with Roots? As Stark, a writing instructor at Harvard Law School and pop-culture commentator for NPR and CNN, makes clear, television has played an enormous but subtle role in molding our perceptions and attitudes, often in unexpected ways: ``Television's ubiquity makes it a pop-culture version of the air we breathe.'' Comedies have been particularly influential. Making up more than a third of his list, they have dealt with everything from women's entry into the workforce (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) to prejudice (All In the Family) to multiculturalism (The Cosby Show). As Stark notes, ``By packaging troubling cultural shifts in the guise of comic fantasy, these shows made it easier for Americans to come to grips with rapid social change.'' While one could quibble with a few of his omissions (Soap, The Simpsons, Cops, any of Aaron Spelling's oeuvre), Stark has done a remarkable job of compilation, sifting the millions of hours of fluff and dreck to find what really mattered. This is also some of the best and most informed writing on television around. Stark is always looking for explanations beyond the usual explanations. For example, TV is frequently criticized for its violence, yet Stark believes that shows like Dragnet helped shape overly positive and uncritical attitudes about the legal system. A vital and engaging analysis of the television ``canon.''
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-82817-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
A real-life Frank Capra tale, just as corny, sentimental and inspiring as It's a Wonderful Life.
Hokey but charming memoir, reminiscent of an afternoon spent flipping through the pages of an antique photo album.
Although an autobiography, Coleman chronicles his life in the third person with a dispassion and modesty remarkable for a novice writer. It is perhaps the era that speaks through his prose—not a child of the "Me Decade," Coleman reminds us that the past was, indeed, more difficult than the present. And people certainly tended to whine a good deal less back then. The account begins chronologically, with his birth in 1902 to pioneer parents, their eighth child. By the time he was nine, the family had moved to their own homestead in Myrtle Creek, Ore. That summer he contracted polio and lost the use of his legs. Overcoming his crippled condition occupied a good portion of his youth, admirably marked by self-reliance and invention. He whittled his own crutches, made violins and, at 19, attempting to find a trade that would accommodate his physical condition, paid a jeweler $25 per month in order to serve as an apprentice to the watchmaker. As a young man in the '20s, he married and became a father, then established himself as sole proprietor of a jewelry store. The narrative is interspersed with photographs, newspaper clippings, Coleman's poems (an unfortunate weakness), musical scores (also not very solid), jewelry designs and the Coleman family tree. At a glance, Coleman’s history, aside from his disability, is not unusual. He becomes one of the leading merchants of a small town, state archery champion, and president of the Lion's Club. His would seem to be the unremarkable chronicle of a small-town success of interest to no one outside his family. Even so, it's his banality that is oddly compelling. Following the ups and downs of the Coleman jewelry store through the Depression, World War II, and the post-war era up until Coleman's death in 1972, is an enjoyable journey through the low-key strength and integrity that sustains middle-American lives. Coleman's son, John Coleman, today runs Coleman's Jewelers, the jewelry store founded by the author, in Corvallis, Ore. (Proceeds from the sale of this book, which has an endorsement from former senator Bob Dole, will go to Rotary International's "effort to eradicate polio" and to the Austin Family Business Program at Oregon State University.)
A real-life Frank Capra tale, just as corny, sentimental and inspiring as It's a Wonderful Life.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9754140-0-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Meet Norma Hazelton, connoisseur and collector of swizzle sticks. If you're not impressed by a plastic Jackie Gleason long since separated from its maraschino cherry, take a look at Robert Cade, inventor of Gatorade and a collector of Studebakers (re the carmaker's Dictator line of the 1930s, he says: ``Dictator was a good name until Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin. They dropped the Dictator line in 1937 because of them''). Among the 20 collections that Tuchman and photographer Brenner cast their eyes on are caches of Civil War memorabilia (a banjo, a musket, a toothbrush); aquarium furniture (a lot of mermaids); and representations of the Last Supper (a clock, a saltshaker, a funeral-home fan). Tuchman's text, mostly a pastiche of comments from the collectors themselves, is informative—and just glib enough to keep the whole book from feeling like a spooky visit to your mad Aunt Mabel's attic.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0360-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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