A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Children Playing in Hollywood
by: Judith Halberstam / University of Southern California
Let’s see how Little Children manages to sneak normativity into the plot as resolution for the problem of the community enforcement of …normativity!
Prime Time Bullies
by: Gareth Palmer / University of Salford
In programmes ranging from Extreme Makeover to Ten Years Younger our flexible selves are seen to be empowered by experts striving to bring forth ‘the real you.’
Spouse Exchanges: I Know the Perfect People …
by: Megan Mullen / University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Is the families selecting process to participate in reality TV showing American entertainment preferences? Are you and your family eligible?
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Boy: Transgeneration‘s Meditation on the “Real”
by: Shana Agid / Sarah Lawrence College
Thoughts on Transgeneration and TV’s quest to create a viable “normal” transgender person.
Micro-Ethnographies of the Screen: The Supermarket
by: Dan Leopard / University of Southern California
Dan Leopard considers the screens we ignore as we shop for food.
Celebrity Nepotism, Family Values and E! Television
by: Diane Negra / University of East Anglia
A closer look at families, wealth and Filthy Rich Cattle Drive.
Pass the Remote!
by: Natalie Cannon, Zak Salih, and Angela Nemecek
HBO’s Carnivale and the valorization of freak culture.
The Republic of Tyra
by: Anna McCarthy / New York University
Who would you rather run the country — Tyra or Simon?
I’m A Celebrity – Analyse Me: The Appeal of Celebrity Reality TV
by: Kirsty Fairclough / University of Salford, UK
What celebrity reality TV offers as opposed to its celebrity-constructing counterpart is not the transformation of the “ordinary” person into the “extraordinary,” but the opposite trajectory.
