Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

The Funny, the Serious and the Social: A Reflection from the Leno/Conan Controversy

It’s been an odd couple of weeks in the news recently, with a number of articles and video segments frantically reporting on the Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno fiasco. “I’m with Coco” fans’ dreams for the future of The Tonight Show were laid to rest when NBC executives officially announced a little...
February 4th, 2010 | Media, Television | Read More

It’s a Mad (Men) World

Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen the Season 3 finale and still want to, read no further. AMC’s Emmy-winning, media darling Mad Men wrapped up its third season last week with a bang and a whimper. In the season finale, “Shut the Door. Have a Seat,” ad agency Sterling Cooper...
November 23rd, 2009 | Culture, Television | Read More

Desperate Housewives and Democracy

Desperate Housewives, about to enter its sixth season, is a Gothic television series about a set of women who are stuck in suburbia. Though none of them are “housewives” in any traditional sense, the show plays on the 1950s stereotype. The community within the show is strikingly insular:...
September 3rd, 2009 | Culture, Other, Television | Read More

The Shameful Silence: Iran, Revolution, and the American Media

Saturday was a critical day in the history of Iran.  For over a decade, the younger population in Iran (the country with the most people under 30 per capita) has been growing increasingly disillusioned with the ironclad principles of the Islamic Revolution.  There have been moments in its recent political...
June 14th, 2009 | Media, Television | Read More

Weininger’s Women:
The Misogyny of Sex and the City

After six seasons and ninety-three episodes, Sex and the City aired its final episode last February on HBO. But like a case of genital herpes, the show refuses to go away. The first two seasons line the walls of every video store in the country while HBO continues to beams encore episodes of the fourth...
March 29th, 2005 | Television | Read More

Teens, Television, and the Technical Virgin:
The Connection Between Viewing Habits and Sexual Behavior

October 25th, 2004 | Television | Read More

The Question of God:
C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud with Dr. Armand Nicholi

September 15th, 2004 | Television | Read More

I Want My GayTV

MTV Networks has announced plans to launch a new entertainment cable channel called LOGO that will cater to gay and lesbian viewers. The channel, which is expected to launch in February, will be on basic cable and reach between 10 -14 million homes. MTV president Judy McGrath told reporters that she...
May 28th, 2004 | Television | Read More

Springtime for Oscar

Sharp-eyed pundit Jared Bridges noticed something peculiar while watching the latest Academy Awards ceremony. While showing the annual film collage of Hollywood personalities who had died the previous year he thought he noticed…no, that couldn’t be…Leni Riefenstahl? “She had a...
March 3rd, 2004 | Television | Read More

Weininger’s Women:
The End of Sex and the City

After six seasons and ninety-three episodes, Sex and the City airs the final episode tonight on HBO.The final show brings not only the end of an era but the culmination of a magnum opus. Anyone who has watched every episode — all 46.5 hours — will have witnessed a work of genius in what...
February 22nd, 2004 | Television | Read More