Core post #3 - Week 5

One of the readings that I enjoyed the most was Lipsitz’s article on the meaning of memory. I think that his analysis of the portrayal of ethnic minorities lives, whose interactions and beliefs are rooted in a certain past and yet legitimize the new consumer, individualistic and atomized culture of the 1950s is brilliant. I liked the piece because it incorporates a lot of relevant elements in the argument, some of which are more structural, like collective nature or class consciousness of the 1940s among workers, the desire of capital to regain its initiative, and the intervention of the government that aided in the dominance of commercial television, while some are more ideological, such as the presentation of consumer goods as solutions to the problems in life as well as the end goal of work, and acquisition power as the true measure of man’s worthiness. While reading that “consumer choices close the ruptures in personal relations, enabling the episode to reach narrative and ideological closure” (p. 81) I was reminded of the episode we saw a while back of Life with Luigi and how the purchase of the blue suit by her and the purchase of the dress by him signified their worth as friends. Another thing that this text reminded me of was Newcomb’s notion of TV as cultural forum, particularly this idea that just the raising questions in a show is important because audiences are introduced to social problems that way, despite whichever resolution the show presents to the issue. In Lipsitz’s discussion about work, class and ethnicity, he argues that the representation of the class situation on these shows was a rather sanitized version of the historical American working class but that, despite that, “the legitimizing functions served by locating programs in working-class environments caused some attempts at authenticity that brought sedimented class tensions to the surface” (p.93). However, it seems that the author’s position would be on Gitlint’s side of the spectrum, which is only reinforced when he mentions Gramsci to explain how this contradictions or alternative elements on the shows worked to legitimate hegemony – consumer capitalism – although he does admit that legitimation is always incomplete, which is why it is possible to have alternative or oppositional readings of the same show/episode á la Stuart Hall.

I also really liked the Spiegel text and I kept drawing parallels between 1950 and today as I read it, particularly around one of the main ideas in the text, namely that TV brought an illusion of the outside world into the home and that it was part of a larger process in which the home was designed to incorporate social spaces. I think that approach could be used to analyze our current relation to TV and other technologies – VR I’m look at you – because we keep surrounding ourselves with artifacts that “bring the world” to our living room, making it “harder” for us to leave the house. In the 1950s, this applied mostly to women that by “going to the TV” instead of “going to the movies” were spatially confined in the home. Although this now applies to both genders (albeit still not equally) I think that the main difference is that “going to the TV” is not felt as confinement, rather it is sought after as convenient. This text also made me think of the transformation of some movie theaters in the last couple of years that, unlike TV, are trying to bring the home into the outside world by upgrading their seating so that it feels more like a couch and by adding gourmet food services and drinks, simulating a living room or a more homey environment.