Re-viewing Reception

Focusing on U.S. television of the 1980s - from "Miami Vice", "Moonlighting", and "Pee-wee's Playhouse" to "Max Headroom" - Lynne Joyrich explores how gender affects the reception of television. She traces how the medium has been characterized as 'feminine' and then turns to the television shows themselves. She analyzes a range of genres and forms: melodramas (historically associated with women); action and crime dramas (aimed at men); dramas that try to distinguish themselves as 'quality' television; programs that emphasize the traditional family, while redefining that family to incorporate disruptions of race, class, and gender; and, programs that self-consciously announce television's 'difference' through strategies that call attention to the medium itself or its institutions. Drawing on feminist, psychoanalytic, and postmodern theory, Joyrich provides a comprehensive analysis of television and television studies.