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.