Tag: criticism

To All the Boys: Representation of Realistic Romantic Relationships

By: Madeline Makowski

For decades, romance movies have been depicting love to viewers. Boy meets girl, boy and girl slowly but surely fall deeply in love with each other, something nearly gets in the way of their relationship, but they overcome the odds and live happily ever after. The perfect ending for a nearly perfect story with a perfect romantic relationship. While romance movies certainly provide pleasure to viewers, they also pose some problems. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, some social scientists have stated that romance movies may cause audiences to develop unrealistic romantic expectations, which sets them up for romantic failure and disappointment. The article explains many of the stereotypical situations often depicted in romance movies: new romantic relationships are exciting and gain the kind of intimacy that can take years to develop in a matter of weeks; baggage from the past is quickly forgiven and forgotten; marriage and long-term relationships are often depicted as being full of problems. Researchers Julia Lippman, Monique Ward, and Rita Seabrook analyzed college students’ idea of love after watching romance movies. Their study found that students with more exposure to romance movies had a greater tendency to believe that love could overcome all challenges.

This post considers their findings in relation to the To All the Boys series. Premiering between 2018 and 2021, the three movies provide viewers with a mixture of realism and fantasy that can be expected in the romance genre. While this series explicitly critiques the fantastical elements of romance that are often found in similar films, the movies maintain many of the stereotypical romantic elements.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) tells the story of Lara Jean Covey, a teenage girl who struggles to navigate family dynamics and high school. After her younger sister, Kitty, sends letters that Lara Jean wrote to each boy she had feelings for growing up, Lara Jean finds herself in a fake relationship with Peter Kavinsky, one of the letter recipients. The purpose of their fake relationship is to make Peter’s ex-girlfriend, Gen, jealous and to give Lara Jean an excuse to avoid talking to Josh, another letter recipient and the ex-boyfriend of Lara Jean’s older sister, Margot. The start of their relationship is fantastical and comical, which can be seen as a nod towards how unrealistic many teen romance movies can be. By the end of the movie, Lara Jean and Peter have fallen for each other decide to make their fake relationship a real one.

At the beginning of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lara Jean is depicted as someone fascinated by romance. She is portrayed as being aware of romance movies’ too-good-to-be-true nature, yet she continues to be a fan. At one point, Lara Jean says that she enjoys reading and writing about love but thinks that real love can be scary. This part of the movie addresses the ease of romantic relationships portrayed in romance movies and how real love can be daunting. Lara Jean’s commentary is part of what makes the To All the Boys series stand out compared to other romance movies. While this series contains many fantastical and embellished romantic elements, it also explicitly acknowledges that fantasy plays a role in a majority of romance films and novels.

While parts of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before address the conflict between realism and fantasy that can be found in romance movies, there are certain elements of the movie that lend themselves to the fantastical side of romance. Lara Jean finds herself surprised by how easy it is to be with Peter during their fake relationship. Her previous expectations that love is hard and scary seem to be challenged by how effortless her relationship with Peter is, despite the fact that their relationship up until this point is a fantasy.

As the story progresses, other people begin to plant doubt in Lara Jean’s mind about Peter. Despite the fact that Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship is turning from fake to real, Lara Jean begins to lose trust in Peter and decides to end the relationship. At this point in the movie, the audience sees a glimpse of what real relationships can look like. Romantic relationships aren’t always easy, and this conflict between Lara Jean and Peter helps show that. After ending the relationship, Lara Jean struggles with whether or not she should fight for the relationship. She says that if she acknowledges she likes him, then she risks losing him. Again, this internal conflict gives the audience a glimpse of all the emotions and thoughts that can go into relationships.

Despite all the nods to realism in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the movie has the classic happy ending that is found in most romance movies. In the final scene, Lara Jean approaches Peter and makes a bold declaration of her love for him. He embraces her back fully and declares that he loves her. They kiss and walk off the screen together. While this scene makes the audience feel good, it’s not always how things in romantic relationships work out. Sometimes, romantic partners go from happy to unhappy and decide to split for good. According to the romance genre, however, romantic couples almost always completely resolve their conflict and end up happier than ever. Maybe this is the case for some people outside of romance movies, but the cycle of happy to hurt to happy again isn’t as mainstream as romance movies make it out to be. 

The story picks back up again in the sequel, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020). The movie opens with Lara Jean saying that romance isn’t a fantasy, it’s her real life: “Fairy tales aren’t real, but sometimes happily ever after is.” Lara Jean and Peter go on romantic dates with grand gestures such as flowers and gifts. On one of these dates, the couple promises not to break each other’s hearts. 

The movie very quickly leans into a fantastical portrayal of romantic relationships. One of Lara Jean’s biggest struggles throughout the move is if she should stay with Peter or pursue a relationship with John Ambrose. She comments that things are easy with John Ambrose whereas she overthinks a lot in her relationship with Peter. This comment solidifies a common theme throughout the movie series: if a romantic relationship is meant to be, it’ll be easy. It seems as though Lara Jean’s measure for a good relationship is one that’s always comfortable and effortless, and the plot rarely contradicts this. 

In one of the final scenes of the movie, Lara Jean and John Ambrose share a romantic moment that culminates in a kiss. She quickly realizes, however, that she wishes she was kissing Peter instead. She and Peter reunite, and he tells her that he loves her. The movie ends with the couple kissing and floating up to the sky, a direct nod at the fantastical elements of their relationship.  Despite all of the representation of realistic romantic relationships in this sequel, the audience is left with the same feeling they had at the end of the first movie. The audience now has the idealistic notion that love can conquer all. While some real relationships are often able to overcome conflict and challenges and come out stronger, conflict resolution is not always as easy and complete as it’s made out to be in movies like this one.

In the final movie of the series, To All the Boys: Always and Forever (2021), Lara Jean and Peter face the problem that every high school couple faces: college. They decide to both attend Stanford. When Lara Jean isn’t accepted, they make an alternate plan for her to attend UC-Berkeley and transfer to Stanford after her freshman year. This new plan doesn’t last long, however, because Lara Jean falls in love with NYU. She struggles with how to choose between going to her dream college or being with Peter. When she finally tells Peter that she’s going to NYU, he supports her and reassures her, despite being sad that they will be separated. This conversation between Lara Jean and Peter shows maturity and the ability to communicate. They are faced with a problem that often arises in the real world. They work through it and acknowledge that a long-distance relationship will be difficult.

Things quickly start to go downhill for Lara Jean and Peter, however. After prom, Lara Jean sneaks Peter into her room and gives him a box of mementos to remember her by when he goes to Stanford. Instead of feeling touched as Lara Jean had anticipated, Peter lashes out and says he feels like she’s trying to say goodbye. He believes that it’s inevitable that they will break up once they go to college, so they might as well go ahead and break up. This moment reflects some aspects of realism. The struggle of going to different colleges is very real in high school relationships, and many often do expect to break up. While this scene has dramatic elements, it touches on the idea of college posing a very big and real problem for high school couples.

Keeping to the classic romance pattern, things don’t stay bad for long. In a big romantic gesture, Peter shows up in Lara Jean’s backyard and declares his love for her. At the end of the couple’s romantic night together, Peter says that he knows they’ll end up together. This comment signals the movie’s shift back into fantasy. Very few high school couples can say with complete confidence that they know they’ll end up together. Some may, but it seems like a bold comment coming from a boy who hasn’t even graduated from high school.

As the movie closes, Lara Jean says that she’s always wanted the kind of love you see in movies where the boy meets a girl, they break up, make up, and live happily ever after. She then says that life is beautiful and messy and never goes according to plan. She says that love is choosing each other through all of it each day. All of these comments sound nice, but they are extremely idealistic. While Lara Jean is right that life doesn’t always go according to plan, choosing each other every day isn’t as easy as she makes it seem. This comment demonstrates the way the movie often trivializes the work that goes into relationships, thus portraying romantic relationships as more fantastical than realistic.

In conclusion, the To All the Boys series does a better job than most romance movies at providing the audience with a representation of a realistic romantic relationship. The series is not completely based on realism, however, and stays true to many classic themes often seen in romance movies. While the audience, specifically high schoolers, can catch glimpses of what a real high school relationship can look like in To All the Boys, they should be aware of the fantastical romantic elements that remain present. Fans of romance movies don’t need to abandon all their hopes and dreams of love, but they should keep in mind that the romantic standards portrayed in romance movies aren’t the same standards that should be set in the real world. At the end of the day, romance movies provide the audience with a pleasurable experience, and the fantastical elements present don’t warrant that people stop watching them. There is a certain awareness that romance movies aren’t meant to be completely realistic. Romance isn’t bad, but audiences should keep in mind that love isn’t always easy, and, as sad as it may be, love doesn’t always conquer all.

Navigating Trauma in a Cruel World with Wanda Maximoff

by Maddy Grumet

Wanda imagines a world based on conventional gender roles. Still from WandaVision.

In WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff is exhibiting very human maladaptive coping behaviors in the face of grief. In previous Marvel productions, the audience learns that Wanda has experienced an unfathomable amount of loss. With her introduction to the Marvel universe comes the knowledge that her parents had died in a bombing of her home country. In the Age of Ultron Avengers movie, Wanda’s fraternal twin brother, Pietro, is killed in battle. Finally, in Avengers: Infinity War, Wanda watches as her beloved Vision is demolished by Thanos in his pursuit for the infinity stone attached to Vision. In the wake of these traumatic losses, Wanda is forced to confront her pain as she tries to figure out how to navigate a world that has been so cruel to her. 

Trauma is, by one definition, an event outside the range of the human experience. By curating a world without trauma in WandaVision, Wanda is harnessing her superhuman powers in an attempt to control things that are normally beyond human control. For Wanda, a griefless world looks like television. In her younger days, Wanda learned about American culture and life by watching television shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Brady Bunch. The world that Wanda creates in Westview, New Jersey is a projection of what she has seen and learned from these and different traditional American television shows. As a result, Wanda’s vision of a “perfect” world looks like one with traditional gender roles as an embodiment of a happy family and social life. 

In older sitcom shows, gender roles are both prominent and clear cut. Typically, the men are portrayed as helpless breadwinners who prioritize things like beer and sports while the women are portrayed as too smart to be stuck in their housewife and motherly duties. In Episode 1: “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience,” Wanda and Vision assume these very traditional gender roles in their efforts to entertain Vision’s boss and his wife for dinner. The episode is shot in a “classic sitcom three-camera soundstage setup” (Vulture). Wanda and Vision interact in a slightly awkward, intentionally stiff way throughout the episode, something that is very similar to sitcoms like Bewitched. Wanda assumes the traditional role of “housewife” as she brainstorms ways to satisfy Vision on their upcoming anniversary and, as the episode progresses, scrambles to prepare the food for dinner in an I Love Lucy style. Vision, on the other hand, assumes the traditional role of the husband who provides for the family by working a desk job. Although Wanda and Vision both assume these very traditional roles, they simultaneously poke fun at many of the sexist conventions of the time. By doing so, WandaVision both masters the concept of a traditional sitcom and calls out the sexism that existed in the shows that Wanda used to learn about American life. 

In Episode 8: “Previously On,” WandaVision slightly steers away from the sitcom archetypes and style to dive deeper into Wanda’s traumatic past. In an effort to learn about the origin of her powers, Wanda’s co-character Agnes forces her to confront her grief and the reality of what she has experienced. Agnes walks Wanda through memories of Sokovia and her family, the HYDRA base where Wanda was kept as she developed her powers to help the Nazi-adjacent, her relationship with Vision, and eventually reveals the truth of her curation of Westview. This episode demonstrates a key idea: grief is inescapable. Even Wanda, someone with otherworldly powers, is incapable of escaping her grief and trauma for good. Wanda’s creation of Westview and, as the audience later learns, the version of Vision living there with her demonstrates the extent that people will go to seek remedy in the face of trauma. 

On its surface, WandaVision is a show based on familiar, traditional sitcoms and the life of a grieving Avenger. However, the sitcom acts as a veil for the show’s depiction of some very complex feelings: denial, anger, depression, loneliness, struggle, and, in the end, a form of acceptance. For Wanda, escaping grief means living out her life as a character on a sitcom. However, the show eventually reveals that this escape is not possible; Wanda has to shut down her sitcom and curated reality and come to terms with her trauma. Although not everyone has the power to curate their own worlds in the face of grief, Wanda is demonstrating what it means to be human and to process the pain we feel. 

Love and Hip Hop: Black Men and Society

By Malaysia Barr, Senior Communication major

Love and Hip Hop is a reality show franchise that explores the behind the scenes lives of some of hip hop and R&B’s favorite singers and rappers with locations from Miami to Hollywood. One franchise, Atlanta, has sparked much conversation over the years. In its tenth season- it shifted gears and focused heavily on social and political issues that America is facing. 

Season ten of Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta was in production during the severe lockdown and quarantine of COVID-19 pandemic. While the show discusses COVID-19, it devotes more focus to another serious topic that touched many during the pandemic: the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests. These protests sparked nationwide unrest after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer, Derrick Chauvin. As the verdict for the Chauvin Trial neared, Love and Hip Hop captured the moments leading up to the verdict. 

Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta showed the cast’s reaction to the verdict during the first moments of the sixth episode. Each major cast member could be seen through home videos displaying anxious and fearful looks into their personal recording devices. By allowing the home recordings to be shown, it gives a more reflective feel. The scene starts off with a sling song entitled “I Can Feel the Change” by Celeste that immediately draws viewers in with its slow and reflective lyrics. News footage from CNN is shown as many of the cast members reacts. One cast member, Lil Scrappy voiced his opinion of the verdict saying, “My song and daughter now have a chance in this world.” Another cast member, Karlie Redd, said “We won.” Other cast members had tears in their eyes and some shouted and clapped for joy. The scene ended with photographs of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Aubrey being shown. 

This moment of the show is important because unlike other reality shows (Love Island, Big Brother, and Survivor), Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta decided to represent the seriousness of race relations in America. Because the show caters to a minority audience, their approach to episode content and format was different. The scene, lasting roughly two minutes, was introduced at the beginning of the episode. To viewers, this shows that VH1 was putting these issues and struggles literally at the forefront of Love and Hip Hop, acknowledging how important they are in everyday life.. Many of the show’s cast spoke directly about the verdict, but huge emphasis was placed on the black men of the show. Lil Scrappy, Mendecees, and Kirk spoke longer than the women about the conviction and in great depth. The show’s producers  allow this moment to play out in great length because they are connecting and emphasizing the effect that police brutality has on the black man. 

In another moment, Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta continues their emphasis on the black man and societal pressures in the eighth episode of the tenth season. This episode explores the complicated relationship between rapper Yung Joc and his son, Amoni. The scene starts with intense music amping up the meeting of Yung Joc and Amoni in Joc’s closed nightclub. The camera switches frames between Joc and Amoni, mimicking the classic showdown scene from Western films. The conversation between the two men revolves around Joc’s desire to keep his son from bad influences, but fails when his son’s newfound “friends” end up coming to Joc’s club and causing an altercation. This altercation turned deadly when one person was killed.  In this one scene, Yung Joc and his song get into a heated argument that turns physical. Yung Joc says in his confessional, “In today’s climate it’s harder being a black man trying to raise a black son,” He then says to his son, “I want you to be the best you.” Yung Joc’s desire to establish positivity can be shown in his words. He doesn’t want his son to live up to the stereotypical expectations of themselves that many black men deal with. They are expected to either join gangs, be in jail, or have an early death. By airing this moment, Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta shuts down the notion that black men in America do not have high expectations for themselves or their children. 

After this episode aired, there was much discourse on Twitter about what transpired between Yung Joc and Amoni. Although there was some backlash on how Yung Joc handled the situation with Amoni, there was also a lot of positive feedback: 

  • “Young Joc did what any real father would do. Either his son get it or he doesn’t *insert shrug emoji*. Life is hard out here!!! Especially for a black man.” 
  • “Wow. Catching up on #LHHATL and the conversation between Young Joc and his son. Sheesh. These kids need to realize they should cherish the advice parents pass along to them. Hanging around people who shoot at folks will land you in a world of trouble.” 
  • “I’m all for Young Joc putting that Madea fear into his son’s ass!! Boy listen to yo father! He trying to tell yo ass something!! #LHHATL” 

Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta’s focus on black men and their relationships and societal pressure is important because it focuses on real discourse. Many reality shows are scrutinized for their “scripted” plots and becoming more and more dramatized. However, Love and Hip Hop Atlanta goes against this stereotype by representing an important national social and political issue throughout a season. Their desire to live outside the box and create real content for reality TV is starkly different from other reality shows like Big Brother and television shows like Gilmore Girls. Instead of ruling out the minorities, Love and Hip Hop decides to take on minority faceted issues. They allow pedagogic moments to stand in place of moments that could be labeled as “entertainment.” This is shown through the audience reaction to Yung Joc and Amoni’s argument. Many fans of the show empathized and understood Yung Joc’s perspective. This shows that Love and Hip Hop is not just concerned with their ratings, but concerned with actually allowing their audience to truly connect with the messages they are sending. 

To conclude, Love and Hip Hop Atlanta is a fiery franchise that not only seeks to entertain its audience but to teach them on social and political issues. Because the show caters to the black and brown diaspora of America, it’s focus on issues that affect those communities stands out. This is because the diaspora of black and brown people in the U.S comes from a long and complicated history filled with those people fighting to have a voice for themselves. VH1 recognizes the voice of those who have previously been forced into silence. That makes the Love and Hip Hop franchise so profound because it does not seek to further box in already marginalized groups. Instead it desires to to break social and cultural barriers to engage its audience for teachable moments that will last beyond the one hour per week running time. 

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’s Refusal to Address Race

by: Eliza Moore, Communication major

Debuting in 2000, Gilmore Girls has captured the attention of many viewers for the past two decades. Set in the quaint town of Stars Hollow, Gilmore Girls focuses on a single mother (Lorelai) and her daughter (Rory). The show follows both characters’ lives and their day-to-day struggles with men, the town, their family, and each other. While it centers around the two women, Gilmore Girls also emphasizes the small-town culture of Stars Hollow and its utopic atmosphere. In 2016, Netflix developed Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, an addition to the original running. A Year in The Life features most of Stars Hollow’s prominent main characters while giving a scope into both Lorelai and Rory’s life years after the original series ended. It contains four hour and a half long episodes, each representing one season of the year. It delves into Rory’s failing career as a journalist as well as her complicated love life. It also gives insight to Lorelai’s hotel business, and her love life with partner Luke as well.

 While Gilmore Girls was well received by the public, A Year in the Life was not as much of a hit as the original series. This post engages A Year in the Life to argue the show emerged in an age of intersectionality and cultural awareness but appears to be stuck in the colorblindness of the early 2000s. A Year in The Life’s refusal to address the societal and cultural issues congruent with 2016 emphasizes its effort to remain apolitical. While the show’s overall colorblindness was considerably par for the course in the late 1990s and early 2000s, its ongoing representation in 2016 feels ideologically and representationally anachronistic. Put another way, remaining a-political in 2016 is itself a political statement. 

In order to explore this idea, this post will focus on how the show centers whiteness. Considering the conversation around race at the time of A Year in the Life’s production, the disregard of racial issues in Stars Hollow disconnects the town from larger social, cultural, and political concerns, converting it into a social idealist space that does not acknowledge racial disparities.

Stars Hollow is a primarily white town with few people of color. The creation of this fictional, white-washed town only re-enforces a white social idealism. Stars Hollow was based off of three small towns in Connecticut: Wallingford, Essex, and Washington. According to census data, Essex and Washington are 94% white and Wallingford is slightly over 90% white. This whiteness bleeds into the show itself, and the ways show runner Amy Sherman-Palladino avoids painting Stars Hollow colorfully.

 While there are a few characters of color, they serve primarily to support Rory and Lorelai, two white women. Take Lane for example, who aids Rory’s character development. While she is Korean and may add some diversity to the show, her token-casted character has little character evolution. The same could be said for other characters of color such as Michelle, Gypsy, and Lane’s mother Emily. Not only are these characters stagnant, but their race is also not addressed in the series. Sherman-Palladino’s refusal to address race in 2016 is aiding in centering the white main characters. They all support a white character’s role in the show in some form.  Especially considering the conversation around racial issues in 2016, it is clear A Year in The Life intentionally avoids any form of racial conversation.

The year of 2016 was by no means an uneventful year. The events surrounding the Ferguson Trial pushed white Americans to look more at racial disparities while an election spurred a tense political climate. It is difficult to imagine that the characters in Gilmore Girls would even be able to remain a-political in 2016, especially the characters of color. It seems that A Year in The Life is unable to address its own politics in the divisive swarm of 2016. This mentality of neutrality only pushes the 2000s colorblindness apparent in the original series. 

 This may have been able to fly in the early 2000s with the original running of Gilmore Girls, but A Year in the Life continues the ideals of a colorblind world centering around the struggles of white main characters. What is this saying about privilege? While Lorelai and Rory do face struggles (Rory struggles to find a job, for instance), the show does a poor job in recognizing their privilege as two able bodied, white women from a background of wealth. The series’ apolitical ideology is making a statement about colorblindness by averting Rory’s white privilege and recreating a white social idealism. Rory has a journalism degree from Yale that was paid for entirely by her wealthy grandparents; a privilege opening countless doors of opportunities for her future. Yet the show depicts her in a world of struggles and closed-doors. While obviously any person will face struggles in life, the show refuses to even touch on the privilege Rory attains. This only serves to centralize a white narrative, leaving no room to address disparities among the characters of color. 

The show provides specific instances where it constructs a particular narrative for where people of color belong in A Year in the Life. Most characters of color hold a working class position in which a white character is in authority, and often disrespects them. One example of this is Emily’s (Loreli’s mother) interaction with her Hispanic maid. Emily is trying to converse with her and becomes flustered because she can’t understand the maid who is speaking Spanish. She then asks for someone to retrieve the gardener in order to interpret the maid for her. This scene takes place in Emily’s home, with Loreli present. Throughout the entire series, Emily is known for her pretentious nature and unreachable standards. She repetitively fires and rehires maids, most of them being women of color. While this specific interaction may have been intended to poke fun of Emily, it emphasizes the shallow narrative afforded people of color in A Year in the Life. These women are often sidelined, mistreated, and stereotyped. They exist in relation to Emily only to serve her and obey her daily wishes. A similar example exists in episode three, in which Rory’s friend Paris becomes flustered when speaking about her Hispanic nanny. She complains that she hasn’t “paid off the last nanny” (inferring she would potentially fire the current one) and is frustrated that the current nanny hasn’t brought her kids downstairs because she didn’t want to walk up the stairs herself. Although the show is painting Paris in a harsh way, the crude remarks go seemingly unnoticed by the other characters. In A Year in the Life, women of color are depicted primarily as support to white families. These examples may even push beyond the show’s colorblindness by reinstating a world in which people of color are there only to hold working class positions. These roles only push the original running’s shallow narrative for people of color.

A Year in The Life certainly did not have as much of a following as the original running, with some calling it “a slap in the face to “Gilmore Girls” fans.” Fans found it monotonous with similar dialogue and recurring events that needed to remain with the original running. Perhaps the public’s response to A Year in the Life emphasizes its stagnant nature, and inability to advance with the times.

It is clear that Gilmore Girls is a colorblind show, with little diversity and limited narratives for people of color. Revolving around two white women with a background of wealth, Gilmore Girls retains an apolitical ideology, avoiding conversations which may be potentially controversial to an imagined mainstream audience by pretending those conversations do not exist. While this may be congruent with most popular television of the early 2000s, 2016 offered an opportunity for the producers to promote a more diverse and representative Stars Hollow in A Year in The Life. Sherman-Palladio certainly had a chance to redeem the white-centered world in Gilmore Girls, but A Year in The Life continues the original running’s idealism of a white-centered world through its refusal to address any character’s race. As awareness regarding racial, cultural, and social issues are continuously being pushed in our world today, a-political programming is, then, not a-political at all. It demonstrates a commitment to avoid, rather than to confront important issues. If television continues to divert from addressing racial issues, it will only continue to center whiteness.

Introduction: The politics of apolitical television

Written by James N. Gilmore

This semester in the Collaborative, we are trying something new and launching this blog, Culture Critically. This is our first series. As is the tradition of the Collaborative, students decide together what they want to write about and explore together. This semester, we are fortunate to have three excellent students: Malaysia Barr, Eliza Moore, and Marie Quaranta. You’ll be reading sole-authored writing from them as well as a collaboratively-written summary at the end of this series.

These students were initially drawn to questions of reality television, and to what degree reality television was engaging explicitly with major sociopolitical concerns of this present moment. Each student identified a television show that mattered to them: Marie selected Big Brother because she has long been interested in the interplay between the “live feeds” of the house and the heavily produced episodes that shape how contestants are understood. Malaysia selected Love and HipHop: Atlanta because of the ways it projects itself for a diverse audience based largely in the intricacies of black lived experience; in this way, it is unlike many more popular or mainstream shows in that it willingly confronts major sociopolitical issues like the killing of black men by the police. Eliza selected Gilmore Girls to move us away from just focusing on reality television and to consider more traditional television programming, as well; in particular, she examined the 2016 sequel miniseries A Year in the Life for the ways it ‘holds over’ the colorblind ideology of the 1990s and early 2000s and makes the show feel socially asynchronous to contemporary conversations.

In mapping out and writing these respective papers, I was motivated to consult Laurie Ouellette and James Hay’s excellent book Better Living with Reality Television. Their work on the educative and public functions of reality television has been meaningful to how I teach this genre in multiple courses, and it felt useful to think about how reality’s civic functions also entail the obfuscation of particular politics both within the show and against the contextual circumstances of a program’s production and broadcast. We decided the best strategy for our posts was to use close reading of key moments and sequences from the series we selected, and to bolster those close analyses with some consideration of reception, which entails a mixture of news reports and social media chatter. This discourse was treated as largely secondary, as a means to support the analysis developed of the programming itself.

The contributions to this series all come from a desire to frame how “being apolitical” is itself a political choice, a decision not to engage in prevalent issues that shape the daily practices of many viewers of these programs. Be it in the ways Gilmore Girls centers white women or the ways Big Brother’s producers try to rehabilitate racist contestants through editing, the elision of politics has consequences for how. It is not—and, certainly, never has been—possible to disarticulate politics from entertainment, from consumption, and from daily life, a lesson that has been key to cultural studies’ commitments to mapping cultural politics.

The posts in this series offer some provisional analysis and pathways for considering how we might use carefully attenuated textual analysis to examine the distinct ways politics both appears in and disappears from television programming. We are pleased to present this work and hope you will enjoy reading it.