Description
Book SynopsisThe Midwest of popular imagination is a Heartland characterized by traditional cultural values and mass market dispositions. This book examines the centrality of this myth to television's promotion and development, programming and marketing appeals, and public debates over the medium's and its audience's cultural worth.
Trade Review"Johnson shows how the opposition of “heartland” and various urbane, coastal foils went through a series of permutations, alternately deprecating and valorizing middle America through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s." * Choice *
"&%8220;Network chieftains, advertising executives, and primetime performers generally fly over the heartland with barely a glance, but it's never far from their thoughts, or ours. In this remarkable analysis of American television, Victoria Johnson cogently explains why Middle America matters: on the screen, in the home, and in public life." -- Michael Curtin,author of Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: TV, the Heartland Myth, and the Value of Cultural Populism 1 "Essential, Desirable, and Possible Markets": Broadcasting Midwestern Tastes and Values 2 Square Dancing and Champagne Music: Regional Aesthetics and Middle America3 "Strictly Conventional and Moral": CBS Reports in Webster Groves 4 "You're Gonna Make It After All!": The Urbane Midwest in MTM Productions' "Quality" Comedies 5 "There Is No 'Dayton Chic'": Queering the Midwest in Roseanne, Ellen, and The Ellen Show 6 Fertility Among the Ruins: Reconstituting the Traumatized Heartland Epilogue: Red State, Blue State, Purple Heartland Appendix Notes Index About the Author
