Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-237) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Touring the Mad Men set -- Part I: Sets. Chapter 1: TV suburbia and remembering the sitcom set -- Chapter 2: Office sets and nostalgic modernism in the TV workplace -- Part II: Props. Chapter 3: Prop talk: a behind the scenes look -- Chapter 4: Prop stories: media props in narrative context -- Part III: Costumes. Chapter 5: Making, renting, and telling histories through costume -- Chapter 6: Costume countermemory: marginalized television voices and Chicana retro -- Conclusion: Nostalgic failure.
Summary:
The Aesthetics of Nostalgia TV explores the aesthetic politics of nostalgia for 1950s and 60s America on contemporary television. Specifically, it looks at how nostalgic TV production design shapes and is shaped by larger historical discourses on gender and technological change, and America's perceived decline as a global power. Alex Bevan argues that the aesthetics of nostalgic TV tell stories of their own about historical decline and progress, and the place of the baby boomer television suburb in American national memory. She contests theories on nostalgia that see it as stagnating, regressive or a reversion to outdated gender and racial politics, and the technophobic longing for a bygone era; and, instead, argues nostalgia is an important form of historical memory and vehicle for negotiating periods of historical transition. The book addresses how and why the shows construct the boomer era as a placeholder for gender, racial, technological and declensionist discourses of the present. The book uses Mad Men (AMC, 2007), Ugly Betty (ABC, 2006-2010), Desperate Housewives (ABC, 2004-2012) and film remakes of 1950s and 60s family sitcoms as primary case studies.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.