Summer
Reading for Television Fans
Television
has often been seen as a bastard child of sorts, a medium not to be
taken seriously compared to more literate forms of storytelling. It
has been called everything from “a vast wasteland” to the
“boob tube,” and is even cited as evidence of civilization’s
downfall. Go into any Barnes & Noble and you will no doubt find
a book entitled Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television;
the mere existence of such a tome speaks volumes on how the medium is
perceived by so-called “intellectuals.”
Which is
a shame, because television has never been more intelligent than it
is today. Even the academic community is taking notice, with university’s
offering courses on specific series. There are at least two web sites,
Slayage:
The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies
and The
Society for the Study of Lost dedicated
to the serious analysis of their respective shows. A slew of books on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ranging from the philosophical to
the spiritual, have been published, making for an impressive “Buffy
studies library.” The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica,
Desperate Housewives, 24, The West Wing and
even Farscape have had collections of academic dissertations
released as well.
Although
a small handful of such books were printed in the 1990s, focusing on
the likes of Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it wasn’t
until 1999 and the release of Seinfeld and Philosophy that
the niche received any sort of mass attention, and publisher Open Court
soon developed an entire “Pop Culture and Philosophy Series”
following that book’s initial success. Other publishers eventually
followed suit, with BenBella Books releasing close to twenty separate
essay collections, on an equal number of separate television shows,
since 2003.
Since summer
is the time of year in between television seasons, as well as the time
to lie on the beach and catch up on your reading, here then is a list
of some of the better essays that are likewise available at your nearby
Barnes & Noble:
—Gilmore
Girls was a perennial critical darling because of its rapid-paced,
pop-culture filled dialogue, and Heather Swain captures the spirit of
this series in her own rapid-paced, pop-culture filled essay, “Whimsy
Goes With Everything” (Coffee At Luke’s, BenBella
Books, 2007). She throws in everything from Mario Battali to Hugh Jackman
to Bernard Goetz to Taxi Driver, and that’s just in the
first paragraph, as she confesses the desire to move from New York City
to Stars Hollow in order to be with the man she has fallen in love with:
Kirk. And with lines like, “He’s good looking in a Cary
Grant meets Foghorn Leghorn’s nemesis the baby chicken hawk sort
of way,” it’s a must read for any fan of this wise-cracking,
whimsical series.
—Veronica
Mars creator Rob Thomas writes in the introduction to Lani Diane
Rich’s essay “Welcome to Camp Noir” (Neptune Noir,
BenBella Books, 2007) that the piece was difficult for him to read because
he detests “camp” and always went for the “thought-provoking”
when it came to his recently cancelled series. Rich, a self-confessed
television junkie, sees nothing wrong with “camp,” however,
and admits to having never understood Veronica Mars until she
read a description of the show as “camp noir.” Her essay
focuses on a belief that Thomas molded and blended those two adjectives
on television in the same ways Quentin Tarantino has on the big screen,
and even dissects the various characters in terms of how far into each
category they fall.
—If
there ever was a television series that was perfect for a collection
of essays exploring its various elements, it would have to be Lost.
With so many plot-lines, unresolved mysteries, philosophical innuendos
and baggage-heavy characters, volumes could be written about the show,
even if it is only half-way through its six-year run. The best, however,
has nothing to do with any of the above; instead, Glenn Yeffeth writes
a highly-amusing, thoroughly entertaining treatise entitled, “The
Art of Leadership” (Getting Lost, BenBella Books, 2006).
Starting with the basic premise that most of the current crop of “leadership”
books on the market are forgettable, Yeffeth argues that we could learn
a lot about leadership by instead studying the actions of Jack Shephard.
But as soon as he begins to analyze the good doctor, he realizes Jack
is not a very good leader at all. He moves on to Locke and Sawyer, only
to reach the same conclusions, causing him to eventually settle upon
Hurley as the true leader of the castaways.
—Erin
Dailey likewise finds a way to be highly amusing in regards to another
complex television show, Alias, in her essay, “A Spy
in the House of Love” (Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6,
BenBella Books, 2005). A guide on how to find love if you’re an
international female spy, she offers up such advise as “distract
him with sex,” “act dumb” and “brainwash him
while he sleeps.” Alias tended to become more convoluted
as its seasons went along, and Dailey touches upon this with such lines
as “when the man you’re working for is the kind of guy who
sleeps with your own mother in order to create a half-sister whose sole
job in life is to destroy you, you might want to think twice before
telling him about your hot new fiancé” under the advice
heading of “Your boss is not your friend.”
—Considering
how many collections of essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
exist, it’s difficult not mention at least one of them. And although
there are plenty of excellent compositions out there, “The Search
for Spike’s Balls” (Seven Seasons of Buffy, BenBella
Books, 2003) by Sherrilyn Kenyon truly stands out. In this short but
concise piece, Kenyon points out how the stronger and more forceful
Buffy Summers was in any given episode or season, the weaker the male
characters inevitably became. Although this process began at the very
beginning with her relationship with Angel, it became most noticeable,
the author argues, when Spike realized his love for Buffy and evolved
into a mere shadow of the bad-assed vampire that viewers had grown to
love.
So there
you have it, some great reading material to help tide any television
fan over until the fall. That’s not to say the above is all there
is, or that it represents the “best of the best,” or even
that BenBella Books, with its “Pop Smart” series, is the
only publisher; I.B. Tauris, for instance, offers its own excellent
collection of essay volumes under its “Reading Contemporary Television”
banner. And although the above mentioned works lean more to the humorous
and entertaining side of life, there are also many intellectual and
thought-provoking essays out there as well.
But this
is summer, a time for relaxing, and “humorous and entertaining”
fits right in with the season. Who wants to lie on some beach, after
all, thinking about that damn smoke monster from Lost when
one can read about Hurley and his secret stash of ranch dressing instead.
Right?
(This article
orginally was published in Flak
Magazine.)
July 11,
2007
