Cinematic TV: Serial Drama goes to the Movies

Television was once considered culturally deficient, but now it is praised for its visual density and complexity. Cinematic TV is a theoretical framework that combines intertextuality and memory studies to explore how TV dramas quote, copy, and appropriate American cinema in multiple ways and toward multiple ends. Examples of such shows are Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 21 September 2021
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

For decades following its invention, television was often regarded as culturally lacking when compared to cinema, as studies rooted in communication studies and the social sciences tended to primarily emphasize television's negative impact on consumers. However, in recent years, the denigration of television has largely given way to a serious and critical examination of its role in the post-network era. Once considered a media wasteland, television has now garnered praise for its visual richness and complexity. Over the past two decades, media scholars have frequently argued that television has evolved into a cinematic medium. In particular, serial dramas have been celebrated for their ability to imitate the formally innovative and narratively complex conventions of cinema. But what exactly does cinematic television mean? In her book Cinematic TV, author Rashna Wadia Richards takes up this question comprehensively, arguing that television dramas engage in multiple ways and for various purposes with American cinema. By combining intertextuality and memory studies, Richards constructs an innovative theoretical framework that focuses on four modalities of intermedial borrowings: homage, evocation, genre, and parody. Through close readings of exemplary shows such as Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People, the book demonstrates how serial dramas reproduce, rework, undermine, idolize, and, in some cases, compete with and outdo cinema.

Weight: 372g
Dimension: 156 x 235 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190071264