Uncomfortable Television

Postmillennial American television is more perverse than it is entertaining, with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. Hunter Hargraves' book Uncomfortable Television examines how television makes its audiences find pleasure through feeling disturbed, realigning collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. It shows how discomfort has been central to the reorganization and legitimization of television as an art form, assimilating viewers into worlds marked by precarity, perversity, and crisis.

Format: Hardback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 03 February 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

Postmillennial American television has captivated audiences with its novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics, yet it is also more perverse. It bombards viewers with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. In his book, Uncomfortable Television, Hunter Hargraves explores how television creates pleasure by unsettling its audiences. He demonstrates that this shift towards discomfort realigns collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. Through viscerally violent dramas, cringe-worthy ironic comedies, and trashy reality programs, television trains audiences to survive in the late capitalism that demands a certain amount of discomfort, dread, and irritation in everyday life. By highlighting how discomfort has been central to the reorganization and legitimization of television as an art form, Hargraves demonstrates television's role in assimilating viewers into worlds characterized by precarity, perversity, and crisis.

Postmillennial American television has captivated audiences with its novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics, yet it is also more perverse. It bombards viewers with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of ordinary people. In his book, Uncomfortable Television, Hunter Hargraves explores how television creates pleasure by unsettling its audiences. He demonstrates that this shift towards discomfort realigns collective definitions of family and pleasure with the values of neoliberal culture. Through viscerally violent dramas, cringe-worthy ironic comedies, and trashy reality programs, television trains audiences to survive in the late capitalism that demands a certain amount of discomfort, dread, and irritation in everyday life. By highlighting how discomfort has been central to the reorganization and legitimization of television as an art form, Hargraves demonstrates television's role in assimilating viewers into worlds characterized by precarity, perversity, and crisis.

Weight: 499g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478016939