Citation & Export
View Usage Statistics
Citation & Export
Simple citation
Durst, Lawrence Bruce. The castaways: affect, alienation, and authorship in American sitcoms of the 1960s. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-5qsa-xy62
Export
Description
TitleThe castaways: affect, alienation, and authorship in American sitcoms of the 1960s
NameDurst, Lawrence Bruce (author), Cortés, Jason (chair), Bartkowski, Frances (member), Rizzo, Mary (member), Perlman, Allison (member), Rutgers University, Graduate School - Newark
Degree Date2024-05
Date Created2024
SubjectAmerican studies, Film studies, Mass communication, 1960s, Gilligan's Island, Sitcoms, Situation comedy, Television history, Television networks
DescriptionThis dissertation reassesses a novel style of American sitcom that emerged in the mid-1960s in which serene depictions of suburbia that had dominated the genre in the late 1950s and early 1960s suddenly were populated by witches, Martians, genies, and other powerful alien characters. These programs were not only new in concept, they would make situation comedy the most popular genre on American TV. The central question guiding this study is: why did that specific new mode of comedy emerge at that particular moment?
Much of the preceding scholarship interprets these sitcoms as reflections of the broad cultural disruptions of the era, including civil rights, feminism, consumerism, and the Cold War. What those readings overlook is a socioeconomic transition as crucial but less in the news: the transformation in the structure and control of American broadcasting. By the early 1960s, the three national networks had consolidated authority over the industry’s other functional parties—local broadcasters, advertisers, and independent program producers—just as television became the most powerful mass medium in the nation.
This dissertation argues that the conceptual genesis of the programs was not in response to those broad societal changes but as projections of the shared anxieties experienced by their creators within their changing industry. While the programs resonated with audiences due to their culturally relatable themes and characters, they were conceived as personal expressions of their creators' struggles to maintain a sense of self-respect as they lost their former places of authority in the medium they helped create. Through intertextual analysis of the sitcoms alongside their creators’ published memoirs through the lens of Affect Theory, this dissertation explicates how the producers’ immediate concerns were encoded in the emotional reactions of their programs’ protagonists to the powerful outsiders who suddenly appeared in those characters’ lives.
By recontextualizing these sitcoms within their creators’ historical industrial conditions, this study adds to current scholarship on the interconnectedness of creativity and media industry dynamics. It also reveals how the industry structures and relationships of a handful of television executives in the mid-twentieth century established the model of media control still in place today.
Much of the preceding scholarship interprets these sitcoms as reflections of the broad cultural disruptions of the era, including civil rights, feminism, consumerism, and the Cold War. What those readings overlook is a socioeconomic transition as crucial but less in the news: the transformation in the structure and control of American broadcasting. By the early 1960s, the three national networks had consolidated authority over the industry’s other functional parties—local broadcasters, advertisers, and independent program producers—just as television became the most powerful mass medium in the nation.
This dissertation argues that the conceptual genesis of the programs was not in response to those broad societal changes but as projections of the shared anxieties experienced by their creators within their changing industry. While the programs resonated with audiences due to their culturally relatable themes and characters, they were conceived as personal expressions of their creators' struggles to maintain a sense of self-respect as they lost their former places of authority in the medium they helped create. Through intertextual analysis of the sitcoms alongside their creators’ published memoirs through the lens of Affect Theory, this dissertation explicates how the producers’ immediate concerns were encoded in the emotional reactions of their programs’ protagonists to the powerful outsiders who suddenly appeared in those characters’ lives.
By recontextualizing these sitcoms within their creators’ historical industrial conditions, this study adds to current scholarship on the interconnectedness of creativity and media industry dynamics. It also reveals how the industry structures and relationships of a handful of television executives in the mid-twentieth century established the model of media control still in place today.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-5qsa-xy62
LanguageEnglish
CollectionGraduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
Accessibility NoticePlease complete a content remediation request to report an accessibility issue with a library electronic resource, website, or service. Our accessibility team will review and respond within two business days.