Mike Miley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496825384
- eISBN:
- 9781496825438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496825384.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses how game shows came to have a pitiful scholarly reputation after the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s. The chapter also discusses how an intermedial study of how game shows are ...
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This chapter discusses how game shows came to have a pitiful scholarly reputation after the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s. The chapter also discusses how an intermedial study of how game shows are used in fiction and film can illuminate the ways that game shows express and speak to American culture. The chapter then provides an analysis of how Woody Allen’s 1987 film Radio Days uses the game show intermedially as a metaphor for memory in an age of impermanence, encouraging viewers to recall every bit of trivia in order to stave off irrelevance.Less
This chapter discusses how game shows came to have a pitiful scholarly reputation after the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s. The chapter also discusses how an intermedial study of how game shows are used in fiction and film can illuminate the ways that game shows express and speak to American culture. The chapter then provides an analysis of how Woody Allen’s 1987 film Radio Days uses the game show intermedially as a metaphor for memory in an age of impermanence, encouraging viewers to recall every bit of trivia in order to stave off irrelevance.
Mike Miley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496825384
- eISBN:
- 9781496825438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496825384.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
A game show seems to be the last place where one would find love; however, many artists have seen a deeper quest hidden inside the game show’s pursuit of trivial knowledge: the desire to know another ...
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A game show seems to be the last place where one would find love; however, many artists have seen a deeper quest hidden inside the game show’s pursuit of trivial knowledge: the desire to know another person completely. Round Two argues that game-show discourse and romantic discourse are not as dissimilar as one would initially think. Films such as Ron Shelton’s White Men Can’t Jump and Jim Sharman’s Shock Treatment,works of fiction such as Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Helen De Witt’s Lightning Rods, and the unexpected-but-nevertheless-real subgenre of game-show erotica demonstrate the ways in which the game show can help lovers navigate the romantic hypermarket.Less
A game show seems to be the last place where one would find love; however, many artists have seen a deeper quest hidden inside the game show’s pursuit of trivial knowledge: the desire to know another person completely. Round Two argues that game-show discourse and romantic discourse are not as dissimilar as one would initially think. Films such as Ron Shelton’s White Men Can’t Jump and Jim Sharman’s Shock Treatment,works of fiction such as Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Helen De Witt’s Lightning Rods, and the unexpected-but-nevertheless-real subgenre of game-show erotica demonstrate the ways in which the game show can help lovers navigate the romantic hypermarket.
Mike Miley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496825384
- eISBN:
- 9781496825438
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496825384.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Truth and Consequences interrogates the ways in which over two dozen works of fiction and film find meaning in the game show. Writers and filmmakers use the game show intermedially as a metaphor for ...
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Truth and Consequences interrogates the ways in which over two dozen works of fiction and film find meaning in the game show. Writers and filmmakers use the game show intermedially as a metaphor for what it means to be a person, a lover, a family, and a citizen in the media age. Despite media culture’s promises of global equality and connectivity (and one’s efforts to realize that promise), individuals wind up isolated by market-driven deception, wealth, or ethnicity. People use media to achieve greater intimacy with others, but the market nudges them to keep their distance from each other in the name of exploring options. Other networks can still assert themselves, such as the family, but can only sustain themselves if they openly defy and rewrite the rules of the media culture they inhabit. Although America espouses a commitment to democratic freedom, the state partners with imagemakers to make one’s lack of choice entertaining and resistance self-defeating. Amidst these obstacles, Americans still feel called upon to remember, to connect, to buzz in, to answer in the hopes that an escape awaits in the next round, behind the next door.Less
Truth and Consequences interrogates the ways in which over two dozen works of fiction and film find meaning in the game show. Writers and filmmakers use the game show intermedially as a metaphor for what it means to be a person, a lover, a family, and a citizen in the media age. Despite media culture’s promises of global equality and connectivity (and one’s efforts to realize that promise), individuals wind up isolated by market-driven deception, wealth, or ethnicity. People use media to achieve greater intimacy with others, but the market nudges them to keep their distance from each other in the name of exploring options. Other networks can still assert themselves, such as the family, but can only sustain themselves if they openly defy and rewrite the rules of the media culture they inhabit. Although America espouses a commitment to democratic freedom, the state partners with imagemakers to make one’s lack of choice entertaining and resistance self-defeating. Amidst these obstacles, Americans still feel called upon to remember, to connect, to buzz in, to answer in the hopes that an escape awaits in the next round, behind the next door.
Mike Miley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496825384
- eISBN:
- 9781496825438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496825384.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The works discussed transpose the conceit of The Most Dangerous Game to the world of commercial broadcast entertainment, pitting characters against each other in competition for the ultimate prize: ...
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The works discussed transpose the conceit of The Most Dangerous Game to the world of commercial broadcast entertainment, pitting characters against each other in competition for the ultimate prize: their own lives. Round Four discusses how the game show has come to represent the political and personal dangers of citizenship in an America governed by a late-capitalist consumerism that has morphed into a new brand of totalitarianism that turns people into trivial objects and trivial objects into subjects of the highest importance. The “reality” of these games and their rules represent a simulated and heavily mediated environment posing as real to conceal a sinister truth. In order to challenge the dominance of this inverted world order, the protagonists must first defeat totalitarianism’s synecdoche: the game show.Less
The works discussed transpose the conceit of The Most Dangerous Game to the world of commercial broadcast entertainment, pitting characters against each other in competition for the ultimate prize: their own lives. Round Four discusses how the game show has come to represent the political and personal dangers of citizenship in an America governed by a late-capitalist consumerism that has morphed into a new brand of totalitarianism that turns people into trivial objects and trivial objects into subjects of the highest importance. The “reality” of these games and their rules represent a simulated and heavily mediated environment posing as real to conceal a sinister truth. In order to challenge the dominance of this inverted world order, the protagonists must first defeat totalitarianism’s synecdoche: the game show.
