The Fox-TV series "24" might have been in production long before
its premier just two months after 9/11, but its storyline--and that
of many other television programs--has since become inextricably
embedded in the nation's popular consciousness. This book marks the
first comprehensive survey and analysis of War on Terror themes in
post-9/11 American television, critiquing those shows that--either
blindly or intentionally--supported the Bush administration's
security policies.
Stacy Takacs focuses on the role of entertainment programming in
building a national consensus favoring a War on Terror, taking a
close look at programs that comment both directly and allegorically
on the post-9/11 world. In show after show, she chillingly
illustrates how popular television helped organize public feelings
of loss, fear, empathy, and self-love into narratives supportive of
a controversial and unprecedented war.
Takacs examines a spectrum of program genres-talk shows, reality
programs, sitcoms, police procedurals, male melodramas, war
narratives--to uncover the recurrent cultural themes that helped
convince Americans to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and compromise
their own civil liberties. Spanning the past decade of the ongoing
conflict, she reviews not only key touchstones of post-9/11 popular
culture such as "24," "Rescue Me," and "Sleeper Cell," but also
less remarked-upon but relevant series like "JAG," "Off to War,"
"Six Feet Under," and "Jericho." She also considers voices of
dissent that have emerged through satirical offerings like "The
Daily Show" and science fiction series such as "Lost" and
"Battlestar Galactica."
Takacs dissects how the War on Terror has been broadcast into
our living rooms in programs that routinely offer simplistic
answers to important questions--Who exactly are we fighting? Why do
they hate us?--and she examines the climate of fear and paranoia
they've created. Unlike cultural analyses that view the
government's courting of Hollywood as a conspiracy to manipulate
the masses, her book considers how economic and industry
considerations complicate state-media relations throughout the
era.
"Terrorism TV" offers fresh insight into how American television
directly and indirectly reinforced the Bush administration's
security agenda and argues for the continued importance of the
medium as a tool of collective identity formation. It is an
essential guide to the televisual landscape of American
consciousness in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
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