From 1989 through 2002 there was an unprecedented surge in American sitcoms featuring explicitly, Jewish lead characters, 32 compared to seven in the previous 40 years. Several of these ""Mad About You"", ""The Nanny"" and ""Friends"" - were among the most popular and influential of all shows over this period; one programme - ""Seinfeld"" - has been singled out as the ""defining"" series of the 90s. In addition, scriptwriters have increasingly created ""Jewish"" characters, although they may not be perceived to be by the show's audience. Rachel Green on ""Friends"" being only one example. Here, Vincent Brook asks two key questions: why has this trend appeared at this particular historical moment and what is the significance of this phenomenon for Jews and non-Jews alike? He takes readers through three key phases of the Jewish sitcom trend: the early years of televisions before and after the first Jewish sitcom, ""The Goldbergs"", appeared; the second phase in which America found itself ""Under the Sign of Seinfeld""; and the current era of what Brook calls ""post-Jewishness"". Interviews with key writers, producers and showrunners such as David Kohan (""Will and Grace""), Marta Kauffman (""Friends"" and ""Dream On""), Bill Prady (Dharma and Greg""), Peter Mehlman and Carol Leifer (""Seinfeld""),and close readings of individual episodes and series provoke the conclusion that we have entered uncharted ""post-Jewish"" territory. The rise of the Jewish sitcom represents a broader struggle in which American Jews and the TV industry, if not American society as a whole, are increasingly operating at cross-purposes - torn between the desire to celebrate unique ethnic identities, yet to assimilate; to assert independence, yet also to build a consensus to appeal to the widest possible audience.

Originally and it may still be] a-work-in-progress... Yet, I have decided to move beyond the comfort of my computer and four little walls of an apartment, and share a labor of love that has taken me twenty-five years to bring out of the closet so too speak. So pull out those old LP's or CD's of a lil Coltrane, Carol Sloane, Shirley Horn, Miles Davis and of course Lady Day. And for all of you new kids on the block, Jill Scott, Remy Shand and Ledisi Young, too So light some aroma-therapy candles, burn some incense and then allow me to transport you back to a time of growth for some and a revelation for others, for I am the product of: the Civil Rights era/the BEATLES/the SUPREMES/ both the Korean/& VIETNAM wars/the1963 march on Washington...

Unlike the more forthrightly mythic origins of other urban centers—think Rome via Romulus and Remus or Mexico City via the god Huitzilopochtli—Los Angeles emerged from a smoke-and-mirrors process that is simultaneously literal and figurative, real and imagined, material and metaphorical, physical and textual. Through penetrating analysis and personal engagement, Vincent Brook uncovers the many portraits of this ever-enticing, ever-ambivalent, and increasingly multicultural megalopolis. Divided into sections that probe Los Angeles’s checkered history and reflect on Hollywood’s own self-reflections, the book shows how the city, despite considerable remaining challenges,  is finally blowing away some of the smoke of its not always proud past and rhetorically adjusting its rear-view mirrors. Part I is a review of the city’s history through the early 1900s, focusing on the seminal 1884 novel Ramona and its immediate effect, but also exploring its ongoing impact through interviews with present-day Tongva Indians, attendance at the 88th annual Ramona pageant, and analysis of its feature film adaptations. Brook deals with Hollywood as geographical site, film production center, and frame of mind in Part II. He charts the events leading up to Hollywood’s emergence as the world’s movie capital and explores subsequent developments of the film industry from its golden age through the so-called New Hollywood, citing such self-reflexive films as Sunset Blvd.,Singin’ in the Rain, and The Truman Show. Part III considers LA noir, a subset of film noir that emerged alongside the classical noir cycle in the 1940s and 1950s and continues today. The city’s status as a privileged noir site is analyzed in relation to its history and through discussions of such key LA noir novels and films as Double Indemnity, Chinatown, and Crash. In Part IV, Brook examines multicultural Los Angeles. Using media texts as signposts, he maps the history and contemporary situation of the city’s major ethno-racial and other minority groups, looking at such films as Mi Familia (Latinos), Boyz N the Hood (African Americans), Charlotte Sometimes (Asians), Falling Down (Whites), and The Kids Are All Right (LGBT).