Sunday, October 6, 2013
'Low Brow' Genres
How does Horace Newcomb's essay complicate Newton Minow’s assessment of television as a “vast wasteland”? Why does he believe that 'low brow' genres such as the western can be more complicated than they seem? Do you agree? Perhaps give an example of a contemporary 'low brow' show and explain why it might or might not have social relevance.
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Newton Minow’s assessment of television as a “vast wasteland” refers to his thought that television holds so many different shows and programs that they are all just sitting on a metaphorical wasteland, waiting for people to come upon them. Horace Newcomb complicates this fact in his essay by explaining the large effect that a ‘low brow’ genre, one of the many blips in the “vast wasteland”, in this case the western, can have on television. Not only did it play a big role in the change form TV’s live dramas to its more recent stage of telefilm production, but it paralleled the various changes in American culture during that time.
ReplyDeleteNewcomb believes that these types of genres are more complicated than they seem because of the fact that they are not just made for entertainment value, like a lot of the live dramas of TV were. These shows had the opportunity to utilize complex story telling in order to connect certain aspects of the genre to significant aspects of culture in America. He also mentions that these genres and their success can signify a change in awareness of the American public. The failure of the Western was mainly to due a change in the political views of Americans and the fact that Americans were overall more aware of what was going on around them. While there are many many programs available on TV today, not all of them fall victim to this “vast wasteland”, some stand out as culturally relevant and complex shows.
In his essay, Horace Newcomb suggests that Newton Minow’s assessment of television as a “vast wasteland” was not a very detailed or thoughtful analysis. Newcomb expresses certain disagreement with Minow lumping the western genre into this idea of a wasteland. Newcomb gives a great example of a “low brow” program doing something admirable when he discusses Bonanza. He wrote that, “the much revered cast of Bonanza” spoke out “against the segregationist entertainment venues in Jackson” (289). He goes on to say that the medium of television as well as the western genre “were directly affected by the Civil Rights protest that redefined our sense of nation and citizenship in the 1960s” (289). For this reason, I think Newcomb makes a strong argument against Minow's thought that much of what was on television was just drivel at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe western genre is built on some incredibly American and nationalistic concepts. I also think the fact that Newcomb so fondly remembers these western shows definitely supports that while they may have been considered “low brow,” they certainly did have their merits. I agree with Newcomb that regardless of a show’s reputation, different television shows mean different things to people. One broad statement about TV being a “wasteland” should not condemn every program that wasn’t a critically acclaimed live anthology drama. Contemporary reality TV is our current “wasteland” and I think it’s substantially worse than what people would have thought of the western genre. I don’t like to think that it might have social relevance, because that would reflect very poorly on our current society.
Newcomb complicates the argument by reflecting on his own childhood memories of the "low brow" westerns that he watched. He reflects on the way he and his friends played cowboys; when they watched a western with truly good characterization, they would take on the roles of the characters from that program. Even as a child, Newcomb could understand what made a program stick out from the other "low brow" programs.
ReplyDeleteNewcomb's memories bring about the point that no matter what the subject matter is, a great show can be made of it if the characters are properly developed so that people care about them. I agree with this position because many of the most critically well received and most popular shows today would have been considered part of the "vast wasteland" by Mr. Minow. Shows like Breaking Bad, which is about a chemistry teacher turned meth cook, and Dexter, a show about a serial killer that only kills serial killers, are easily summed up in ways that make them sound shallow and negative, but by taking a closer look at them (as Newcomb does for the western genre), it becomes clear that they are much more than drugs and bloodbaths. They are shows about the minds of the main characters, not so much directly about their actions.