Second Lives

Name: Second Lives
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SKU: 9780226824802
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Black-Market Melodramas and the Reinvention of Television

By Michael Szalay

Summary

Second Lives by Michael Szalay traces the rise of the "black-market melodrama," a distinctive television genre that juxtaposes a family's everyday existence with a secret second life, often involving illegal activities or alternate realities. Through shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, Szalay explores how these narratives reflect the economic and cultural shifts that have shaped prestige TV over the past two decades, especially the decline of the traditional Fordist family wage.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$61⁹⁹

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Second Lives

$61⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in television studies, media and cultural criticism, and contemporary economic influences on arts, as well as fans of prestige TV seeking a deeper understanding of its thematic undercurrents.

Description

A history of prestige television through the rise of the “black-market melodrama.”

In Second Lives, Michael Szalay defines a new television genre that has driven the breathtaking ascent of TV as a cultural force over the last two decades: the black-market melodrama. Exemplified by the likes of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, the genre moves between a family’s everyday life and its secret second life, which may involve illegal business, espionage, or even an alternate reality.

Second lives allow characters (and audiences) to escape what feels like endless work into a revanchist vision of the white middle class family. However, there is for this grimly resigned genre no meaningful way back to the Fordist family wage for which it longs. In fact, Szalay argues, black-market melodramas lament the very economic transformations that untethered TV viewing from the daily rhythms of the nine-to-five job and led, ultimately, to prestige TV.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praised by the Los Angeles Review of Books for its insightful analysis connecting television genres to socioeconomic realities, and by Publishers Weekly as essential reading for media scholars, Second Lives offers a shrewd and revelatory examination of late-stage capitalism through the lens of television. The book is also recommended by Choice for its exploration of family mythologies and cultural allegories within the genre.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780226824802

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 22 March 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Chicago Press

Illustration: 50 halftones

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 23.0mm

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 454g

Pages: 288

Collections

Arts & Culture Michael Szalay Non-Fiction

About the Author

Michael Szalay is professor of English and film and media at the University of California—Irvine. He is the author of New Deal Modernism: American Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State and Hip Figures: A Literary History of the Democratic Party.

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Second Lives

By Michael Szalay

Hardback

$188⁹⁹

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