In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Book Reviews | Regular Feature fully vindictive, wildly untruthful, and just plain mean. It's Eyman's nonpareil success in revealing the character ofthis very human man that makes Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford a book that even a nonbeliever like David Thompson might enjoy. Robert Fyne Kean University RJFyne@aol.com Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins, editors. Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age. The University Press of Kentucky, 2001. 392 pages; $29.95. For Better or Worse Back in the late 1940's, who might have envisioned that those small, nine-inch, black-and-white, Dumont television sets—that displayed test patterns up to six hours a day, offered evening news programs where commentators insipidly read from held-held scripts in front ofregional maps, orbroadcasted live baseball games using only three cameras—would in less than ten years transform America's economic, political, and psychological perceptions into a visual kaleidoscope where, as Marshall McLuhan aptly observed, the mediumbecame the message? Was anyone prescient enough in those post-World War II days to realize that some sixty years later this cathode ray tube would emerge as the driving force in Western society shaping thought, action, and behavior while creating a brave new world? These are some ofthe tricky questions analyzed in Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the MediaAge, a lively, sixteen-essay study—edited by Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins—which takes ahard look atAmerica's love affair with its runaway technology that, for better or worse, has become the predominant educator in most homes. According to Professor Edgerton, since television is the primary way that children and adults form their understanding ofthe past, it also influences how people think about historical figures and events. In short, the two are entwined: history is television watching and—with all its truths and distortions, its oversimplifications and omissions—television watching becomes history. Citing the popularity of the 1952 television series Victory at Sea, Professor Rollins laments that while this program defined the Second World War for most viewers, it failed as a documentary only because it succeeded as a massive, Super Bowl spectacle, augmented with rousing martial music, appealing to Sunday-afternoon male audiences who, vicariously, fantasized they, too, were battle warriors. Here, the War was changed into a dangerous, but thrilling sports event and its winners—both real and imaginative—received amanly pat on the backfor their "victory ." Even the combat veteran, Dr. Rollins reiterates, suffered fromthis media distortion because the "participant" easily shelved the terror and distress of his memories in favor of a more reassuring "top brass" perception that, regrettably, Victory at Sea so willfully dramatized. Other topics, likewise, examine the shaky relationship between , truth, history, and television presentation by analyzing some popular program series—including Young Indiana Jones, Dr. Quinn, Quantum Leap and Profiles in Courage—citing the influence such flimsy dramatizations instill on cultural thought and understanding. Why not? Since the late 1940's, as TV watching quickly became the main source oflearning for most Americans , replacing books, periodicals (even lectures), the networks employed an anti-intellectual carte blanche, designing shows saturatedwith entertainmentelements disregarding any references to realism. Basically, the image, rather than the content, became the lasting impression, a concept not lost on political candidates. Who could forget Nixon's sinister, five o'clock shadow during the 1960 presidential candidate debates? As always, the commercial aspect of television cannot be ignored and networks—always concerned with the bottom line— never strayed from their profit margin, constantly fine-tuning successful, long-running series. One Sunday evening program, The Jack Benny Show, mirrored mainstream American values and its apple pie humor remains indelibly fixed in the mind of the Cold War generation. Why did the self-effacing Midwestern comedian succeed when otherjokesters never caught on? Was it his deadpan delivery, his slow, casual response to awkward situations ? And how about The History Channel? Highly publicized as a medium for learning, this organization, an offspring of theArts & Entertainment conglomerate, regularly interrupts daily broadcasting with minutes ofhard-sell, high-powered, Big Business advertisements. Is there a correlation between The Jack Benny Show and The History Channel? Both programs...

pdf

Share