Deadwood — Paul Cantor Complete Work

Posts tagged Deadwood

Deadwood

Titus & Paul Cantor talk about David Milch's most famous achievement, Deadwood--the movie & the TV show both: A lawless, but orderly vision of America. An America with commerce but without religion, with freedom but without equality--what kind of community & what kind of justice is possible in such a situation? Podcast

Popular Culture, ACFVirginiaJuly 18, 2024Deadwood

Order Out of the Mud: Deadwood and the State of Nature

This chapter analyzes the television series Deadwood in terms of the philosophical concept of the state of nature. The show raises the question of whether a community should be ordered from the top down or from the bottom up. Deadwood goes to the heart of the central issue of the Western: is it possible to have order without law? Chapter 3

Milch's Last Stand

Deadwood has a different take on the common myth of the western. What is commonly billed as the triumph of civilization over barbarism is reinterpreted by Milch as the imposition of a remote and uncaring government on people hitherto living in freedom on the frontier. Essay

Popular CultureVirginiaMay 26, 2020Essay, Popular Culture, Film, Television, Deadwood

Invisible Hand in Popular Culture

In this groundbreaking work, Paul A. Cantor explores the ways in which television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, South Park, and Deadwood and films such as The Aviator and Mars Attacks! have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Books

Popular CultureVirginiaApril 1, 2020Book, Popular Culture, Economics, South Park, Star Trek, Western, Deadwood, The Aviator