Can TV Be High Art?

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

Breaking Bad and the tragedy of Walter White. Essay

If Shakespeare were alive today, would he write for television? Cantor and Kristol discuss the medium of TV. Paul Cantor explains what can we learn about contemporary America from our popular TV shows. Conversation

The state of professional wrestling today thus provides clues as to what living at the end of history means. It suggests how a large segment of American society is trying to cope with the emotional letdown that followed upon the triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy. Essay

Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! comically subverts the ideology of the standard American flying saucer movies of the 1950s. They celebrated the federal government as the American people’s savior, portraying a military-scientific elite dealing effectively with extraterrestrial threats to the US. Burton’s film debunks elites and suggests that a motley assortment of ordinary people would be more successful in dealing with an invasion from Mars. Chapter 4

The introduction to Part Two of The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture, “Maverick Creators and Maverick Heroes” Introduction

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

This chapter shows that Gene Roddenberry’s experience writing for the television Western Have Gun—Will Travel introduced him to many of the motifs and themes he later developed in Star Trek. It thus provides a case study of the hidden connections between the Western and science fiction. It also uncovers the tension between elites and common people in the mythology of the Western. Chapter 2

This chapter studies John Ford’s The Searchers against the background of Aeschylus’ trilogy, the Oresteia. As revenge tragedies, both works explore the thin line between barbarism and civilization. Ford portrays the tragedy of the isolated heroic figure who tries to bring order to the Wild West, and in the process must adopt some of the barbarism of the enemies he fights. Chapter 1

The introduction to Part One of The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture, “Freedom and Order in the Western” Introduction

The introduction argues that analyzing pop culture may require modes of interpretation that differ from those often invoked in the world of high culture. The creative models often deployed in pop culture—multiple authorship and improvisation followed by feedback—do not necessarily result in inferior art. Introduction

Taking freedom as its central subject, the book shows that American films and television shows have celebrated liberty and also analyzes the way that the free markets of commercial entertainment in the United States have repeatedly produced works of genuine artistic quality. Preface

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

Cantor explains why great art is usually popular in its time, and why today’s best television shows will have enduring cultural value. How do media such as Greek tragedy and TV evolve from simple beginnings to become venues for great art? Conversation

Considering the American Dream, Cantor reflects on why “a country which promises freedom can’t guarantee that freedom won’t be misused.” Conversation

What is a Western? How and when did The Western emerge as an art form? Paul Cantor shares his perspective. Conversation

W.C. Fields lived the American Dream, but he struggled enough to do so that he became extremely aware of its dark side.Essay

By linking that dream to the immigrant experience, The Godfather I and The Godfather II tell a foundational American story, perhaps the foundational American story. Essay