Conventional wisdom holds that television was a co-conspirator in the repressions of Cold War America, that it was a facilitator to the blacklist and handmaiden to McCarthyism. But Thomas Doherty argues that, through the influence of television, America actually became a more open and tolerant place. Although many books have been written about this period, Cold War, Cool Medium is the only one to examine it through the lens of television programming.
To the unjaded viewership of Cold War America, the television set was not a harbinger of intellectual degradation and moral decay, but a thrilling new household appliance capable of bringing the wonders of the world directly into the home. The "cool medium" permeated the lives of every American, quickly becoming one of the most powerful cultural forces of the twentieth century. While television has frequently been blamed for spurring the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, it was also the national stage upon which America witnessed -- and ultimately welcomed -- his downfall. In this provocative and nuanced cultural history, Doherty chronicles some of the most fascinating and ideologically charged episodes in television history: the warm-hearted Jewish sitcom The Goldbergs; the subversive threat from I Love Lucy; the sermons of Fulton J. Sheen on Life Is Worth Living; the anticommunist series I Led 3 Lives; the legendary jousts between Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy on See It Now; and the hypnotic, 188-hour political spectacle that was the Army-McCarthy hearings.
By rerunning the programs, freezing the frames, and reading between the lines, Cold War, Cool Medium paints a picture of Cold War America that belies many black-and-white clichés. Doherty not only details how the blacklist operated within the television industry but also how the shows themselves struggled to defy it, arguing that television was preprogrammed to reinforce the very freedoms that McCarthyism attempted to curtail.
Thomas Doherty
I. Video Rising A Television Genealogy Red and Other Menaces McCarthy: Man, Ism, and Television II. The Gestalt of the Blacklist The Blacklist Backstory Pressure Groups and Pressure Points Institutional Practices III. Controversial Personalities The Goldbergs: the Case of Philip Loeb I Love Lucy: the Redhead and the Blacklist IV. Hypersensitivity: The Codes of Television Censorship Faye Emerson's Breasts, Among other Controversies Amos 'n' Andy: Blacks in Your Living Room V. Forums of the Air Egghead Sundays Direct Address The Ike-onoscope VI. Roman Circuses and Spanish Inquisitions "Kefauver Fever": The Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings of 1951 HUAC-TV Wringing the Neck of Reed Harris: The McCarthy Committee Voice of America Hearings of 1953 VII. Country and God I Led 3 Lives: "Watch Yourself Philbrick!" Religious Broadcasting Life Is Worth Living: Starring Bishop Fulton J. Sheen VIII. Edward R. Murrow Slays The Dragon of Joseph McCarthy TV's Number One Glamour Boy Murrow Versus McCarthy The "Good Tuesday" Homily To Be Person-to-Personed "A Humble, Poverty Stricken Negress": Annie Lee Moss Before the McCarthy Committee McCarthy Gets Equal Time IX. "The Speaktacular": the Army-McCarthy Hearings, April 22-June 17, 1954 Backstory and Dramatis Personae Gavel to Gavel Coverage Climax: "Have You No Sense of Decency?" Denouement: Reviews and Post-Mortems X. Pixies: Homosexuality, Anti-Communism, and Television Red Fades to Pink Airing the Cohn-Schine Affair XI. The End of the Blacklist The Defenders: The Blacklist on Trial Point of Order!: The Army-McCarthy Hearings, the Movie XII. Exhuming McCarthyism: the Paranoid Style in American Television
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Conventional wisdom holds that television was a co-conspirator in the repressions of Cold War America, that it was a facilitator to the blacklist and handmaiden to McCarthyism. But Thomas Doherty argues that, through the influence of television, America actually became a more open and tolerant place. Although many books have been written about this period, Cold War, Cool Medium is the only one to examine it through the lens of television programming.
To the unjaded viewership of Cold War America, the television set was not a harbinger of intellectual degradation and moral decay, but a thrilling new household appliance capable of bringing the wonders of the world directly into the home. The "cool medium" permeated the lives of every American, quickly becoming one of the most powerful cultural forces of the twentieth century. While television has frequently been blamed for spurring the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, it was also the national stage upon which America witnessed -- and ultimately welcomed -- his downfall. In this provocative and nuanced cultural history, Doherty chronicles some of the most fascinating and ideologically charged episodes in television history: the warm-hearted Jewish sitcom The Goldbergs; the subversive threat from I Love Lucy; the sermons of Fulton J. Sheen on Life Is Worth Living; the anticommunist series I Led 3 Lives; the legendary jousts between Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy on See It Now; and the hypnotic, 188-hour political spectacle that was the Army-McCarthy hearings.
By rerunning the programs, freezing the frames, and reading between the lines, Cold War, Cool Medium paints a picture of Cold War America that belies many black-and-white clichés. Doherty not only details how the blacklist operated within the television industry but also how the shows themselves struggled to defy it, arguing that television was preprogrammed to reinforce the very freedoms that McCarthyism attempted to curtail.
Thomas Doherty
I. Video Rising A Television Genealogy Red and Other Menaces McCarthy: Man, Ism, and Television II. The Gestalt of the Blacklist The Blacklist Backstory Pressure Groups and Pressure Points Institutional Practices III. Controversial Personalities The Goldbergs: the Case of Philip Loeb I Love Lucy: the Redhead and the Blacklist IV. Hypersensitivity: The Codes of Television Censorship Faye Emerson's Breasts, Among other Controversies Amos 'n' Andy: Blacks in Your Living Room V. Forums of the Air Egghead Sundays Direct Address The Ike-onoscope VI. Roman Circuses and Spanish Inquisitions "Kefauver Fever": The Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings of 1951 HUAC-TV Wringing the Neck of Reed Harris: The McCarthy Committee Voice of America Hearings of 1953 VII. Country and God I Led 3 Lives: "Watch Yourself Philbrick!" Religious Broadcasting Life Is Worth Living: Starring Bishop Fulton J. Sheen VIII. Edward R. Murrow Slays The Dragon of Joseph McCarthy TV's Number One Glamour Boy Murrow Versus McCarthy The "Good Tuesday" Homily To Be Person-to-Personed "A Humble, Poverty Stricken Negress": Annie Lee Moss Before the McCarthy Committee McCarthy Gets Equal Time IX. "The Speaktacular": the Army-McCarthy Hearings, April 22-June 17, 1954 Backstory and Dramatis Personae Gavel to Gavel Coverage Climax: "Have You No Sense of Decency?" Denouement: Reviews and Post-Mortems X. Pixies: Homosexuality, Anti-Communism, and Television Red Fades to Pink Airing the Cohn-Schine Affair XI. The End of the Blacklist The Defenders: The Blacklist on Trial Point of Order!: The Army-McCarthy Hearings, the Movie XII. Exhuming McCarthyism: the Paranoid Style in American Television
Show more1. Video Rising 2. The Gestalt of the Blacklist 3. Controversial Personalities 4. Hypersensitivity: The Codes of Television Censorship 5. Forums of the Air 6. Roman Circuses and Spanish Inquisitions 7. Country and God 8. Edward R. Murrow Slays The Dragon of Joseph McCarthy 9. "The Speaktacular": the Army-McCarthy Hearings, April 22-June 17, 1954 10. Pixies: Homosexuality, Anti-Communism, and Television 11. The End of the Blacklist 12. Exhuming McCarthyism: the Paranoid Style in American Television
Though conventional wisdom claims that television is a co-conspirator in the repressions of Cold War America, Doherty argues that during the Cold War, through television, America actually became a more tolerant place. He examines television programming and contemporary commentary of the late 1940s to the mid-1950s-everything from See It Now to I Love Lucy, from Red Channels to the writings of Walter Winchell and Hedda Hopper. By rerunning the programs, freezing the frames, and reading between the lines, Doherty paints a picture of Cold War America that belies many black and white cliches.
Thomas Doherty is a professor in the American studies department and chair of the film studies program at Brandeis University. He is the author of Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II; PreCode Hollywood: Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934; and Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s, and is associate editor of the film journal Cineaste.
"Invigorating and wide-ranging scholarship... The heart of Cold War, Cool Medium is a lively and compelling retelling of the effect of McCarthyism on television." -- Cineaste "[A] seriously intelligent history." -- Library Journal "fresh and important insights...an accurate and engrossing account for the nonspecialist, and its methodology provides a revealing context for the specialist as well" -- Brenda Murphy, The Journal of American History "thoughtful and nuanced" -- Michael C. C. Adams, Film & History "Thomas Doherty's groundbreaking new volume, Cold War, Cool Medium, [is] a sweeping examination of the collision of television and McCarthyism, and one of the most searching looks at the intersection of popular and political culture in years." -- Boston Globe "A witty, often riveting account of the simultaneous rise of television and McCarthy." -- Film Comment "A wide-ranging, impressionistic portrait of the era... Mr. Doherty, a professor of American studies at Brandeis University and a noted film historian, deftly recaps this familiar story." -- New York Observer "Doherty succeeds in illuminating both the history of television in the US in the 1950s and television's relationship to the era's anticommunist crusade... this volume carefully examines the often-overlooked political side of 1950s television. Essential." -- Choice " Cold War, Cool Medium is an excellent overview of television and American culture at a pivotal moment in United States history. It is also wittily written, with Doherty's sense of humour and irony coming through on nearly every page." -- Jennifer Frost, University of Auckland, Australasian Journal of American Studies "It is not only readable, enlightening and amusing, it does what all good books on the televisual Cold War should do: it can distinguish between hype and substance." -- Adam Piette, Journal of American Studies " "Doherty delivers an enlightening and critical reassessment of television, culture, and politics in the early 1950's." -- Michael Curtin, American Historical Review " Cold War, Cool Medium is an engaging and complex account of US commercial television during the 1950's." -- Megan Mullen, Technology and Culture "[A] superbly written analysis of the link between the rise of American television and the fall of Senator McCarthy." -- Vincent Brook, American Studies " Cold War, Cool Medium is engagingly written, offering prose that is brimming with wit and insight." -- Christine Becker, Film Quarterly
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