Television

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television." —Woody Allen

Call Me By No Name: On "Rebecca"
Tania Modleski watches new Netflix's adaptation of Rebecca and tracks the puzzling misreadings and misleadings of its source material.
Tania ModleskiDec 23, 2020
- Film
- Television
Wrapped in Plastic: On Courtenay Stallings’s “Laura’s Ghost”
Sophia Stewart reviews “Laura’s Ghost,” a feminist-ethnographic collection revisiting the gender politics of “Twin Peaks,” the series and the film.
Sophia StewartNov 3, 2020
The Long Cable Box-Step Orgy: Rewatching "The Deuce"
Matthew Tchepikova-Treon returns to the under-appreciated institutional melodrama of David Simon's The Deuce one year later.
Matthew Tchepikova-TreonOct 28, 2020
- Television
The Disciplined Work of Being a Human Being: A Conversation with Actress and Artist Sheila Vand
Erik Morse interviews Iranian American actress and performance artist Sheila Vand.
Erik MorseSep 25, 2020
- Film
- Television
Rethinking Rape and Laughter: Michaela Coel's "I May Destroy You"
Rebecca Wanzo describes how Michaela Coel's HBO series about trauma and recovery uses laughter to defiantly resist despair.
Rebecca WanzoSep 22, 2020
- Television
The One With(out) the Gender Binary: Rewatching “Friends” and “Coupling”
Sam Moore watches reruns of Friends and Couplings only to find two shows defined by their own rigid definitions of gender and sexuality.
Sam MooreSep 15, 2020
- Gender & Sexuality
- Television
Dilettantes and Connoisseurs: The Public Intellectual in the United States
On the evolution of the figure of the public intellectual in the internet age.
Robert DaselerSep 13, 2020
Absent Center: Netflix's "Dark" and Time Travel as White Privilege
Namrata Verghese asks why everybody on Netflix's mind-bending time travel series Dark is white and why whiteness structures even its alternate worlds.
Namrata VergheseSep 7, 2020
- Television
Basketball Was Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience
TV scholar Michael Z. Newman reflects on the similarity between the NBA bubble at Disney World and the classic form of the sitcom.
Michael Z. NewmanAug 18, 2020
- LARB Ball
- Television
The Jordan Rules, Recycled
ESPN’s documentary “The Last Dance” is an “untold story” we’ve all heard a million times.
Hal SundtAug 15, 2020
Like Proper Sexual: On Too Hot to Handle
Philippa Snow binges the reckless hearts and alarmist boomerisms of Netflix's reality dating sensation Too Hot To Handle.
Philippa SnowAug 7, 2020
- Television
Brokering Suitability: On "Indian Matchmaking"
Rijuta Mehta considers the reality TV tropes, documentary pretense, and pervasive purity politics of Netflix's newest dating show.
Rijuta MehtaJul 31, 2020
- Television