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
- 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
- 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
- Sports
- Television
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
Our Story Is the American Story: A Conversation with Renee Tajima-Peña and Geeta Gandbhir
The producers of “Asian Americans” reflect on the making of their groundbreaking documentary series....
Anouk YehJul 23, 2020
"Visible: Out on Television": an LGBTQ TV Roundtable
A group of TV scholars consider Apple TV+'s new docuseries, "Visible: Out on Television," and the narratives of history and visibility it tells....
Beck Banks, Mayra Bottaro, Hollis Griffin, Lauren Herold, Julia Himberg, Alfred L. Martin Jr., Maria San FilippoJun 23, 2020
- Television
Time Machine: Excerpts from "Time Tells"
Masha Tupitsyn considers the passage of time, Felicity, and stand-up comedy...
Masha TupitsynJun 7, 2020
- Television
Laguna Revisited
Sara Davis revisits an early reality TV classic...
Sara DavisJun 6, 2020
- Television
Do Black Lives Matter to Westworld? On TV Fantasies of Racial Violence
Hope Wabuke considers the violence against black children at the heart of HBO's Westworld and whether the show will ever have something to say about it....
Hope WabukeJun 4, 2020
- Television
Dance Routines, Pandemic Routines: Ryan Heffington's "SWEATFEST"
Media Studies scholar Kristen Warner and dance scholar Clare Croft consider the queer, quarantied embodiments of Ryan Heffington's Instagram dance class....
Kristen Warner, Clare CroftJun 1, 2020
- Music
- Television
"Never Have I Ever"...Seen Myself on TV
Linde Murugan considers Mindy Kaling's funny and frustrating take on religion, nationality, race, caste, and diasporic identity....
Meenasarani Linde MuruganMay 28, 2020
- Television
Freud: A Star Is Born
Elena Comay del Junco (psycho)analyzes the representation of Freud and psychoanalysis in popular media....
Elena Comay del JuncoMay 26, 2020
- Film
- Television
The Television is the Night Car: An Interview with Graeme Manson about Snowpiercer
Everett Hamner talks to Orphan Black's Graeme Manson about his new television adaptation of Bong Joon-Ho's film Snowpiercer....
Everett HamnerMay 25, 2020
- Speculative Fiction
- Television
How to Miss What Isn't Gone: Thoughts on Modern Nostalgias While Watching "The Office"
Lucas Mann discusses modern forms of nostalgia and the pleasures and perils of rewatching old favorites...
Lucas MannMay 24, 2020
- Television
Real Life Rock Top 10: May 2020
LARB presents the May installment of “Real Life Rock Top 10,” a monthly column by cultural critic Greil Marcus....
Greil MarcusMay 22, 2020
- Music
- Television
Love the One You're With: "High Fidelity" Goes Corporate
Annie Berke on Hulu's adaptation of High Fidelity as a Millennial romantic comedy of media conglomeration and tech utopianism....
Annie BerkeMay 12, 2020
- Television
Marion Stokes and the Power of Guerrilla Archiving
Grace Hadland reviews the documentary on reclusive guerrilla archivist and media critic Marion Stokes, “Recorder.”...
Gracie HadlandApr 23, 2020
The Tiger King and I
Seth Greenland thinks about what it means to laugh at Netflix's Tiger King when nothing else at the moment seems particularly funny....
Seth GreenlandApr 9, 2020
- Television
Watching Television in a Pandemic
TV is producing a “new normal” for us in these strange times, and it can incite us to ask what new productions might emerge....
Lynne JoyrichApr 8, 2020
- Cultural Studies
- Television
Celestial Bureaucracy: What "The Good Place" Owes "The Aeneid"
In honor of the end of The Good Place, Meghan Gilbride takes us on a guided tour of bureaucratic afterlives from Virgil to Albert Brooks to Michael Schur. ...
Meghan GilbrideMar 10, 2020
- Television