Event

CINEMA and TELEVISION STUDIES SPEAKER SERIES

DANA POLAN

The Role of Genre in Television Studies: The Case of the Cooking Show

Using the example of Julia Child's THE FRENCH CHEF TV show from the 1960s, this presentation will examine the role of genre in television and in television studies. We will address such questions as: Does "food TV" constitute a genre or set of genres? What is its place within a popular pedagogy of "do-it-yourself" shows? How does the evolution of food TV speak to changes in gender relations in America? What does the spectacle of food on the TV screen say about leisure culture and its history? The presentation sets out to examine the evolution of "food TV" and its implications for both television history in particular and U. S. cultural history and everyday life more generally