Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

Further reading

Bianculli, D. (1996)

Dictionary of Teleliteracy,

New York: Continuum.

Stark, S. (1997)

Glued to the Set,

New York: The Free Press.

CINDY WONG

television and minorities

Protests by

NAACP,

La Raza and other activists in 1999 highlighted the absence o

minority characters on new

network

shows, leading NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS to

scramble to retrofit, offering and forcing them into negotiations about ethnicity and

casting as well as longer-term commitments to employment behind the camera. At the

same time, other networks like UPN were accused of pandering to young

African

American

demographics with irresponsible

teen

shows. The dearth of

Asian Americans

on any network beyond roles as newscasters or passing characters was hardly discussed.

Meanwhile,

cable

opportunities like

BET

and the growth and changes of Spanish-

language stations like Telemundo and Univision complicate any simple conclusions

about race and television even before one considers the limited minority presence in the

upper echelons of the broadcast industries as

producers, directors

and writers. I

television both reflects and shapes America, it is important to understand how it has dealt

with—and continues to deal with—critical divides like race and ethnicity.

In the golden age of television and its aftermath, “whiteness” functioned as a norm

against which some black racial stereotypes emerged in crossover shows from radio like

the popular albeit racist

Amos’n Andy

or the roles given black women as maternal

servants in shows like

Beulah

. The

Nat Kïng Cole Show

(1957) was the first African

American show on prime-time network TV, but disappeared after one season. Asians

took on such safe domestic roles in generations of cooks on

Bonanza, Bachelor Fathe

and

Dynasty,

while

Hispanics

added local color to

westerns

. There was hardly any

presence of Native Americans outside westerns, or people of

Arab

and

South Asian

origin.

ulia

(1968–71), which cast Diahann Caroll as an attractive, educated black

rofessional single mother, seemed to be a breakthrough in fighting stereotypes, although

some critics argued that the character and plots were so anodyne as to make race

irrelevant. The lack of black men was also problematic, although the spy series

I Spy

(NBC, 1965–8) had brought Bill

Cosby

as Alexander Scott onto screen as a Rhode’s

scholar and arch commentator on companion Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp).

In fact, the presence of African American stars seemed to grow thereafter.

The

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1116

effersons

(1975–85), whose upwardly mobile title characters spun off from Norman

Lear

’s

All in the Family,

provided comic yet edgy commentary on problems like

intermarriage, class and exclusion in American society played out by African American

characters with evident flaws.

Good Times,

a spin-off of another Lear series, played out

even grittier issues in a working-class family in public housing. Capping off this golden

age of minority television, in a sense, were such

miniseries

Roots

(1977, 1979). In

1982 Cosby began his decades of involvement with the

Cosby Show

and other

productions, while

Miami Vice

(1984–9) confused categories of ethnicity and virtue.

At the same time, African Americans and others began to be integrated into the faces

of television, including news, sports coverage and ensemble television—long-running

hospital, crime and scifi dramas (

Star Trek

and its heirs) invariably had at least one

African American star amid other minor minority characters. Critics have argued that the

additions of minority characters only serve as tokens of diversity although at times o

national convulsion like the Los Angeles riots, these became pivotal perspective

characters.

Yet, if urban television implied local color, it was also clear that other shows had

lengthy careers in segregated worlds—whether the sometimes leftist humor of

Murphy

rown

or the sophisticated urbanity of

Frazier,

where the whole cast is white. These were

balanced by (almost) all-

lack shows that soon found a special home on UPN. The

division, however, was one of audience as well as plot, as black and white viewers

consistently chose different shows as their favorites—

Seinfeld,

for example, did not

appeal to black audiences. When

City of Angels

brought the predominantly black inner-

city medical drama to prime-time network in 2000 it thus challenged not only network

history, but consumption of media within a segregated society. Moreover, it asked

whether the integrated model of dramas and soaps or the separate but equal presentations

of UPN and the networks more accurately reflected the state and desires of race and

ethnic relations in America at the end of the century.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

Federal development project in the Upper

South

. Constructing sixteen dams between

1933 and 1945, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought jobs and training, flood control

and electricity to marginal rural areas in seven states. By the postwar period, TVA

converted the extensive valley into a balanced industrial, military and agricultural core

for the future

Sunbelt

. Since the 1960s, the agency has been criticized for its

environmental record, including pollution and reliance on stripmined coal, and its

disastrous interests in nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s. These are signs, perhaps,

Entries A-Z 1117

that the region has outgrown its engine of change.

GARY McDONOGH

tennis

Once largely the preserve of

white

upper-class men and women, tennis has become

opularized in the years following the Second World War, influenced by patterns o

suburbanization,

immigration

and technological change.

At the beginning of the 1940s, tennis was still dominated by its country club and

amateur image. Leading players like “Big” Bill Tilden, from an elite

Philadelphia, PA

family, Donald Budge, Jack Kramer and Helen Wills Moody epitomized the “old-stock”

immigrant backgrounds of most players. By the early 1950s, many players were being

drawn into the professional tournaments dominated by Kramer and Pancho Gonzalez,

leaving the Grand Slam tournaments like Wimbledon and Forest Hills dominated by

Australian amateurs.

The film

Pat and Mike

(1952) highlighted some of the changes occurring in American

society that would influence the development of tennis. Pat, a women’s college physical-

education teacher, played by Katharine Hepburn, is snatched up by a sports promoter,

Mike (Spencer Tracy), who turns her into a professional sportsperson. The film evokes

the transformation occurring from amateurism to commercialism, the increasing

marketability of women athletes and the increasing access to tennis available for many

Americans at this time that would dramatically increase the popularity of the sport.

Suburbanization accounted for much of this transformation. The

migration

out of the

cities

following the world war brought middle-class Americans into close proximity with

tennis facilities, which were incorporated into the planning of many of the suburban

developments and

public school

building projects. Elite lawn tennis clubs remained, but

their influence declined as more communities played on hard court surfaces.

From the 1960s onwards, therefore, shifts in tennis demography began to occur. More

tennis players began to emerge from “ethnic” groups, such as Jimmy Connors and John

McEnroe (Irish), Vitas Gerulaitus (Greek)—Stan Smith being the obvious exception to

this rule. They no longer graduated only from elite

Ivy League

universities, but instead

were gaining their college playing experience from the large land-grant

state

universities

. They were not merely growing up in

Northeastern

elite urban

communities, but were instead coming from the new

Sunbelt

states, particularly

Florida,

where the climate allowed for more professional tennis tournaments and intensive camps,

like that of Nick Bollitieri which produced such leading players as Andre Agassi and

Aaron Krickstein.

Tennis was slow to have a significant impact on African Americans. Excluded from

the United States Lawn Tennis Association,

African Americans

created their own

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1118

American Tennis Association. Two products of this development were Althea Gibson,

the first African American to compete and win at Wimbledon in 1957, and Arthur

Ashe

But the exclusion of African Americans from much of the process of suburbanization

occurring at this time meant that these two players were not followed by others until

changing demographic patterns (and Ashe’s efforts to bring tennis to

inner-city

communities) began to alter these things. In recent years the success of the Williams

sisters, Venus and Serena, has increased the visibility of the game among African

Americans, including their triumphs at the 1999 US Open and 2000 Wimbledon.

The game has made a lasting impression on gender relations. The leading American

women’s player of the early 1970s, Billy Jean

King,

helped transform the game both

through her court performances and her campaigns off the court for reform away from the

amateur elitism of the game and for greater gender equity. King was instrumental in

ringing World Team Tennis to fruition, encouraging promoters and sponsors, like Texan

Lamar Hunt, to pump money into the game, and in challenging the stereotypes regarding

women. She also defeated Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973 at the

Houston

Astrodome before a worldwide television audience of nearly 50 million and the

largest audience ever for a tennis match. King’s straight-sets victory silenced Riggs’

claims of sexual superiority and brought further attention to the women’s game (which

now draws more fans than, but still not equal prize-money to, the men’s game).

The late 1970s was notable mostly for the emergence of the naturalized American

Martina Navratilova. Czech-

orn Navratilova developed a game more akin to the men

(serve and volley), forcing American baseline players like Chris Evert and Tracey Austin

either to improve the power and accuracy of their baseline shots or increase the range o

their games. As a result the men’s and women’s games are now closer to each other in

style and power than was the case prior to Navratilova’s ascendancy.

The introduction of new rackets in the 1980s and 1990s has radically altered both the

women’s and men’s games. Gone are the old wooden rackets, which produced power in

roportion to their weight. The new graphite composite rackets are light and powerful,

and allow for much greater spin with a flick of the wrist. In part this accounts for the

lessening appeal of the men’s game (dominated by Pete Sampras’

ower game) as

compared with the women’s. The injection of power into the women’s game has

broadened its appeal; it is fast killing the men’s as the importance of the serve has

increased.

Further reading

Collins, B. (1997)

The Tennis Encyclopedia,

Detroit: Visible Ink Press.

ROBERT GREGG

Entries A-Z 1119

Tet Offensive

In late 1967, General William Westmoreland, Gommander of the American forces in

Vietnam, claimed that the war effort was nearing its successful end. Yet, on January 30,

1968, the North Vietnamese unleashed a massive surprise assault on major urban centers

in Southern Vietnam, while American military attention had been focused further north at

Khe Sanh. Striking thirty-six of forty-four provincial capitals in South Vietnam,

including the American embassy, the Tet Offensive was intended to create a general

uprising across the south. Though the offensive failed, the effect on American morale

was devastating.

Television

brought the chaos of the

war

into American

homes,

and the

offensive galvanized national antiwar sentiment.

SUSAN SCHULTEN

Texas

Citizens of Texas often say Texas is not a state, but a state of mind. Perhaps no other state

has been represented more in popular culture than Texas—yet stereotypes of the

oil

baron,

cowboy,

superpatriot and cheerleader distill (and conceal) com plex, dynamic

histories. As an economic powerhouse and the birthplace of two postwar presidents

(

Eisenhower

and

Johnson

) and home of a third presidential family

(Bush),

the myths

and changes of Texas influence all of America.

The 28th state in the Union and largest of the continental states, Texas was annexed on

December 29, 1845. Americans had settled there after 1821 in territory ruled by Mexico.

Tensions between colonizers and the state eventually meant war, including the famous

1836 Battle of the Alamo

(San Antonio),

where

frontier

heroes Davy Crockett, Jim

Bowie and William Travis died. Films and books have kept this memory alive, although,

as Holly Brear suggests in

Inherit the Alamo

(1995), this shrine also divides Mexican

American and Anglo-American consciousness. Prior to annexation, Texas was the only

state in the union that had been an independent nation (1836–45).

The nickname “Lone Star State” also suggests a conception shared by Texas citizens

and others in the United States and abroad. Texas, called the “Third Coast,” is

characterized by vast spaces,

freedom,

opportunity and more nationalistic sentiment than

in the United States itself. This independent ethos is supported by history and through

economic success and population growth that have made Texas the third-largest state in

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1120

the country. Oil and gas lead the way in the twentieth century; the international success o

the prime-time soap opera

Dallas

made Texas oil-millionaires global stereotypes.

Metropoles like

Dallas

and

Houston,

and burgeoning San Antonio, El Paso and

Austin,

have incorporated more economic diversity, including agriculture and livestock,

shipping, retail, military development, electronics, communications and

tourism

Growth complicates a potentially conflictive cultural landscape. While sharing a long

order with Mexico, the large Mexican American population was repressed for

generations.

African Americans

reflect the state’s slave heritage as well as its attraction

for blacks who sought opportunities as cowboys or oil workers. Both have gained more

prominence since the civil-rights era, although many argue that they have been left out o

ostwar wealth and power. Other older immigrant groups include Germans and Czechs,

while new immigration from Vietnam,

China

and

Latin America

continues to change

the state’s

Sunbelt

agglomerations.

Many outside Texas would reduce its culture to mythic characters and spaces. Yet

Texas also has a large and well-funded state university system, which has made cities like

Austin cosmopolitan enclaves, in addition to elite private schools like Rice (Houston). Its

wealthy cities and citizens have built museums and concert halls and contributed to

modern architecture. Sports are also part of Texas culture:

football’s

Dallas Cowboys

(“America’s Team”), the basketball champion San Antonio Spurs and the Houston

Astrodome represent this prominent role. Yet the small-town independence of Texas may

be better captured in

college

and

high-school

football, chronicled in Bissinger’s

Friday

ïght Lights

(1990).

Money population and dynamism made Texas an electoral prize even before the

Second World War, when the state was solidly Democrat. While Johnson kept it in

Kennedy’s camp, Texas has subsequently become a powerhouse of conservative

Republicans in Congress as well as the middle-of-the road Bush family. Governor

George Bush, Jr.’s ability to raise $36 million in the first quarter of his campaign shows

oth local power and national attention that make Texas a major region and actor in the

American future.

The University of Texas Press produces excel-lent works on state history and culture.

Further reading

Bissinger, B. (1990)

Friday Nïght Lights,

Reading: Addison-Wesley.

Brear, H. (1995)

Inherit the Alamo,

Austin: University of Texas.

Ivins, M. (1991)

Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?,

New York: Random House

(gives a sardonic political and cultural commentaries).

Limon, J. (1994)

Dancing with the Devil,

Madison: University of Wisconsin.

MATTHEW DURINGTON

Entries A-Z 1121

thalidomide

A drug responsible for devastating birth defects in the early 1960s may make a comeback

almost forty years later to help treat leprosy and

AIDS

. Thalidomide, manufactured by

Chemie Grüenthal, was sold from 1958–62 in approximately forty-six countries as a

sedative or anti-nausea drug for pregnant women. Thalidomide severely deformed

thousands of babies whose mothers took it in their first trimester of pregnancy. Never

sold in the US because Federal Drug Administration (FDA) scientist Frances Kelsey

single-handedly blocked its approval, it was internationally banned by 1962. The tragedy

led to laws requiring rigorous testing procedures for American pharmaceutical products.

COURTNEY BENNETT

theater

During the latter half of the twentieth century, following the advent and rise of first film

and then television, live theater in the United States scrambled to find a niche in

American culture. Because producing live theater is extremely laborintensive, mounting

rofessional productions necessitates selling tickets at a prohibitive price for many

Americans. Despite vigorous efforts on the part of many producing organizations to

diversify their audiences, theater audiences remain largely white and affluent.

Contemporary American theater falls into several categories. It varies according to

location, size, the physical configuration of the performance space and the financial

structure of the producing organization, among others. All of these factors must be taken

into account when theaters decide what kinds of plays to produce. While theater struggles

to maintain its role in American culture, an audience member can still view some type o

live theater in virtually every community in the country. Performances occur in a variety

of buildings and spaces, from converted warehouses to state-of-the-art

Broadway

houses.

(Broadway refers to both the location of theater within a several-

lock radius of the

intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, as well as to the

financial structure of the producing organization.) An audience member can have an

intimate performance experience in a ninety-nine seat black box theater, or be part of a

thousandplus throng at a Broadway

musical

Throughout the twentieth century,

New York

City has remained the center of live

theater in the United States, boasting a full range of theater spaces and showcasing works

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1122

from minimalist

performance art

to Broadway extravaganzas. Tourists from across the

country and abroad flock to New York’s Broadway musicals, but the more seasoned or

adventurous theater-goer can find a wide range of performance styles in what are called

the off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theaters. In counterpoint to the highly

commercial aspect of Broadway theater, New York’s avant-garde venues boast some o

the most innovative and experimental performances in the country, showcasing works

from across the cultural spectrum, including the voices of

African American, Latino,

Asian American

and gay and lesbian playwrights and performers.

In the early 1960s, led by such pioneers as Tyrone Guthrie, founder of the Guthrie

Theater, in

Minneapolis,

the United States saw a renaissance of regional theaters. These

medium- to largesized theaters became established in communities with an affluent

population large enough to fill the theater’s seats, as well as a large enough “giving”

community to subsidize productions with personal, corporate, foundation and public

donations. Consequently cities such as

Seattle, Chicago, IL

and Minneapolis/St. Paul

have become dynamic theater centers in their own right. In the wake of the arrival o

well-established regional theaters, a host of smaller theaters have sprung up offering an

eclectic range of styles. For example, St. Paul is the home of Penumbra Theater. Founded

in 1976, it is one of the country’s oldest and most wellestablished theaters dedicated to

presenting theater from an African American perspective.

While successful professional theaters have usually been established in large urban

areas, some American Shakespeare Festivals are a noted exception. Ashland, a small

town in central Oregon, hosts the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. With three separate

stages, the festival is in operation from mid-February through October playing to a steady

stream of tourists from across the country. The town has become primarily a support

industry for the festival. In addition, professional dinner theaters and amateur community

theaters, some old and well-established, others nearly as ephemeral as the 2 hours traffic

on their stages, can be found throughout the country.

Live theater in the United States is financed under one of two systems, either for-

rofit

or notfor-profit. Broadway productions are for-

rofit endeavors with investors. Their

contracts with such labor unions as Actors Equity Association (AEA), representing

actors, dancers and stage managers, and the International Association of Theatrical Stage

Employees (IATSE), representing stage hands, requires that they pay union members top

wages. To fill the large Broadway houses, producers also employ highly paid

star

erformers for leading roles and spend lavishly on spectacular sets, lighting, costumes

and special effects. The fact that Broadway productions are so costly to mount and also

require a return of profit to the investors dictates the repertoire. Broadway relies on

appealing to a broad-

ased, largely tourist audience to fill the seats and turn a profit for

investors. Some off-Broadway theaters (defined by the smaller size of their houses and

the nature of their labor contracts rather than by their specific location within New York

City), dinner theaters (which exist across the nation and range in size from intimate

dining rooms to multi-stage complexes serving up mostly musicals and romantic

comedies, along with cuisine for the patrons) and a smattering of other theater companies

Entries A-Z 1123

are also for-

rofit. But the majority of producing organizations in the country are

organized under the not-for-profit model.

Not-for-

rofit organizations generally rely on contributions to supplement revenue

from ticket sales. Live theater in America has never enjoyed the kind of widespread

governmental support found in many other nations. Indeed, even the pittance allocated to

performing arts through the

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

and through

various state or local government funding agencies has been, since the late 1980s, under

continuous attack from political conservatives and the

Christian Right

. Already minimal

public funding has actually declined. However, in the United States not-for-

rofit

organizations may register under a provision of the tax code allowing them to solicit tax-

deductible contributions from corporations and individuals. Contributors receive no

return on their investments, but are able to deduct their contributions from their taxable

profits or income. Many not-for-profits, such as

San Diego

’s Old Globe Theater and

Chicago’s Goodman Theater, are thus heavily endowed with donated funds. Others

constantly struggle to keep their financial heads above water. But, even though pundits in

every decade in the latter half of the twentieth century wrote the obituary of theater in

America, a portion of the population continues to find the immediate and engaging

experience of live performance irresistible.

PAMELA R.HENDRICK

theme parks

Sites of mass entertainment, incorporating rides (rollercoasters, carousels, etc.), games,

shows, curiosities, animals and

junk food,

which became staples of American urban

leisure in the late nineteenth century, exemplified by

New York City,

NY’s Coney Island

or trolley parks like

Philadelphia, PA

’s Willow Grove. Suburbanization and urban

conflicts (including desegregation) pushed many of these local amusement parks into

hard times as they were eclipsed by new regional/ national destinations like

Disneyland

The late twentieth century mega-park represents corporate investment in a multi-day

family vacation destination whose tab may run to hundreds of dollars. Contemporary

options include chains (Six Flags, King’s Island), cross-corporate developments (Hershey

Park, with links to

chocolate,

or the Busch Gardens chain linked to brewers) and media

synergies like Disney, Universal Studios and Sesame Place. Their success has also

changed entertainment development in

zoos

and aquaria, urban centers and

tourism

outside the US. “Theme parking” is also an accusation leveled against many recent urban

development schemes as well as the creation of new private public spaces (such as

malls

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 1124

Further reading

Sorkin, M. (ed.) (1992)

Variations on a Theme Park,

New York: Random House.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

think tanks

Think tanks have grown in number and flourished as research and educational

organizations as US society has become more complex. The educational components o

the think tank address two main audiences: the general public and the public policy-

making community, which includes federal government appointees and agencies,

associations,

lobbyists

and

Congress

. The research looks at, among other areas,

government regulation,

healthcare

and

welfare reform, education,

taxes,

foreign

policy,

mass media, race

and legal issues. Think tanks have weak to very strong political

affiliations. One ideologically well-defined think tank is the Heritage Foundation, which

assisted the

Reagan

administration in clearing people for political appointments. The

primary think tank “products” are reports, books and magazines. Think tanks also hold

conferences for public policy-makers and the press, often televised by the satellite

cable

company C-Span.

Think tanks may wish to limit their ideological affiliations to enhance the credibility o

their research. Founded in 1916, the Brookings Institution maintains its political

independence through its large endowment. Some think tanks’ research agendas are more

strongly tied to the ideological objectives of their donors, including the government,

corporations and philanthropic foundations. In its descriptive materials the American

Enterprise Institute defines its ideological position as one that will work to preserve and

strengthen “the foundations of

freedom

—limited government, private enterprise, vital

cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense.” One

would not expect to find AEI research that contradicted this statement of purpose.

Whereas AEI addresses many areas of public policy, the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace studies only foreign policy. The Center for Strategic and International

Studies also focuses on international affairs. CSIS’ research is non-

artisan, but the

overall goal of the organization is to improve the strategic planning and implementation

of business, media and government operations in the international arena.

Some think tanks, like the libertarian Cato Institute, focus their efforts on reaching the

general

ublic with their ideas so that a grassroots change in American polity will take

lace. Unlike most think tanks, the Cato Institute accepts no government funding. In the

Entries A-Z 1125