Keeler, Amanda R.

English

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteCollege of Communication Faculty Research andPublications Communication, College of3-6-2014The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic(Again)Amanda R. KeelerMarquette University, amanda.keeler@marquette.eduPublished version. Atenna (March 6, 2014). Publisher link. Published under a Creative Commonslicense.7/31/2018 The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic (Again) | Antennahttp://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/03/06/the-aesthetic-turn-toward-a-television-aesthetic-again/About UsComments PolicyContributorsCreditsHow to ContributeSubscribeHomeColumns »Current Events »Perspectives »The Aesthetic Turn: Toward aTelevision Aesthetic (Again)March 6, 2014By Amanda Keeler | Comments Off on The Aesthetic Turn: Toward aTelevision Aesthetic (Again)In the context of a course I’mteaching for the second time, Film and Television Aesthetics, I have beenthinking a great deal about not only how to teach television aesthetics, butalso what it means to analyze or evaluate television aesthetics. Asevidenced by this series, The Aesthetic Turn, this is again something thatscholars and television audiences want to discuss. It is not that televisionaesthetics has been an afterthought in the last twenty years; rather,somewhere along the way I think it was pushed aside for other importantand topical research.My own interest in writing this piece was sparked when I read Fred E. H.Schroeder’s 1973 essay “Video Aesthetics and Serial Art,” in the firstedition of Horace Newcomb’s edited anthology Television: The CriticalView (1976). The articles contemplating television aesthetics, such asSchroeder’s and Newcomb’s “Toward a Television Aesthetic,” disappearin later editions of this book. As Jonathan Gray and Amanda Lotz note in7/31/2018 The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic (Again) | Antennahttp://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/03/06/the-aesthetic-turn-toward-a-television-aesthetic-again/ 2/6their book Television Studies, “the contents of the volume shiftedconsiderably from journalists to academics over the first few editions”(18). Indeed, Gray and Lotz make a “gentle call” for a “more successfulreintegration of aesthetics and critical analysis” as a “key frontier” for thefuture of television studies (53). This type of work exists, even if it doesnot explicitly call itself that: Julie D’Acci’s Defining Women: Televisionand the Case of Cagney & Lacey, Jeremy Butler’s Television Style, and awhole section of essays in Ethan Thompson and Jason Mittell’s How toWatch Television. But why hasn’t there been a bigger return to thisanalytical area?I think there are a few factors that complicate this issue. For one, in thelast decade there has been a clear shift in the public perception oftelevision from the denigrated also-ran to a medium taken seriously byviewers as a prominent art form, a reputation that films and filmmakershave enjoyed for several decades. Likewise, aesthetics seems more clearlyor naturally articulated in discussion of film than it does with television.Does this speak to a tension in television studies and television scholars,who may want to continue to distance themselves from film studies inregards to carving out its own disciplinary boundaries?From another perspective, David Thorburn writes about this issue, rootingthe problem less in the medium and more in terms of language. In his1987 paper “Television as an Aesthetic Medium” he writes that “theadjective ‘aesthetic’ is problematic, I realize. But I know no other word touse for the qualities I wish to identify in our popular culture andspecifically in our television system” (162). Despite the complicatednature of this term, he notes that he wants to employ it not as “a valuing ofaesthetic objects” but rather for use as “a designation of their chiefdefining feature—their membership in a class of cultural experiencesunderstood to be fictional or imaginary, understood to occur in a symbolic,culturally agreed upon imaginative space” (162).In yet another way perhaps the early writing set the stage for acomplicated relationship between television studies and aesthetics. Somearticles from the 1960s and 1970s focus more on what television in thisera couldn’t do rather than what it could do. Schroeder writes at lengthabout the smallness of television image and television’s inability totransform “televised” arts within its at-the-time technological parameters.Evelina Tarroni’s article “The Aesthetics of Television” spendsconsiderable time debating whether television is “art” or “merely atechnical means of transmission which adds nothing to, and introduces nochange, in the subject matter transmitted” (437). These aestheticcontemplations, while worthy of continued examination, are very muchproducts of their time. Articles like this at their core were defensivearguments that had to first convince readers that television is art, and thattelevision isn’t film. Since this line of thinking is less necessary forcontemporary audiences, there is no longer a need to differentiate betweenthe ideas that were at the center of these early television aestheticdiscussions. These lines have been largely erased, between television7/31/2018 The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic (Again) | Antennahttp://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/03/06/the-aesthetic-turn-toward-a-television-aesthetic-again/ 3/6actors and film actors, or between television texts and film texts.From my perspective, what makes the conversation about aesthetics soproductive, and instructive, is the reconnection of analyses that considerthe form, content, and context of television programs, and relinkingcultural studies and television aesthetics in a multitude of texts: old andnew television programs; cult, popular, or unpopular programs; particularseasons or series as a whole; special episodes; mythology or monster-of-the week episodes; serial or episodic programs; groups of programs onnetworks or cable channels; “online” television, etc. In this regard, writersmight also want to consider the ways in which different modes ofdistribution, reception, availability of texts, and their historical trajectoriesmight inform aesthetic analysis.From my own teaching perspective, I came to these questions andconcerns from reading television studies research from the 1970s, but alsofrom what felt like a classroom problem: why is it so easy for my studentsto talk about the form and content of films I show in class, when they havesuch difficulties connecting form and content in our analysis of televisionprograms? Is it because television programs are devoid of form? Of coursenot, so let’s figure this out together.This is the sixth post in Antenna’s series The Aesthetic Turn, whichexamines questions of cultural studies and media aesthetics. If you missedany of the earlier posts in the series, they can be read here.Tags: aesthetic turn, Aesthetics, teaching, televisionComments are closed.Search & Hit EnterRecent PostsGoodbye to AntennaWhat’s New in Media Industries? ARevised Edition of UnderstandingMedia IndustriesThe New Hegemonic Hierarchy:Tracking (Men’s) Athletic Activity“Real” Transmedia: Cultures andCommunities of Cross-PlatformMedia in ColombiaSerial Goes MissingThe Force Re-Awakens: Star Wars,Repetition, and Nostalgia, Part 2The Force Re-Awakens: Star Wars,Repetition, and Nostalgia, Part 1

The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic (Again)

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The Aesthetic Turn: Toward a Television Aesthetic (Again)

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