Wallowing in Sex

by Levine, Elana

• ISBN13: 9780822339021
• ISBN10: 0822339021
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-28
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Passengers disco dancing in The Love Boat's Acapulco Lounge. A young girl walking by a marquee advertising Deep Throat in the made-for-TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. A frustrated housewife borrowing Orgasm and You from her local library in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Commercial television of the 1970s was awash with references to sex. In the wake of the sexual revolution and the women's liberation and gay rights movements, significant changes were rippling through American culture. In representing-or not representing-those changes, broadcast television provided a crucial forum through which Americans alternately accepted and contested momentous shifts in sexual mores, identities, and practices. Wallowing in Sex is a lively analysis of the key role of commercial television in the new sexual culture of the 1970s. Elana Levine explores sex-themed made-for-TV movies; female sex symbols such as the stars of Charlie's Angels and Wonder Woman; the innuendo-driven humour of variety shows (The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Laugh-In), sitcoms (M*A*S*H, Three's Company), and game shows (Match Game); and the proliferation of rape plots in daytime soap operas. She also uncovers those sexual topics that were barred from the airwaves. Along with program content, Levine examines the economic motivations of the television industry, the television production process, regulation by the government and the television industry, and audience responses. She demonstrates that the new sexual culture of 1970s television was a product of negotiation between producers, executives, advertisers, censors, audiences, performers, activists, and many others. Ultimately, 1970s television legitimized some of the sexual revolution's most significant gains while minimizing its more radical impulses.

Author Biography

Elana Levine is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introdution

Kiddie Porn Versus Adult Porn

Inter-Network Competition

Not In My Living Room

TV Sex That Wasn't

The Sex Threat

Regulating and Representing Sexually Endangered Youth

Symbols Of Sex

Television's Women and Sexual Difference

Sex With A Laugh Track

Sexuality and Television Humor

From Romance To Rape

Sex, Violence, and Soap Operas

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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