Action TV: Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks

by Gough-Yates; Anna

• ISBN13: 9780415226219
• ISBN10: 041522621X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-12-14
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

From re-runs of "classics" likeThe AvengersorStarsky and Hutch,to current series influenced by the genre likeBuffy the Vampire Slayer,the action series is enjoying a revival at the center of prime-time tv. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the specific history, nature and appeal of the action series, and its place in popular culture, past and present. Action TVexplores the historical development of this tv genre from its genesis in the 1950s, its place within the history of television institutions and systems of production, its relationship to other genres, and its position within broader social, cultural and political contexts.

Table of Contents

List of figures	vii
List of contributros	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction: Getting into gear with the action TV series	1	(10)
Bill Osgerby
Anna Gough-Yates
PART I Situating the action TV series	11	(70)
The business of action: television history and the development of the action TV series	13	(19)
Bill Osgerby
Anna Gough-Yates
Marianne Wells
`So you're the famous Simon Templar': The Saint, masculinity and consumption in the early 1960s	32	(21)
Bill Osgerby
`Who loves ya, baby?': Kojak, action and the great society	53	(16)
Paul Cobley
`A lone crusader in the dangerous world': heroics of science and technology in Knight Rider	69	(12)
Nickianne Moody
PART II Representation and cultural politics in the action TV series	81	(62)
Angels in chains? Feminism, femininity and consumer culture in Charlie's Angels	83	(17)
Anna Gough-Yates
`Who's the cat that won't cop out?': Black masculinity in American action series of the sixties and seventies	100	(15)
Elaine Pennicott
Kung Fu: re-orienting the television Western	115	(12)
Yvonne Tasker
`Drop everything...including your pants!': The Professionals and `hard' action TV	127	(16)
Leon Hunt
PART III Audiences reading and re-reading the action TV series	143	(46)
The games we play(ed): TV Westerns, memory and masculinity	145	(14)
Martin Pumphrey
The Persuaders! A girl's best friends	159	(10)
Joke Hermes
King and queen: interpreting sexual identity in Jason King	169	(20)
Andy Medhurst
PART IV The cultural circulation of the action TV series	189
TV gets jazzed: the evolution of action TV theme music	191
Elizabeth Withey
The comics connection: low culture meets even lower culture	205
Roger Sabin
Of leather suits and kinky boots: The Avengers, style and popular culture	221
Marc O'Day
The sixties in the nineties: pastiche or hyperconsciousness?	236
John Story
Index