Citizen Spy : Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture

by Kackman, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780816638291
• ISBN10: 0816638292
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Minnesota Pr

Summary

InCitizen Spy, Michael Kackman investigates how media depictions of the slick, smart, and resolute spy have been embedded in the American imagination. Looking at secret agents on television and the relationships among networks, producers, government bureaus, and the viewing public in the 1950s and 1960s, Kackman explores how Americans see themselves in times of political and cultural crisis. During the first decade of the Cold War, Hollywood developed such shows asI Led 3 LivesandBehind Closed Doorswith the approval of federal intelligence agencies, even basing episodes on actual case files. These "documentary melodramas" were, Kackman argues, vehicles for the fledgling television industry to proclaim its loyalty to the government, and they came stocked with appeals to patriotism and anti-Communist vigilance. As the rigid cultural logic of the Red Scare began to collapse, spy shows became more playful, self-referential, and even critical of the ideals professed in their own scripts. From parodies such asThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.andGet Smartto the more complicated global and political situations ofI SpyandMission: Impossible,Kackman situates espionage television within the tumultuous culture of the civil rights and women's movements and the war in Vietnam. Yet, even as spy shows introduced African-American and female characters, they continued to reinforce racial and sexual stereotypes. Bringing these concerns to the political and cultural landscape of the twenty-first century, Kackman asserts that the roles of race and gender in national identity have become acutely contentious. Increasingly exclusive definitions of legitimate citizenship, heroism, and dissent have been evident through popular accounts of the Iraq war. Moving beyond a snapshot of television history,Citizen Spyprovides a contemporary lens to analyze the natureand implicationsof American nationalism in practice. Michael Kackman is assistant professor in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, Austin.

Author Biography

Michael Kackman is assistant professor in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, Austin

Table of Contents

Preface: Doing Television History	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction: The Agent and the Nation	xvii
Documentary Melodrama: Homegrown Spies and the Red Scare	1	(25)
I Led 3 Lives and the Agent of History	26	(23)
The Irrelevant Expert and the Incredible Shrinking Spy	49	(24)
Parody and the Limits of Agency	73	(40)
I Spy a Colorblind Nation: African Americans and the Citizen-Subject	113	(31)
Agents or Technocrats: Mission: Impossible and the International Other	144	(32)
Conclusion: Spies Are Back	176	(15)
Notes	191	(30)
Index	221