Television in black-and-white America

Description:

"Alan Nadel's new book reminds us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences. Television did not invent whiteness for America, but it did reinforce it as the norm - particularly during the Cold War years. Nadel now shows just how instrumental it was in constructing a narrow, conservative, and very white vision of America." "During this era, prime-time TV was dominated by "adult Westerns," with heroes like The Rebel's Johnny Yuma reincarnating Southern values and Bonanza's Cartwright family reinforcing the notion of white patriarchy - programs that, Nadel shows, bristled with Cold War messages even as they spoke to the nation's mythology. America had become visually reconfigured as a vast Ponderosa, crisscrossed by concrete highways designed to carry suburban white drivers beyond the moral challenge of racism, racial poverty, and increasingly vocal civil rights demands."--Jacket.

subjects: American National characteristics,  Blacks on television,  History,  National characteristics, American,  Race relations,  Social aspects,  Social aspects of Television broadcasting,  Television broadcasting,  Whites on television,  African americans in television broadcasting,  Television broadcasting, social aspects,  Television broadcasting, united states,  United states, race relations,  United states, history, 20th century,  Black people on television,  White people on television

Places: United States

Times: 20th century