Simone Knox

Reading the Ungraspable Double-Codedness of: The Simpsons

Reading the interplay between text, audience, and institutional context, this article critically examines the distinctiveness of The Simpsons. It explores how the animated series uses textual strategies that are interesting to and challenging for both (postmodern) critical theory and processes of interpretation, including existing critical writing on the program.

Masterpiece Theatre and British Drama Imports on US Television: Discourses of Tension:

Having previously written about how US television drama is purchased, broadcast and received by and on British television,1 I was curious to explore trans-Atlantic televisual flows headed ‘the other way’. This essay therefore thinks about the presence and significance of British drama imports on American television, using the long-running PBS series Masterpiece Theatre (1971–present) as a case study. With few exceptions, most notably the valuable work of Laurence Jarvik, Jeffrey S. Miller and Jeanette Steemers,2 the exporting of British programmes to American television has not received enough sustained scholarly examination. As Steemers points out, following the success of British series in the 1950s and 1960s on US network television, especially ITC (Incorporated Television Company) shows such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955–60; CBS tx, 1955–58) or The Prisoner (1967–68; CBS tx, 1968), identifiably British programming has enjoyed success with a limited US television audience.3 In recent years, British export successes have

Eye candy for the blind: re-introducing Lyotard's Acinema into discourses on excess, motion, and spectacle in contemporary Hollywood

Jean-François Lyotards 1973 essay ‘Acinema’ is explicitly concerned with the cinematic medium, but has received scant critical attention. Lyotards acinema conceives of an experimental, excessive form of film-making that uses stillness and movement to shift away from the orderly process of meaning-making within mainstream cinema. What motivates this present paper is a striking link between Lyotards writing and contemporary Hollywood production; both are concerned with a sense of excess, especially within moments of motion. Using Charlies Angels (McG, 2000) as a case study – a film that has been critically dismissed as ‘eye candy for the blind’ – my methodology brings together two different discourses, high culture theory and mainstream film-making, to test out and propose the value of Lyotards ideas for the study of contemporary film. Combining close textual analysis and engagement with key scholarship on film spectacle, I reflexively engage with the process of film analysis and re-direct attention to a neglected essay by a major theorist, in order to stimulate further engagement with his work.

Shameless, the push-pull of transatlantic fiction format adaptation, and star casting

ABSTRACT Fiction format adaptations have scored notable successes in recent years and been attracting increasing scholarly attention. The US version of Shameless has been one of the most conspicuous: based on Paul Abbott’s series (C4 2004–2013), Shameless USA (2011-present) has become a signature series for Showtime. While Shameless USA has attracted a good amount of coverage in critics’ and press discourses, it has, compared to its British progenitor, received scant mention in scholarship. This article provides a detailed examination of Shameless’ transatlantic move, because this offers the opportunity to capture the complex push-pull of textual and contextual factors that impede or facilitate fiction format adaption. The article traces the protracted development process for Shameless USA and considers the ways in which this format adaptation engages with issues concerning the politics of representation, especially in terms of the family and social class. Via a comparative analysis of the presence of actors David Threlfall and William H. Macy in their respective versions, the article furthermore pays attention to star casting. Drawing and building on the notion of ‘contested cultural space’, the article argues that star casting is crucial to, yet has thus far received insufficient attention in scholarship on fiction format adaptations.

Phil Davis: the process of acting

Phil Davis has had a distinguished career, receiving widespread acclaim for his ‘invisible’ acting. This article illuminates Davis’ approach to acting via a transcribed interview conducted at the ‘Acting on Television’ symposium at the University of Reading in 2016. This material is framed by a contextualising introduction that proposes that John Flaus’ concept of lamprotes is useful for understanding Davis’ acting. The interview is structured by four case studies exploring Davis’ work across a range of medium/genre contexts: feature film Vera Drake, docudrama The Curse of Steptoe, drama serial adaptation Bleak House and crime drama Sherlock.

Crossing Broadcasters: The Transatlantic Exchange Between Sylvester ‘Pat’ Weaver and Sir Ian Jacob, 1955–1956

This article is interested in the long-standing exchange visits by broadcasters across the Atlantic, as these give insight into the developing relationships between British and US broadcasting. Informed by original archive research at the Library of Congress, Washington DC and the BBC Written Archives’ Centre, Caversham, the article focuses on the charged rhetorical exchange of then-President of NBC Television, Sylvester ‘Pat’ Weaver (1908–2002) and then-Director General of the BBC, Sir Ian Jacob (1899–1993), in London and New York in 1955–1956. The article identifies this altercation as a foundational moment when the identities of British and US broadcasting became highlighted, performed and negotiated. Jacob and Weaver’s transatlantic exchange illuminates the move from wartime cooperation to post-war global competition between the two broadcasting systems and helps to uncover the thus far marginalised history of the US pressure and influence on the arrival of commercial broadcasting in Britain. The historiographical analysis further demonstrates that Ian Jacob deserves more scholarly attention and recognition than he has received so far.