front cover of Beyond the Black and White TV
Beyond the Black and White TV
Asian and Latin American Spectacle in Cold War America
Benjamin M. Han
Rutgers University Press, 2020
This is the first book that examines how “ethnic spectacle” in the form of Asian and Latin American bodies played a significant role in the cultural Cold War at three historic junctures: the Korean War in 1950, the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the statehood of Hawaii in 1959. As a means to strengthen U.S. internationalism and in an effort to combat the growing influence of communism, television variety shows, such as The Xavier Cugat ShowThe Ed Sullivan Show, and The Chevy Show, were envisioned as early forms of global television. Beyond the Black and White TV examines the intimate moments of cultural interactions between the white hosts and the ethnic guests to illustrate U.S. aspirations for global power through the medium of television. These depictions of racial harmony aimed to shape a new perception of the United States as an exemplary nation of democracy, equality, and globalism.
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front cover of Monitored Peril
Monitored Peril
Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation
Darrell Y. Hamamoto
University of Minnesota Press, 1994
The first major study of Asian American representation on U.S. television. Early in the movement of Asian labor to the United States, immigrants from the Far East were viewed by the dominant Euro-American society as a peril to a white, Christian nation. How far have we come since then? This first comprehensive study of Asian American representation on network television supplies some unsettling answers. A meticulous work of history, cultural criticism, and political analysis, Monitored Peril illuminates the unstable relationship between the discursive practices of commercial television programs, liberal democratic values, and white supremacist ideology. The book clearly demonstrates the pervasiveness of racialized discourse throughout U.S. society, especially as it is reproduced by network television. In treating his topic, Darrell Hamamoto addresses a wide variety of issues facing diverse Asian American communities: interracial conflict, conservative politics, U.S.-Japan trade friction, and postcolonial Vietnam. Through an examination of selected programs from the 1950s to the present, he attempts to correct the consistently distorted optic of network television. Finally, he calls for an engaged independent Asian American media practice, and for the expansion of public sector television. "Darrell Y. Hamamoto's critical and scholarly examination of Asians in television media serves as a stimulating and timely discourse on the state of Asian America within the strict boundaries known as American network television. Hamamoto presents a sophisticated solution to the problem of cultural misappropriation and false representation of Americans of Asian descent." --Pacific Reader "Darrell Y. Hamamoto makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of race, representation, and power with this comprehensive study of television programs about Asians and Asian Americans in the United States." --Journal of Asian American Studies Selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Darrell Y. Hamamoto is a lecturer in the program of comparative culture at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Nervous Laughter: Television Situation Comedy and Liberal Democratic Ideology (1991).
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