Bringing together seventeen original essays by scholars from around the world, Screwball Television offers a variety of international perspectives on Gilmore Girls (WB/CW, 2000-2007). Adored by fans and celebrated by critics for its sophisticated wordplay and compelling portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship, this contemporary American TV program finally gets its due as a cultural production unlike any other - one that is beholden to Hollywood's screwball comedies of the 1930s, sleeped in intertextual references, and framed as a 'kinder, gentler kind of cult television series' in this lightly focused yet wide-ranging collection. This volume makes a significant contribution to television studies, genre studies, and women's studies, taking Gilmore Girls as its focus while adopting a panoramic critical approach sensitive to such topics as serialized fiction, elite education; addiction as a social construct; food consumption and the disciplining of bodies; post-feminism and female desire: depictions of journalism in popular culture; the changing face of masculinity in contemporary U.S. society; liturgical and ritualistic structures in televisual narrative; Orientalism and Asian representations on American TV: Internet fan discourses; and new genre theories attuned to the landscape of twenty-first-century media convergence. Screwball Television seeks to bring Gilmore Girls more fully into academic discourse not only as a topic worthy of critical scrutiny but also as an infinitely rewarding text capable of stimulating the imagination of students beyond the classroom.

About the Author
David Scott Diffrient is assistant professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University. His articles have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals, including Journal of Popular Film and Television, Cinema journal, Critical Studies in Television and the Journal of Film and Video. He is the author of M*A*S*H David Lavery is professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of seventeen books, including Lost's Buried Treasures. Reading Deadwood, and Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files (published by Syracuse University Press).

Reviews
The continuing fascination with Gilmore Girls . . . suggest just how much there is to the show, and the essays in this collection mine much of this territory quite well.



Book Information
ISBN 9780815632399
Author David Scott Diffrient
Format Hardback
Page Count 424
Imprint Syracuse University Press
Publisher Syracuse University Press
Weight(grams) 737g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 159mm * 38mm