PopMatters Seeks Television Critics and Essayists
We are interested in articles about quality television shows. These TV series challenge prejudices and subvert assumptions, and are as artful in their depiction as the best cinema.
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Counterbalance/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Music/Pop Past/SAVE/ IGNORE: popular/Sound Affects
Counterbalance 25: Television – ‘Marquee Moon’
Television’s 1977 masterpiece Marquee Moon is the 25th Greatest Album of All Time, but is it too “too too” to put a finger on? Counterbalance sees it all backward.
Eurovision 2020: Staging Political Identity
Eurovision contestants subvert the events' apolitical ethos simply with their identity, which is then subverted by performer and audience subjectivity. So who, ultimately, wins?
‘Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media’ Is a Roadmap to a Peculiar, Disturbing Terrain
Tim Brooks' detailed research tells us how blackface didn't die, but found ways to multiply as the entertainment industry grew.
The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums Ever: Part 5, Joy Division to Gang of Four
This week we are celebrating the best post-punk albums of all-time and today we conclude with part five featuring Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads and more.
From the Enterprise to the Discovery: The Decline and Fall of Utopian Technology and the Liberal Dream
Sci-fi TV such as Star Trek and Doctor Who have more in common with Harry Potter’s wand-waving than Gene Roddenberry’s techno-utopian dream.
Be Kind. Please Rewind: An Ode to the VCR
Like Netflix, the VCR diluted and transformed the film itself.
Culture/Economics/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/History/Politics/SAVE/ IGNORE: popular/Sports/Technology/Television
Sense and Sensibility at the World Cup
I've sworn, after learning about the latest kleptocrat billionaire to buy a club, or scrambling from the clash between hooligans and riot police, or hearing a homophobic chant rise up from the stands, I would give up on the game. Anyone with sense would.
‘Black Mirror’ Season 5 Should Be Its Last
It makes perfect sense that 2019 — the last year of the decade — should also be the last year for one of the 2010s' best shows. To continue would be a disservice to viewers.
Never Ending Endings in ‘The Avengers: Endgame’ and ‘Game of Thrones’
In both The Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones, the key conflicts are not between good and evil, as one might think, but between the beginnings and endings of their stories.
Quinlan Miller’s ‘Camp TV’ Could Use Some Levity
Under the aegis of fluidity, Quinlan Miller advances a trans-conscious viewpoint in Camp TV that happily takes a pick-ax to more basic gender studies approaches to pop media.