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Promotional flyer for Zorita’s 1949 film, I Married a Savage, ca. 1949. In addition to her attire and the fact that she’s featured alongside her signature snake and her “Jungle Queens,” the film’s plot was anchored in deeply racialized, “exotic” tropes that were made more palatable to general audiences through the prism of her whiteness, femininity, and sexuality. Courtesy of the Tawny Petillo Collection.

Zorita in Miami

A queer Southern history.
by Julio Capó Jr. via Southern Cultures on April 8, 2025
Dell O'Dell performing a magic act for live tv with children watching.

Dell O'Dell's Trailblazing Magic Show Cast a Spell on Early Television Audiences

Rare footage of the woman magician's act captures her magnetic stage presence and range of tricks.
by Vanessa Armstrong via Smithsonian on October 24, 2023
People outside the entrance to Luna Park on Coney Island, New York, 1890.

Luna Park and the Amusement Park Boom

The fortunes of Coney Island have waxed and waned, but in the early twentieth century, its amusement parks became a major American export.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on March 29, 2023
Collage of a radio and Rush Limbaugh's mouth.

How Rush Limbaugh Broke the Old Media — and Built the New One

Whether you like Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert, Joe Rogan, or Sean Hannity, you're engaging the media world created by the late radio host.
by Brian Rosenwald via The Week on February 20, 2021
Drawing of people sitting and standing on crossword boxes while attempting to solve the puzzle

How the Crossword Became an American Pastime

The newspaper standby still rivets our attention a century later.
by Deb Amlen via Smithsonian on December 30, 2019
People on a rollercoaster

Are We Having Too Much Fun?

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.
by Megan Garber via The Atlantic on April 27, 2017

The Circus Spectacular That Spawned American Giantism

How the “Greatest Show on Earth” enthralled small-town crowds and inspired shopping malls
by Janet M. Davis via What It Means to Be American on March 17, 2017
Neil Postman in front of a collage of the cover of "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

The One Book That Explains Our Current Era Was Written 40 Years Ago

NYT pundits and NBA writers alike can't stop recommending this four-decade-old book.
by Laura J. Miller via Slate on March 25, 2025
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
by Carol Stabile via PBS on February 28, 2025
A drawing of a person staring at two different smartphones, with robotic arms holding their head in place.

What If the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?

From the pianoforte to the smartphone, each wave of tech has sparked fears of brain rot. But the problem isn’t our ability to focus—it’s what we’re focusing on.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on January 20, 2025
Trad wife dresses in six different colors.

My Babies Are Richer Than Yours: On the Lie of the Online Tradwife

A new theory of the leisure class influencer.
by Lauren Carroll Harris via Literary Hub on January 10, 2025
A painting of a large camera on a film set, surrounded by green screens.

Casual Viewing

Why Netflix looks like that.
by Will Tavlin via n+1 on December 16, 2024
Gaineswood Plantation mansion.

Plantation Tourism Continues to Raise Questions

One plantation tourist manager said covering slavery would be like “trying to tell the story at Disneyland of how poorly the employees at Disney are treated.”
by Sara Rimer, Daniel R. Biddle via Equal Justice Initiative on December 6, 2024
Richard Pryor.

Understanding Richard Pryor's Use of the N-Word

Pryor's use of the word represented something valiant.
by Mark Anthony Neal via NewBlackMan (in Exile) on December 1, 2024

How Entertainment Mangled Public Discourse

Neil Postman’s jeremiad against TV seems rather quaint today—and not just because he was shouting into the wind and knew it.
by Katha Pollitt via The New Republic on November 20, 2024
Johnny Carson hosting the Tonight Show.

The Amazing, Disappearing Johnny Carson

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.
by Isaac Butler via The New Yorker on November 6, 2024
Screen shot from Carrie in which a bloody hand grabs a girl.

The Startling History of the Jump Scare

From 1942's "Cat People" to cerebral jolts in "Hereditary" and "Get Out," this cinematic scare tactic still shocks.
by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw via Atlas Obscura on October 28, 2024

Call of Duty: Pentagon Ops

Inside the weird synergies that launched the videogaming industry—and made the Pentagon fantasies in Call of Duty its stock in trade.
by Jesse Robertson via The Nation on October 24, 2024
Photograph of Drag stars: Lady Bunny, Misstress Formika, Sweetie, Anna Conda, Tabboo!

A Nearly Complete Oral History of the Pyramid Club

The Pyramid Club is the stuff of downtown New York legend. In the 1980s, a tiny little dive bar became ground zero for the exploding New York drag scene.
by Michael Musto, Mickey Boardman, Sister Dimension, Linda Simpson, John Kelly, Scott Lifshutz, Steve Buscemi, Lypsinka, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Billy Beyond via Paper on October 24, 2024
Taylor Swift's Instagram post endorsing Kamala Harris. Swift is holding a cat and facing the camera, dressed in black.

Taylor Swift and the History of the Celebrity Endorsement

Do pop culture interventions in presidential elections make a difference?
by Addie Mahmassani via New Lines on October 23, 2024
Soldiers in combat gear stand by an advertisement for "America's Army," a military strategy game from 2002.

Video Games Are a Key Battleground in the Propaganda War

When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games.
by Marijam Did via Jacobin on October 13, 2024
Illustration of man throwing football to sports broadcaster.

Before and After the Contest: Wraparound Sportscasting Through the Ages

National Football League pre- and postgame shows have become a testing ground for novel technology in the waning days of linear television.
by Chloe Lizotte via Mubi on August 1, 2024
Gold Dust on the Air: Television Anthology Drama and Midcentury American Culture by Molly A. Schneider. University of Texas Press. 238 pages.

The Myth America Show

The anthology drama provided a venue for discourses on American national identity during the massive cultural, economic, and political changes occurring at midcentury.
by Josie Torres Barth via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 13, 2024
Stylized illustration of a jazz trio.

The Barrier-Breaking Ozark Club of Great Falls, Montana

The Black-owned club became a Great Falls hotspot, welcoming all to a music-filled social venue for almost thirty years.
by Ashawnta Jackson, Ken Robison via JSTOR Daily on July 10, 2024
Richard Dreyfuss plays shark expert Hooper in Steven Spielberg’s classic 1975 film, “Jaws.”

The Stories Hollywood Tells About America

How three movies set on the Fourth of July reproduce popular myth, but reveal even more through what they leave unsaid.
by Emily Tamkin via New Lines on July 4, 2024
Cover of "Cue The Sun!" featuring videographers filming people lounging in backyard.

Time to Face Reality

Charting the history of a TV phenomenon.
by A. S. Hamrah via Bookforum on July 2, 2024
An FTA button with a drawing of a raised fist holding dogtags.
partner

Not Bob Hope’s Idea of Troop Entertainment

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland provide an outlet for antiwar soldiers.
by Lindsay Goss via HNN on June 25, 2024
A collage of photographs of the cast and crew of "The Real World" over the show's logo.

How “The Real World” Created Modern Reality TV

The rules governing everything from “Big Brother” to “The Real Housewives” started three decades ago, with a radical experiment on MTV.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on June 15, 2024
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
partner

Walt Disney Presents Manifest Destiny

On the St. Louis theme park that never made it past the drawing board.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on April 30, 2024
Book cover of "Cold War Country" by Joseph M. Thompson.

Big Government Country

Connie B. Gay and the roots of country music militarization.
by Brock Schnoke via UNC Press Blog on April 11, 2024
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