Action TV: Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks

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Overview
Product Details
Table of Contents

Overview

From re-runs of 'TV classics' like The Avengers or Starsky and Hutch, to soundtracks, club nights and film remakes such as Mission Impossible II, the action series is enjoying a popular revival. Yet little attention has been paid to the history, nature and enduring appeal of the action series, and its place in popular culture, past and present.
Action TV traces the development of the action series from its genesis in the 1950s. From The Saint to Knigh t Rider, contributors explore the key shows which defined the genre, addressing issues of audiences and consumption, gender and sexuality, fashion and popular culture. They examine the institutional and cultural factors influencing the action series, and relate shifts in the genre to other forms of popular culture including film, pop music, fashion and popular literature.
Chapters include:
* Of leather suits and kinky boots: The Avengers, style and popular culture
* 'Who loves ya, baby?': Kojak, action and the great society
*'A lone crusader in a dangerous world': heroics of science and technology in Knight Rider
* Angels in chains? feminism, femininity and consumer culture in Charlie's Angels
* 'Who's the cat that won't cop out?' Black masculinity in American action shows of the sixties and seventies

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780415226202
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 12/14/2001
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.75 (d)

	List of figures
	List of contributors
	Acknowledgements
	Introduction: Getting into gear with the action TV series	1
Pt. I	Situating the action TV series	11
1	The business of action: television history and the development of the action TV series	13
2	'So you're the famous Simon Templar': The Saint, masculinity and consumption in the early 1960s	32
3	'Who loves ya, baby?': Kojak, action and the great society	53
4	'A lone crusader in the dangerous world': heroics of science and technology in Knight Rider	69
Pt. II	Representation and cultural politics in the action TV series	81
5	Angels in chains? Feminism, femininity and consumer culture in Charlie's Angels	83
6	'Who's the cat that won't cop out?': Black masculinity in American action series of the sixties and seventies	100
7	Kung Fu: re-orienting the television Western	115
8	'Drop everything ... including your pants!': The Professionals and 'hard' action TV	127
Pt. III	Audiences reading and re-reading the action TV series	143
9	The games we play(ed): TV Westerns, memory and masculinity	145
10	The Persuaders! A girl's best friends	159
11	King and queen: interpreting sexual identity in Jason King	169
Pt. IV	The cultural circulation of the action TV series	189
12	TV gets jazzed: the evolution of action TV theme music	191
13	The comics connections: low culture meets even lower culture	205
14	Of leather suits and kinky boots: The Avengers, style and popular culture	221
15	The sixties in the nineties: pastiche or hyperconsciousness?	236
	Index

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