tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/the-new-yorker-11907/articlesThe New Yorker – The Conversation2024-01-03T20:27:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2187922024-01-03T20:27:17Z2024-01-03T20:27:17Z15 literary podcasts to make you laugh, learn and join conversations about books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563571/original/file-20231205-29-cmuvtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C6679%2C4466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karolina Grabowska/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his “memoir of the craft”, <a href="https://stephenking.com/works/nonfiction/on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft.html">On Writing</a>, Stephen King lauds books as “a uniquely portable magic”. Among the world’s estimated <a href="https://www.demandsage.com/podcast-statistics/#:%7E:text=There%20are%20464.7%20million%20podcast,70%20million%20episodes%20between%20them.">5 million podcasts</a>, those devoted to books and reading are so plentiful that I’m tempted to call them the next best thing.</p>
<p>Literary podcasts offer comfort and convenience. Most are free. They’re available across multiple platforms. And while you could curl up in bed and simply listen (as I often do), they’re designed to be experienced while you’re doing something else – whether that’s enduring a long commute, sweating it out at the gym or tidying the house.</p>
<p>But the soaring popularity of podcasts like <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-penguin-podcast/id89411073?mt=2">The Penguin Podcast</a> and <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-penguin-podcast/id89411073?mt=2">NPR’s Book of the Day</a> reveals something more.</p>
<p>As writer <a href="https://themillions.com/2017/01/an-elaborate-extension-of-social-media-the-changing-role-of-podcasts-in-book-criticism.html">Tom McCallister</a> points out, while traditional reviews may be in decline, literary podcasts are not just “filling the void”. They’re “fracturing and reshaping” the “world of book discussion”.</p>
<p>Like community reviews and the more recent surge of #BookTok and #Bookstagram content on social media, literary podcasts feed the rich social networks that form around books. They transform what’s often a solitary activity – reading – into a widely (but intimately) shared experience.</p>
<p>Author interviews and various forms of criticism (from comprehensive reviews to casual banter) are mainstays of the format. But literary podcasts invite audiences to engage with books and writing in all kinds of ways.</p>
<p>Some are topical or focus on particular genres, as varied as <a href="https://evergreenpodcasts.com/novel-conversations">literary classics</a> and <a href="https://www.celebritymemoirbookclub.biz/">celebrity memoirs</a>. Others are avenues for authors to read work aloud, or for industry professionals, like editors and agents, to share insider knowledge.</p>
<p>They connect readers to media outlets and literary journals. They help us discover new titles and authors in a saturated publishing market. And they can be a valuable platform for emerging authors, providing exposure and amplifying diverse voices.</p>
<p>Here’s a taste of what’s out there – including my favourites.</p>
<h2>1. The Garret</h2>
<p>If books are divisive, literary podcasts are too. What’s enjoyable for one listener might not work for another.</p>
<p>My own listening habits are driven largely by curiosity rather than loyalty: I listen to episodes haphazardly, when a particular guest, topic or title tempts me, dropping down the rabbit hole of whichever book I happen to be reading.</p>
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<p>That said, I return most often to <a href="https://thegarretpodcast.com/">The Garret</a>, an Australian podcast for “lovers of books and storytelling”. The Garret’s host – self-confessed bibliophile <a href="https://astridedwards.com/">Astrid Edwards</a>, who was among the judges of this year’s Stella Prize – releases new episodes almost every week. She interviews authors about craft, criticism and some of the stories behind the stories that have found their way to publication. </p>
<p>For something a little different, <a href="https://thegarretpodcast.com/melanie-ostell-what-it-takes-literary-agent/">Melanie Ostell’s episode</a> about what it takes to be a literary agent is one of my favourites.</p>
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<h2>2. Secrets from the Green Room</h2>
<p>Australians are <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-tops-the-world-for-podcast-listening-why-do-we-love-them-so-much-208937">some of the world’s most enthusiastic podcast listeners</a>, so it’s little surprise we produce some of the best bookish podcasts around. </p>
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<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/secrets-from-the-green-room/id1540540062">Secrets from the Green Room</a> is dedicated to author stories you “won’t hear anywhere else”.</p>
<p>Irma Gold and Karen Viggers publish new episodes every few weeks. They invite guests to candidly share their own experiences navigating the world of publication, landing on topics as varied as <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/season-3-episode-33-aaron-faaoso-and-michelle-scott-tucker/id1540540062?i=1000620837968">ghostwriting</a>, the “creep” of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/season-1-episode-11-nikki-gemmell/id1540540062?i=1000530249152">imposter syndrome</a>, and the challenges of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/season-2-episode-20-tony-birch/id1540540062?i=1000559531261">teaching writing at university</a>.</p>
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<h2>3. Read This</h2>
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<p><a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/">The Monthly</a>’s weekly offering, <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/readthis">Read This</a>, features interviews with prominent writers from Australia and around the world. </p>
<p>Its first episode took host Michael Williams (editor of The Monthly) to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/we-went-to-helen-garners-house/id1691035626?i=1000619338709">Helen Garner’s house</a> for “conversation and cake”. Later guests have included <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/rebecca-makkai-is-on-the-case/id1691035626?i=1000634146214">Rebecca Makkai</a> and <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-three-words-that-made-george-saunders-a-writer/id1691035626?i=1000629407186">George Saunders</a>.</p>
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<h2>4. Beyond the Zero</h2>
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<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/beyond-the-zero/id1578980767">Beyond the Zero</a> also spotlights new titles through extended conversations with both local and international authors. Each episode is a deep dive into the books and writers that have influenced the guest, so far ranging from <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/paul-lynch-prophet-song/id1578980767?i=1000629306788">Booker winner Paul Lynch</a> to Australian literary authors like <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/emmett-stinson-murnane/id1578980767?i=1000630670189">Emmett Stinson on Gerald Murnane</a>. </p>
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<h2>5. The First Time</h2>
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<p>On <a href="https://thefirsttimepodcast.com/">The First Time</a> podcast, novelists Katherine Colette and Kate Mildenhall take readers behind the scenes, into the “logistics and feels of writing and publishing a book”. </p>
<p>They regularly feature debut authors, as part of their (paid) Featured Book series. There’s also a Masters series, with veteran writers like Richard Flanagan, and episodes that deal with “awkward” conversations, including <a href="https://thefirsttimepodcast.com/2023/06/05/awkward-convo-endorsements-plus-featured-book-search-history-by-amy-taylor/">how book endorsements work</a>.</p>
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<h2>6 & 7. ABC RN: The Bookshelf and The Book Show</h2>
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<p>ABC Radio National has two main literary podcasts. On <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-bookshelf">The Bookshelf</a>, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh review newly published fiction, alongside guest reviewers, in hour-long episodes broadcast every Friday. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-book-show">The Book Show</a>, hosted by Claire Nichols, also curates new fiction. Each episode brings together two or more guests whose work shares compelling themes or intersects in otherwise surprising ways. </p>
<p>This year, The Book Show also ran a fascinating four-part series on literary fakes and frauds, starting with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-book-show/alexis-wright-the-dogs-john-hughes-fakes-and-frauds/102184350">the John Hughes scandal</a>.</p>
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<h2>8 & 9. The New Yorker: Fiction and Poetry podcasts</h2>
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<p>The New Yorker’s <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-new-yorker-fiction/id256945396">Fiction</a> podcast has stood the test of time. Each month, the magazine’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, invites some of the world’s most celebrated authors to read aloud from another author’s work. </p>
<p>In November, for example, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/margaret-atwood-reads-mavis-gallant-live/id256945396?i=1000633337503">Margaret Atwood</a> read and discussed Mavis Gallant’s story Varieties of Exile, live at Toronto’s Hot Docs podcast festival. (In 2019, Atwood chose <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/margaret-atwood-reads-alice-munro/id256945396?i=1000445909088">Alice Munro</a>.) </p>
<p>The archives go all the way back to 2007. (And if you’re a fan of the read-aloud format, you might also enjoy The New Yorker’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/poetry">Poetry</a> podcast.)</p>
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<h2>10. Backlisted</h2>
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<p>Presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller, <a href="https://www.backlisted.fm/">Backlisted</a> solicits a writerly guest to choose a book they love and wax lyrical about why it deserves a wider audience (like <a href="https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/170-elizabeth-gaskell-north-and-south">Jennifer Egan and Nell Stevens</a> on Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South). </p>
<p>Recently celebrating its 200th episode, Backlisted prides itself on “giving new life to old books” – a refreshing alternative to literary podcasts that focus almost exclusively on recent releases.</p>
<hr>
<h2>11. Overdue</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563588/original/file-20231205-29-wz2wmf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p><a href="https://overduepodcast.com/">Overdue</a>, a podcast “about the books you’ve been meaning to read”, is also sure to add some dog-eared classics to your to-be-read pile. It’s not all classics, though – the hosts’ “overdue” reading list includes Jenny Offill’s 2014 novel, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-603-dept-of-speculation-by-jenny-offill/id602003021?i=1000623665450">The Department of Speculation</a>, and Gabrielle Zevin’s 2022 gaming novel, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-622-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-by/id602003021?i=1000637415752">Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow</a>, as well as stone-cold classics like <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-605-madame-bovary-by-gustave-flaubert/id602003021?i=1000625117362">Madame Bovary</a>.</p>
<p>Try the episode about <a href="https://overduepodcast.com/episodes/2023/11/13/ep-619-the-stranger-by-albert-camus">Camus’s The Stranger</a> if – like me – you only pretended to read it in high school.</p>
<hr>
<h2>12. Book Riot</h2>
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<p>For listeners interested in industry trends, the <a href="https://bookriot.com/listen/shows/thepodcast/">Book Riot</a> podcast publishes weekly episodes that revolve loosely around “what’s new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading”. </p>
<p>Jeff and Rebecca, who also edit <a href="https://bookriot.com/">the Book Riot website</a>, serve up a gratifying mix of book-related commentary and news, including reading recommendations, awards chatter and emerging or evolving issues (think <a href="https://bookriot.com/listen/a-new-thing-under-the-sun/">book bans</a> and <a href="https://bookriot.com/listen/the-internets-disappointed-mom/">generative AI</a>).</p>
<hr>
<h2>13. If Books Could Kill</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563585/original/file-20231205-25-666h5w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-books-could-kill/id1651876897">If Books Could Kill</a> offers a diverting but incisive take on “the airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds”. As a scholar of <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-self-help-books-help-with-depression-i-spoke-to-readers-to-find-out-211043">self-help books</a>, I was primed to regard this podcast with deep suspicion, but the episodes are well researched and thoroughly entertaining. </p>
<p>Start with <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rules/id1651876897?i=1000618727942">The Rules</a> and <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-5-love-languages/id1651876897?i=1000609782068">The 5 Love Languages</a> to laugh out loud as you learn about some of the most pervasive but questionable relationship advice to surface in the 20th century.</p>
<hr>
<h2>14. & 15. Reading Glasses and Marlon and Jake Read Dead People</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563589/original/file-20231205-21-u5mf2p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Finally, I’d like to mention two new-to-me podcasts. <a href="https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/reading-glasses/">Reading Glasses</a> is a podcast about “reading better” that includes an episode on <a href="https://maximumfun.org/episodes/reading-glasses/ep-332-become-liam-neeson-getting-borrowed-books-back/">how to get borrowed books back</a>. And in <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/marlon-and-jake-read-dead-people/id1492163935">Marlon and Jake Read Dead People</a>, Man Booker Prize winning author Marlon James and his editor, Jake Morrissey, share big opinions on all things books, authors and writing – like our evergreen quandaries around reading <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/good-books-by-terrible-people/id1492163935?i=1000528124750">good books by terrible people</a> or <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/judging-a-book/id1492163935?i=1000605171360">judging a book by its cover</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Gwynne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Literary podcasts offer comfort, convenience and the ultimate distraction. Here’s a taste – including author interviews, deep dives into classic novels and critiques of self-help blockbusters.Amber Gwynne, Sessional Lecturer in Writing, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037362023-04-18T12:45:04Z2023-04-18T12:45:04ZDonald Trump and the dying art of the courtroom sketch<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521346/original/file-20230417-14-llf0n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C3%2C1183%2C710&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump appears in court in New York City, in a courtroom sketch by Jane Rosenberg.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6fa532e81c5de5a4afe9a2a30a38e58312e1a1d3/0_0_3024_1814/master/3024.jpg?width=1200&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=4f81991d2b7e63b853af67c410069ade">Jane Rosenberg/Reuters</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time in its history, The New Yorker featured a courtroom sketch <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2023-04-17">on its cover</a>. </p>
<p>The image, which appears on its April 17, 2023, issue, gives viewers a glimpse of a historic court proceeding that could not be captured by cameras: the arraignment hearing of Donald Trump two weeks earlier. </p>
<p>Because Trump is the first former U.S. president to be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168256845/donald-trump-becomes-the-first-president-charged-with-criminal-activity">criminally indicted</a>, there is immense public interest in this case. However, when Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, his reactions and expressions could be visually recorded only by three approved courtroom artists.</p>
<p>In a way, it was a throwback to an era when only artists could provide the public with visual records of court proceedings. Yet with more and more jurisdictions allowing cameras into courtrooms, courtroom artists now find themselves working in a <a href="https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/exclusive-interview-with-the-courtroom-sketch-artist-from-the-cosby-trial">dying field</a>.</p>
<p>Having studied both <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315611693/synesthetic-legalities-sarah-marusek">courtroom sketches</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-019-09676-7">tabloid crime photography</a>, I sometimes wonder what might be lost if courtroom art were to become extinct.</p>
<h2>The history of courtroom sketches</h2>
<p>Despite their dwindling numbers, courtroom artists are still able to pursue their craft because many judges continue to forbid photography in their courtrooms.</p>
<p>Yet a national standard for banning cameras in U.S. courtrooms is less than 100 years old.</p>
<p>When news photography flourished after World War I, courtroom photographs became a staple of tabloids such as the New York Daily News. These newspapers regularly sent their reporters to cover high-profile trials, taking advantage of the <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/judica63&div=8&id=&page=">uneven patchwork of judicial positions</a> on whether cameras should be allowed in courtrooms.</p>
<p>The trial of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bruno-Hauptmann">Bruno Richard Hauptmann</a> spurred a wave of regulations against cameras in courtrooms.</p>
<p>In 1935, Hauptmann was tried for kidnapping and murdering the child of Charles Lindbergh. To cover the so-called “<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/10/supreme-court-oral-arguments-cameras-lindbergh-baby-trial.html">Trial of the Century</a>,” an estimated 700 reporters and more than 130 cameramen rushed to Flemington, New Jersey, <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/frdipm20&div=31&id=&page=">leading to reports</a> of photographers climbing on the counsel’s table, shoving their flashbulbs in witnesses’ faces and jockeying with one another to take pictures of Hauptmann.</p>
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<img alt="Black and white photograph of a large group of photographers posing outside a courtroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521335/original/file-20230417-974-47aqpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann attracted hoards of photographers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/les-photographes-attendent-devant-le-palais-de-justice-la-news-photo/843622860?adppopup=true">Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>After investigating the sensational publicity surrounding the Hauptmann trial, the American Bar Association went on to ban courtroom photography in <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3156&context=klj">Canon 35</a> of its 1937 Canons of Judicial Ethics. Following the American Bar Association’s lead, Congress enacted <a href="https://www.federalrulesofcriminalprocedure.org/title-ix/rule-53-courtroom-photographing-and-broadcasting-prohibited/">Rule 53</a> of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1944, which prohibited photography in federal courtrooms during judicial proceedings. </p>
<p>This statutory ban remains in place today in American federal criminal courts and in the U.S. Supreme Court. </p>
<p>The bulky cameras of the past, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/532/">along with their cables, microphones and wires</a>, required judges, witnesses, lawyers and jurors to navigate around them. Today’s cameras, however – whether in their compact, portable form or as remotely controlled, permanently mounted features in courtrooms – operate as less physically disruptive recorders of court proceedings.</p>
<p>Although cameras can give the general public direct access to what happens during a trial, they can also threaten what the American Bar Association has termed the “fitting dignity and decorum” of court proceedings. When cameras are permitted, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/08/us/judge-in-simpson-trial-allows-tv-camera-in-courtroom.html">as they were in the O.J. Simpson trial</a>, judges and lawyers sometimes worry that the proceedings will turn into a circuslike spectacle.</p>
<h2>An artistic flash</h2>
<p>Because the history of courtroom sketches cannot be separated from the history of prohibiting photography in the courtroom, cameras and human artists are often positioned as competitors in the production of courtroom images. </p>
<p>Working with a print or television news agency, freelance courtroom artists need to draw quickly to meet news deadlines. Notably, courtroom artist Mary Chaney was able to depict, <a href="https://loc.gov/item/prn-21-007/">through more than 260 sketches</a>, the criminal and civil trials of the four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating Rodney King.</p>
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<img alt="Drawing of man raising two fingers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521341/original/file-20230417-982-akyh66.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mary Chaney’s sketch of Rodney King on the witness stand during his 1994 trial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/files/2021/02/Screen-Shot-2021-02-23-at-4.24.49-PM-768x534.png">Library of Congress</a></span>
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<p>When courtroom illustrators, such as David Rose, assert that “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1986-04-12/local/me-3545_1_bill-robles">the camera sees everything, but captures nothing</a>,” they are arguing that the camera’s mechanical eye is a poor substitute for – as Chicago courtroom artist Andy Austin <a href="https://hpherald.newsbank.com/doc/news/1752B9C870981428">puts it</a> – “the human eye, the human hand, dealing with a human subject for viewing by humans.” </p>
<p>While the camera can immediately generate highly detailed images of a trial, it cannot capture the emotional resonance of a courtroom moment. By funneling the emotional highs and lows of a trial through their body, courtroom artists can bring to their work irreplaceable sensory and dramatic insights.</p>
<p>Part of the drama stems from a courtroom artist’s ability to compress hours of court action into a single drawing. Artists can also manipulate the composition and perspective of their drawings to create “<a href="http://www.marilynchurch.com/book">artistic pull</a>.” Even though judges, lawyers, witnesses and the defendant may be physically spread out in the actual courtroom, the artist can bring them into close proximity with one another and the viewer.</p>
<p>It is in this way that courtroom sketches can make viewers feel the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/2007/03/24/drawn_to_the_law.html">emotional pull</a> of the trial’s main characters.</p>
<h2>One sketch goes viral</h2>
<p>This is what happened in Jane Rosenberg’s viral courtroom sketch of Trump. </p>
<p>Compared with the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/courtroom-sketches-capture-former-president-donald-trumps-arraignment-2023-4">drawings made by Christine Cornell and Elizabeth Williams</a>, Rosenberg’s image is the only one that depicts Trump <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2023-04-17">looking glum</a>, with his arms crossed as he eyes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. </p>
<p>Because Bragg is not visible in the image, it appears as though Trump is fully facing the viewer with an expression that has been simultaneously described as despondent, disdainful and “<a href="https://hyperallergic.com/813359/courtroom-artist-jane-rosenberg-on-her-viral-sketch-of-trump/">pissed off</a>.”</p>
<p>To allow viewers to focus even further on Trump’s facial expression and body language, the New Yorker cover crops Rosenberg’s illustration, so that it becomes a portrait of a former president in criminal court. Made up of energetic pastel-chalk lines that are suggestive but ultimately unfinished, the rough sketch aesthetically aligns with the moral “sketchiness” that has long dogged Trump.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1645540940679987201"}"></div></p>
<h2>The afterlives of courtroom sketches</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://twitter.com/reuterspictures/status/1643357029753409541">Reuters tweeted Rosenberg’s courtroom sketch of Trump</a>, it jump-started the image’s afterlife. </p>
<p>Even though the practice of courtroom illustration has been described as a dying art form, courtroom sketches, like other cultural artifacts, are not only preserved in <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/drawing-justice-courtroom-illustrations/about-this-exhibition/">special collections and exhibits</a>; they can also evolve through successive framings and interpretations. </p>
<p>In our current digital world, courtroom sketches can go viral on social media, especially if the artist fails to accurately capture the likeness of a high-profile, celebrity defendant. </p>
<p>Rosenberg herself is no stranger to creating viral courtroom sketches. When covering <a href="https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/new-england-patriots/deflategate-timeline">Deflategate</a> – the deflated ball controversy involving NFL star Tom Brady – she drew a portrait of the then-New England Patriots quarterback that elicited comparisons to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/sketchy">Quasimodo, Lurch and Thriller-era Michael Jackson</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"638428301829271552"}"></div></p>
<p>Courtroom sketches can also be creatively transformed into online memes. Rosenberg’s Trump sketch <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/813208/most-biting-memes-of-donald-trump-arraignment/">has been photo-edited</a> to evoke Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” to include a bucket of KFC fried chicken and to appear as if he’d been caught by the Scooby Doo gang.</p>
<p>Trump’s fans and foes <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-a-donald-trump-mug-shot-could-become-the-culture-icon-of-our-time-7297ed0e">may not have gotten their mugshot</a>. But they have a viral courtroom sketch, and what started as an image drawn under a courtroom’s tightly regulated conditions has since taken on a life of its own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Lam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Whereas ‘the camera sees everything, but captures nothing,’ courtroom artists can channel the emotional highs and lows of a trial through a single image.Anita Lam, Associate Professor, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1112372019-02-08T09:45:54Z2019-02-08T09:45:54ZDan Mallory’s unreliable narrative: how to get ahead in publishing<p>People across the global book trade have been engrossed by a ripe scandal engulfing one of their own – publisher-turned-author Dan Mallory, whose novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/30/thriller-reviews-woman-in-the-window-child-finder-the-feed">The Woman in the Window</a> was one of the runaway bestsellers of 2018. One tweet summed up the buzz:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1092482919543771141"}"></div></p>
<p>The comment from the literary agent Laura Williams refers to a lengthy article in the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists-trail-of-deceptions">New Yorker</a> about Mallory, who writes under the pseudonym A J Finn. As the headline explosively proclaimed, Mallory’s life “contains even stranger twists” than his fiction.</p>
<p>These twists, according to the New Yorker, include repeated lies: about his mother’s death from cancer, his own cancer diagnoses, an Oxford PhD, a job offer from a rival publishing company which leveraged promotion. He also, the article suggests, may have impersonated his brother, sent abusive emails, and – most curious of all – left plastic cups of urine in the New York office of his boss (“messages of disdain, or … territorial marking”, speculated the New Yorker – although it went on to quote a spokesperson for Mallory saying he hadn’t been responsible for that).</p>
<p>The article is careful to present evidence for these revelations via both named and anonymous sources, or to state that certain allegations are unproven. The revelations are either denied by Mallory, or blamed in a statement on “dissembling” produced by severe mental illness. </p>
<p>Even more curiously, Mallory’s uncompleted PhD focused on Patricia Highsmith, author of The Talented Mr Ripley – that twisty tale of a man who murders and then impersonates another. His own The Woman in the Window presents its readers with an unreliable first-person narrator who witnesses - or does she? - a crime. </p>
<p>An unreliable narrator – and an unreliable author? Literary liars and impersonators weave their tales through publishing history. Remember the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/books/27oprah.html">“memoirs” of James Frey</a>, A Million Little Pieces, which presented as fact made-up scenes of drug addiction and alcoholism?</p>
<p>Fiction-writing fraudsters also abound: prize-winning Australian Helen Darville <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230287846_10">falsely presented herself</a> as the Ukrainian “Helen Demidenko” and wore peasant blouses ti publicise her book: The Hand That Signed the Paper. Meanwhile JT LeRoy’s novelised tales of an abusive boyhood turned out to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/20/jt-leroy-story-modern-literary-hoax-?fbclid=IwAR1mfsO3TdqtEAHizcKqyLFh8fRHKvUf45_4ad3IiW9hUXNZG8qWITR65Sc">entirely invented</a>, their author represented in public by a (possibly) transgender impersonator.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257699/original/file-20190207-174867-728puj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who is JT LeRoy?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brad Coy</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Literary hoaxers</h2>
<p>Mallory joins an infamous line of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship">literary hoaxers</a>, then. But what might this torrid tale tell us about the mental and physical health of the publishing industry?</p>
<p>Social media commentators quickly identified an issue beyond the tricksy questions of truth and lies: that of Mallory’s rapid career trajectory. A “Waspy” family background was polished by an elite US college education, employment at a New York publisher, postgraduate studies at Oxford, a London publishing job and promotion. Then back across the Atlantic to a $200,000 salary and a book deal brokered through his professional networks.</p>
<p>As one much-retweeted comment put it, alongside all the tawdry revelations of the story, it also spoke volumes about the problematic pattern of publishing career paths.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1092438449712517120"}"></div></p>
<p>The New Yorker has multiple accounts of how Mallory seemingly charmed writers and fellow publishers, and there’s no implication – other than light borrowing of plots and characterisation – that his writing is not his own. Good looks operated alongside that charm, until the beguilement revealed its multiple deceptions. But the question of how to get ahead in publishing, and those who get to make such rapid ascents, remains.</p>
<h2>Glass ceilings, whiteness and class</h2>
<p>Publishing and the literary world have serious issues of access and inclusion. The roughly equal number of <a href="https://www.publishers.org.uk/news/releases/2019/diversity-of-uk-publishing-workforce-detailed-in-extensive-survey/">men and women in board positions</a> in UK publishing does not represent the preponderance of female staff lower down company hierarchies – about 66-80% of people in the industry are women, surveys variously report.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly this glass ceiling creates a gender pay gap: <a href="https://www.bookcareers.com/salary-survey-2/bookcareers-com-salary-survey-results-2017/">16% in 2017</a> and some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/23/gender-pay-gap-figures-reveal-big-publishings-great-divide">even worse figures</a> in 2018’s mandatory reporting from larger companies. Publishing also has its <a href="https://www.interscriptjournal.com/online-magazine/sleaze-o-meter">sleaze and #MeToo claims</a>.</p>
<p>In terms of ethnic diversity, a <a href="https://www.publishers.org.uk/news/releases/2019/diversity-of-uk-publishing-workforce-detailed-in-extensive-survey/">2018 UK Publishers Association survey</a> showed the BAME workforce of publishing to be under 12%. This is marginally below the 2011 <a href="https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/ethnicity-in-the-uk">census figure of 13% in England and Wales</a>, but it’s far below the 40% of London, where UK publishing is highly centralised (itself presenting issues of <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/northern-fiction-alliance-host-regional-diversity-roundtable-933416">regional diversity</a>). </p>
<p>Repeated surveys have demonstrated <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/institutes/cameo/publications/cuts-2">publishing’s diversity deficit</a>. Scholarship from <a href="http://www.mediaindustriesjournal.org/index.php/mij/article/view/144">Anamik Saha</a> and <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030105211">Melanie Ramdarshan Bold</a> focuses on the challenges of cultural production for writers of colour. Over a period from 2006-2016, Ramdarshan Bold identified, only 8% of young adult books published in the UK were by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-018-9600-5">writers of colour</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257715/original/file-20190207-174883-1hyiwbr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knights Of, who sidestepped traditional publishing by crowd-sourcing funding for a pop-up bookshop to sell diverse books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Knights of</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like other creative industries, publishing is a middle-class activity, with working-class publishers and writers frequently recounting stories of prejudice and cultural condescension – eg. in publisher Laura Waddell’s <a href="https://www.404ink.com/nasty-women/">Nasty Women</a> chapter, and in Dead Ink’s anthology of working-class essays <a href="https://deadinkbooks.com/product/know-your-place/">Know Your Place</a>.</p>
<p>The 2018 report <a href="http://createlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Panic-Social-Class-Taste-and-Inequalities-in-the-Creative-Industries1.pdf">Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries</a> shows publishing’s class demographic to be “especially grave”. Less than 13% of publishers are from working-class backgrounds, while more than 33% have upper middle-class origins.</p>
<h2>The whiff of privilege</h2>
<p>Such individual and statistical accounts of exclusion demonstrate why the wild story of one already-privileged individual bluffing his way higher and higher up the publishing echelons has caused so much consternation. If the story is true, Mallory repeatedly fooled university admissions offices and publishers’ employment processes. But what employment practices enabled him to rise, even when his story had started to unravel? And how did his apparent charm and good taste enable him to fail upwards? The answers to these questions remain in a dysfunctional swirl of rumour, anonymous sources, non-disclosure agreements and myth-making that probably won’t hurt Mallory’s book sales. </p>
<p>But there are wider systemic and institutionalised issues at play here: the urine scent-marking in the editor’s office (whether proven to be Mallory or not) is a metaphor for the regimes of value in operation within publishing. There is <a href="https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/25816#.XFrTTlz7Q2w">a mystique about taste</a> – a whiff of privilege – that prevails unhelpfully and often prejudicially in the publishing industry. Such inequitable practices govern which hot new literary property we pick up next.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Squires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The strange story of the author one of 2018’s bestselling novels reveals a lot about some careers at the top end of publishing.Claire Squires, Professor in Publishing Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/894012017-12-19T14:41:20Z2017-12-19T14:41:20ZCat Person: a creative writing expert on why you should read the short story for the #metoo age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199936/original/file-20171219-4954-1ir8ev2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Yorker</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s safe to say that when Kristen Roupenian wrote <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person">Cat Person</a> she did not expect it to end up <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23CatPerson&src=tyah">trending on Twitter</a> and in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/13/cat-person-short-story-that-launched-thousand-theories">global news outlets</a>, or that its publication in The New Yorker <a href="https://jezebel.com/cat-person-authors-new-book-is-now-reportedly-reaching-1821384303">might be rapidly followed</a> by her signing a million-dollar deal for a short-story collection. Short story writers have learned not to expect anything by way of worldly fame and success. By breaking out into the wider cultural sphere, the story has prompted widespread debate about how we value literature and how we read it.</p>
<p>The success of Cat Person is of course bound up with its subject matter; the portrayal of a young woman, Margot, and how she is forced to negotiate the seemingly unpleasant behaviour of Robert, a man she dates. The story sparked passionate debate among readers, elevating it beyond the ghetto of short fiction to global conversations about gender, sex, violence and power.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"941763924881563648"}"></div></p>
<p>To judge by online responses, <a href="https://twitter.com/MenCatPerson">lots of men hated the story</a> – and lots of women loved it. In particular, many young women <a href="https://thedebrief.co.uk/news/real-life/cat-person-short-story-new-yorker-consent/">felt that the story articulated their own experience</a>, and in this way a claim was put forward about the story’s importance: here was a story that expressed something a lot of people had experienced, which had never been expressed in quite this way before. And wasn’t this, after all, what literature was all about?</p>
<p>Other (usually male) readers argued that the story was a bad one, apparently on the grounds that they disliked Margot or that the story set Robert unfairly in a bad light. It’s clear here how literary judgements about the quality of a piece can become mixed up with other kinds of judgement, such as whether we like the characters, or whether the subject matter is worthy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"942086443949875201"}"></div></p>
<p>Readers, of course, identify with characters, but the way Cat Person has become a cipher in a larger conversation about gender politics has tended to polarise the readings of the two main characters. The story sells Robert down the river, or he’s a monster. Margot is a blameless proxy for the reader, or she’s a naive, self-regarding fool.</p>
<h2>Non-binary fable</h2>
<p>In fact Cat Person is better than that. It’s able to take part in the wider conversation precisely because it doesn’t take sides like that. Margot is naive and she is self-regarding – there’s a wonderful, laugh-out-loud moment when Robert reveals anxiety over her high school boyfriend and she preeningly imagines telling him:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My high-school boyfriend is gay … In fact, he’s not even a hundred per cent positive that he identifies as a man anymore; we spent a lot of time over break talking about what it would mean for him to come out as non-binary. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What Roupenian is setting up is itself non-binary; not a fable of good and evil but of miscommunication – a clash between two people who don’t understand each other, which begins deliciously and become creepier and creepier.</p>
<p>Roupenian confirms <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-kristen-roupenian-2017-12-11">this sense of Margot’s complexity</a> when she says in an interview with The New Yorker that she has:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>More genuine sympathy for Margot [than for Robert], but I’m also frustrated by her: she’s so quick to over-read Robert, to assume that she understands him, and to interpret his behaviour in a way that’s flattering to herself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Conversely she says that she hopes readers lose sympathy for Robert “at the end of the story”, when he calls Margot a “whore”. Up to that point, we’re supposed to see them both as flawed human beings, a mixture of sympathetic and less sympathetic qualities.</p>
<h2>It’s complicated</h2>
<p>So what of the end of the story, the point which seems to resolve and even diminish those complexities? When Robert becomes abusive, our sympathy should evaporate and we’re forced to acknowledge that all our sympathies should lie with Margot. It seemed to me on first reading a cheapening, a waste of the story’s resonant, teasing balance of effects in favour of mere polemic. It seemed to sacrifice literary value in favour of saying something “important”. And no doubt that’s what some readers have been irritated by – how the ending, by condemning Robert, seems to endorse Margot and all she stands for, when the truth might be more complicated than that.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"940359306834272263"}"></div></p>
<p>And yet. What the story is about – how women are always negotiating with men, always facing the possibility of abuse – is precisely enacted in this brutal, reductive ending. When Robert calls Margot “whore”, he himself closes down our sympathies. Margot isn’t perfect, but her naivete doesn’t deserve this, and pales in comparison as a character fault. </p>
<p>The way that abusive behaviour obliterates complexity in real life is mirrored by the way it obliterates nuance in the story. Yes, Roupenian seems to be saying, this would be a richer and more fulfilling story if it didn’t end this way – but things do end this way, and we need to face up to that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kristen Roupenian’s Cat Person short story in the New Yorker about the perils of dating in the digital world is flawed – and brilliant as a result.Tony Williams, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/576142016-04-14T15:09:04Z2016-04-14T15:09:04ZThe murky ethics of Gay Talese’s ‘The Voyeur’s Motel’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118603/original/image-20160413-22050-nlge78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For years, Talese's subject, Gerald Foos, spied on his motel guests.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-171971531.html?src=download_history">'Binoculars' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In order to report on a motel-owning voyeur who, for years, secretly spied on guests having sex, writer Gay Talese agreed to not identify the motelier, Gerald Foos. Talese even signed a confidentiality agreement that Foos had prepared.</em></p>
<p><em>With this agreement in place, Talese got access. He visited the motel, witnessed the motel sex from the voyeur’s secret viewing perch and would go on to interview and correspond with Foos for years. In 2013, after 23 years, Foos waived the confidentiality agreement; last week,</em> The New Yorker <em>ran Talese’s <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/gay-talese-the-voyeurs-motel">“The Voyeur’s Motel.”</a></em></p>
<p><em>The story is gripping and salacious. But since its publication, some readers have expressed uneasiness with both the content and the measures taken to report on – and protect – Foos.</em> The New Yorker’s <em>editor, David Remnick, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-ethical-dilemmas-raised-by-gay-taleses-latest-article/2016/04/08/8e40e916-fd92-11e5-9140-e61d062438bb_story.html">has defended the article</a>, writing</em> “The New Yorker <em>does not believe that Talese or it violated any legal or ethical boundaries in presenting Foos’ account.”</em> </p>
<p><em>We asked three journalism professors to give their take on the story, Talese’s reporting and the murky ethics involved.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Can you ever break a confidentiality agreement?</h2>
<p><strong>Dick Lehr, Boston University</strong></p>
<p>Talese has been criticized for not notifying authorities about Foos’ privacy invasions, as well as Foos’ eyewitness account of a murder apparently committed in 1977 in Room 10. (Bizarrely, Talese found no official record of such a crime.) </p>
<p>To do so, however, would have entailed Talese breaking his promise. Critics have argued that, in Foos’ case, such a breach was warranted.</p>
<p>But was it? Promises reporters make to sources are a very big deal. They give sources sharing secrets and information for the public good the protection they need. It’s a matter of trust, a principle so vital that some reporters will go to jail rather than break the promise. It’s a promise so sacrosanct that many reporters would consider breaking it only in the rarest of exceptions – when life or death, or the nation’s security, was at stake, or to prevent a miscarriage of justice, such as a wrongful conviction in a murder case.</p>
<p>For important stories, like the Pentagon Papers, this trust is paramount. But Foos’ voyeur papers could hardly be equated with the Pentagon Papers. Nor could Talese’s promise ever be equated with ones the journalist James Risen has made in recent years to his sources, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/james-risen-anonymous-source-government-battle">which have allowed him to report about the federal government’s domestic surveillance abuses</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, Talese’s central character Gerald Foos comes off as a creepy and delusional Peeping Tom who thinks his extreme privacy violations are for the greater good in understanding the human condition. There’s no greater good here; Talese has captured a strange and (briefly) compelling story of one man’s obsession and the extremes to which he will go to satisfy it.</p>
<p>So why not turn Foos in years ago? Because except for the rare exceptions, a promise is a promise, even ones given to repugnant, unsavory sources. While we’d prefer all secret sources to be noble whistle-blowers, often they are not, and a reporter’s handshake with them carries a stench.</p>
<p>More troubling than Talese’s promise is that Foos proves to be so thoroughly unreliable. More than once, Talese expresses doubts about Foos’ credibility, so much so that if Talese had not personally verified the voyeur’s perch in the motel’s ceiling, then the tale in its entirety would not be believable. Talese even admits that while Foos’ voyeur journals are dated as starting in 1966, he’d learned from the registry of deeds that Foos bought the motel in 1969. It’s a mess.</p>
<p>From that moment there is little reason to believe anything Foos says.</p>
<hr>
<h2>An ethical bind</h2>
<p><strong>Kim Walsh-Childers, University of Florida</strong></p>
<p>Imagine yourself being observed, without your knowledge, while having sex.
Have you been harmed?</p>
<p>The answer, I would argue, is yes. Your privacy has been violated. The voyeur has taken something from you without your consent. </p>
<p>Then, if a journalist tells the voyeur’s story years later, is he contributing to that harm? That’s the issue in Gay Talese’s story about the Manor House Motel. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118605/original/image-20160413-22075-o70hc1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gay Talese.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5675/23464188170_0aa56d3b31_b.jpg">j-No/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my opinion, Talese was complicit in Gerald Foos’ violation of his guests’ privacy, and not only because in the initial reporting of the story, he climbed into the motel attic with its owner and watched a young couple having sex. By failing to report Foos’ actions – either in an immediate story or to authorities – Talese enabled Foos’ unethical and, indeed, illegal action to continue unabated for at least 15 years longer.</p>
<p>Signing Foos’ confidentiality agreement – in effect agreeing to protect Foos’ privacy even as Foos violated the privacy of his guests – left Talese in an ethical bind. Revealing Foos’ activity meant breaking his promise. Keeping that promise allowed Foos to subject hundreds, perhaps even thousands, more guests to his voyeurism, judgment and scorn.</p>
<p>In addition, through his continued correspondence, Talese provided affirmation of Foos’ activity, helping him maintain the myth that his actions served some higher purpose, some noble societal goal, rather than simply gratifying his own sexual desire.</p>
<p>But even if the initial voyeurism had caused no harm, Talese’s approach to telling the story after gaining Foos’ consent did. First, the story contains details from Foos’ notes that, while titillating, are not necessary to what is presumably the story’s purpose: helping us understand the mind of the voyeur. Second, telling the story with Foos’ blessing no doubt satisfies the voyeur’s need to feel that he is important, that he has accomplished something noteworthy. </p>
<p>In that way, it’s much like the decision to publish or broadcast the rants of someone like Charleston church shooter <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lethal-gentleman-the-benevolent-sexism-behind-dylann-roofs-racism-43534">Dylann Roof</a> or Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho.</p>
<p>Finally, and in some ways, most troubling, Talese’s story offers a primer to others who might want to copy Foos’ voyeuristic ways. He details exactly how the motel’s viewing platform was constructed and how successful it was in hiding Foos’ behavior. </p>
<p>It’s one of many aspects of the story that, I suspect, will have journalism ethics professors discussing it – as an example of behavior to avoid – for years to come.</p>
<hr>
<h2>The slippery slope of rationalization</h2>
<p><strong>Russell Frank, Pennsylvania State University</strong></p>
<p>When I read about Gay Talese’s relationship with Gerald Foos, I thought of a character in a journalism ethics video game dodging one fireball after another in his pursuit of a juicy story.</p>
<p>First, Foos declines to identify himself in his early communications with Talese. “As a nonfiction writer who insists on using real names in articles and books,” Talese writes, “I knew that I could not accept his condition of anonymity.” And yet, journalists sometimes promise anonymity in exchange for permission to report on a source’s nefarious activities.</p>
<p>Next, Talese says he is “deeply unsettled” by Foos’ “study” of the sexual habits of his guests. But of greater concern to him is the possibility that the innkeeper is only fantasizing about spying on his guests. So Talese goes to Denver to see for himself. Once he confirms that this guy really is a Peeping Tom, does he then have an obligation to go to the police? Foos reasons that his guests are unharmed by his voyeurism if they don’t know about it. Talese concurs, apparently. </p>
<p>Would Foos’ guests feel unharmed after reading Talese’s piece?</p>
<p>The trip to the attic to see Foos peeping at his guests was all the verification Talese needed. But he also joins his host at the peephole, ignoring “an insistent voice in my head telling me to look away.” Needless to say, Talese did not obtain the consent of the couple he spied upon.</p>
<p>Then Talese becomes even more deeply unsettled when Foos reveals that he witnessed a murder. The incident recalls <a href="http://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=501">the case of <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em> reporter Nancy Phillips</a>, who kept her promise of confidentiality even after her source confessed to arranging a murder-for-hire. Critics contend that when it comes to violent crime, public safety trumps the reporter-source relationship. Talese seems not to have considered this when he first learned of the information.</p>
<p>It was only in 2013 – 36 years after the alleged murder, when Foos released Talese from his promise of confidentiality – that Talese ended up going to the police. Nothing came of it. Maybe Foos made up the murder story?</p>
<p>Either way, I see Talese’s video game avatar going up in a fireball of ethical missteps.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Gay Talese signed a confidentiality agreement with a motel-owning voyeur, he got access to the voyeur’s journals and secret viewing perch. But he also allowed the spying to continue for over a decade.Dick Lehr, Professor of Journalism, Boston UniversityKim Walsh-Childers, Professor of Journalism, University of FloridaRussell Frank, Associate Professor of Communications, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/467002015-09-09T10:19:29Z2015-09-09T10:19:29ZTo see why attitudes on having children have changed, look at…New Yorker cartoons?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93812/original/image-20150903-8793-izl5oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers pored through 70,439 New Yorker cartoons. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/amalee/3278839935/in/photolist-5ZJUT2-5pEUSQ-5VDAig-561kiC-dbJ7R3-55W9eB-paBcbw-561kQS-8ZQzFz-8ZTFTJ-561kBw-8ZQBii-8ZTGsN-8ZTHoW-nZjCxY-nGVBrX-oFrUUV-vmwzjh-55W8Na-8ZTED1-8ZTEJd-8ZQBYc-8ZTGFN-8ZTHuL-8ZQC7H-8ZTH61-8ZQz52-8ZTHeC-8ZQzMg-8ZQASD-8ZQB8t-6gyrys-8AUQMt-8AXZiQ-nXnSLq-6tyWv8-8y83jG-dbJ69n-9v5b2C-7Wpcfu-6zCg9C-4Mi9nJ-6cNUD9-561kKQ-55W954-fcryza-5ZANNA-56aBdr-5Cm8dY-561kME">amy bernier/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 1980s, sociologist Viviana Zelizer <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5452.html">proclaimed</a> that we were living in the age of the “priceless” child. </p>
<p>She noted that in the late 19th century, children were valued primarily for their economic contributions to their families, and to society at large. But by the early 20th century – and in the wake of child labor laws and declining rates of child mortality – the value of children started to be defined in sentimental terms. </p>
<p>Today, in an era of obsessive child-proofing and Amber Alerts and princess-themed birthday parties, the idea of the priceless child is easy to grasp. It can also be seen in the constant hovering of “helicopter” parents, ready to swoop in at a moment’s notice to protect their little darlings from harm, even minor inconvenience. </p>
<p>Yet popular culture also abounds with more complex – even overtly negative – portrayals of children and childrearing. We might think of the little terrors depicted in television shows like Toddlers and Tiaras and Super Nanny. Then there are the foul-mouthed pranksters of Southpark and The Simpsons. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-013-9716-3">scholars</a>, <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/howtoraiseanadult/julielythcotthaims">educators</a>, and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1940697,00.html">journalists</a> have all raised concerns about the consequences of constant hovering, both for parents’ stress levels and for the fate of their overly-doted-on kids.</p>
<p>These more complex depictions of children and childrearing led us to our research questions. </p>
<p>First: Are contemporary social attitudes toward children and childrearing as uniformly positive as scholars like Viviana Zelizer suggest? Or are they more varied? </p>
<p>And second: Have changes in social attitudes toward children and childrearing followed the linear and positive trajectory that Zelizer describes, or have they evolved in more complex ways? To answer these questions, we decided to do a content analysis of New Yorker cartoons. </p>
<p>You might wonder: why, of all the mediums to study, would we choose to analyze the cartoons of a literary magazine? </p>
<p>Well, for one, cartoons are great for <a href="http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/4/482.short">tapping into taboo attitudes</a> – like negative perceptions of children and childrearing – that might not be revealed in surveys. And second, educated elites – like <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7Eug02/newyorker/audience.html">those who read the New Yorker</a> – are <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/patterson/files/cricket_asr_final.pdf">often at the forefront of trends</a>. </p>
<p>We started with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Cartoons-Yorker-Robert-Mankoff/dp/1579126200">The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker</a>, which contains all of the cartoons published in the magazine from 1925-2006 (70,439 cartoons). We then used the cartoon index to identify all the images depicting or relating to children or childrearing (6,199 cartoons). Next, we coded each image’s attitude toward children and childrearing. </p>
<p>This involved two steps. First, we identified which cartoons took a “critical” stance on children or childrearing and which did not. Then we identified the predominant theme of each cartoon. </p>
<p>While there were many themes represented, we grouped the cartoons into seven broad categories: “Children are <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=2&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons024522">Beneficial to Parents</a>,” “Children are <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=2&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons025832">Costly to Parents</a>,” “<a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=2&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons025793">Bad Parents</a>,” “<a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=father+reading&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=a&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_sort=d&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_searchFeatures=cncartoons&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons016838">Good Parents</a>,” “Children Have a <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=scout&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=a&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_sort=d&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_searchFeatures=cncartoons&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons012677">Positive Impact</a> on Society,” “Children Have a <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=2&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons025183">Negative Impact</a> on Society” and “Children are <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons029906">Normal or Natural</a>.” After coding the images, we completed a series of statistical analyses aimed at describing patterns in social attitudes over time. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93961/original/image-20150904-14650-qglh5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some New Yorker cartoons depict children as mischievous.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/x1brett/15253693741/in/photolist-peVaHF-55W96Z-vBKWM-pyNsuT-3ERtWW-air25N-5SDu1L-57wrFo-5NdLft-q7XMRH-3yA9PF-e4jbEo-dCwVAk-9G6Dkm-cVSj8-de3s1R-mhY6F-7vRfpG-ago6Nu-7cEzZe-dybGQo-8UJiA8-aoetKD-oBYHuf-59SEAg-nKfxJt-anQYMZ-8qv64H-9Ci8yy-sJQnMK-dnghr5-7THZ1U-84XYtb-vmwzjh-54Dn4J-8paY8R-nSZmkb-5FB4Cb-9cyP8Y-n7usma-b2bJic-fAiW8h-8f8qKS-anQYKn-Txv4t-n7eU8b-pKmuX1-epFDY1-qp7Y7M-4gdRzj">brett jordan/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overall, we found that attitudes toward children and childrearing are more complex and more varied than what we might expect from previous research, and 43% of the cartoons in our sample took a critical stance. Those critical cartoons, in turn, did not become less common over time. In fact, our statistical tests revealed a curvilinear pattern, with <a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Children&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons030438">critical attitudes</a> toward children and childrearing being most common at the tail ends of our sample – 1925-1940 and 1990-2006. </p>
<p>These patterns are surprising in that they go against previously held assumptions that we are living in the age of the “priceless” child. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cartoonbank.com/search/-/search/results?p_p_state=pop_up&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_search=feature%3Acncartoons+AND+family+AND+parents&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_match=cartoonbank&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_breadCrumb=Parents&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_tagId=cncartoons030937">Positive portrayals</a> of children and childrearing, on the other hand, were more common in the middle years of our sample, and particularly in the 1950s and 1980s. </p>
<p>So why are these patterns important? We argue that understanding shifting social attitudes toward children and childrearing can help us to better understand other broad social trends. </p>
<p>These include changing fertility rates (which can be tied to family decisions about whether to have children and how many to have) and changing social policies – in other words, societal decisions about who deserves support and why. </p>
<p>During the 2000s, for example, there was an increase in the number of cartoons highlighting the high costs that children pose to parents. This included economic costs, as well as costs in terms of parents’ freedom and flexibility. Then there’s the negative impact they have on society as a whole, either through the “mischievous” – even criminal – tendencies of children. </p>
<p>Such critical attitudes, in turn, may help to explain why <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db175.htm">fertility rates have declined</a> and why so many adults are opting to <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/07/childlessness/">forgo parenthood altogether</a>.</p>
<p>So while a New Yorker cartoon might elicit a quick chuckle for a reader taking a break from 20,000 word article, the things we find funny can also tell us a lot about our cultural moment, our attitudes and the collective decisions we make.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some might say we’re in the age of the ‘priceless’ child, but The New Yorker certainly doesn’t think so.Jessica Calarco, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Indiana UniversityJaclyn Tabor, PhD Candidate in Sociology, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/300332014-08-18T20:21:30Z2014-08-18T20:21:30ZSpeaking with: The New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56358/original/62tkpfmy-1407902198.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">American comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foxtel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past decade we have witnessed the rise and rise of long form television – from The Sopranos to The Wire, Game of Thrones to Orange Is the New Black – and no one has been watching this transformation more keenly than the television critic for The New Yorker, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/emily-nussbaum">Emily Nussbaum</a>.</p>
<p>Here, media researcher Lisa French talks with Nussbaum about bingeing on DVD sets, live-tweeting and delighting in reruns of Sex and The City.</p>
<p><em>Nussbaum appeared at the 2014 Melbourne Writers’ Festival on Friday August 22 for <a href="http://www.mwf.com.au/session/seminar-writing-about-tv/">Seminar: Writing About TV</a> and <a href="http://www.mwf.com.au/session/castaway-with-emily-nussbaum/">Castaway with Emily Nussbaum</a>, <a href="http://www.mwf.com.au/session/talking-points-how-tv-got-great/">Talking Points: How TV Got Great</a> on Saturday August 23 and then at the Sydney Opera House Festival of Dangerous Ideas for <a href="http://fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com/events/television-replaced-novel">Television Has Replaced the Novel</a> on Sunday August 31.</em></p>
<p><em>Read <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/melbourne-writers-festival">more coverage </a>of the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.</em></p>
<p>Listen to other podcast episodes <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/podcasts/speaking-with">here</a>.</p>
<h2>Full transcript:</h2>
<p><strong>Lisa French (LF)</strong>: My name is Lisa French and welcome to The Conversation podcast. I am speaking with Emily Nussbaum, TV critic for The New Yorker, who is in Australia this month for the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Emily, welcome. Let me start by asking how you became a television critic?</p>
<p><strong>Emily Nussbaum (EM)</strong>: Well, honestly the reason I got into television in the first place, I always chalk up straightforwardly to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because around 1999 I was watching Buffy, and this was a time that TV was exploding a bit. The Sopranos was out and Sex and The City and a lot of other shows, and I’ve always been interested in TV, but Buffy was the first show where I was just transformed by becoming a super-fan in a slightly insane way.</p>
<p>One of the things that was going on was a lot of people were talking about The Sopranos, and I loved The Sopranos, but I also loved Buffy. I would go to parties and I would want to talk to people about Buffy and what a brilliant show it was, how operatic it was, how it had this fantastic mixture of genres and these incredible performances – and it was a very easily put-down show.</p>
<p>It was a show about a teenage girl who was a vampire slayer, it was on this tiny cable network that nobody had really heard of (that was for teenagers) and honestly it kind of lit this flame in me and put a chip on my shoulder. I’m an argumentative person and it made me interested in the larger debate about what TV was capable of. Also, it just felt like an exciting period.</p>
<p>So, I feel very lucky to be writing about TV during a time of great transformation. That was also a period when people were starting to talk about TV online, and the other origins of me ending up writing about TV were honestly things like television without pity, and anonymous websites where people would passionately discuss television.</p>
<p>I read a lot of critics, but my inspirations as far as a critic [goes] were often online digital conversation about TV, which I found wildly stimulating and also global; in a way to talk with an audience of television viewers that otherwise I wouldn’t have had access to.</p>
<p>Since TV was always considered a very isolated experience, I think it really changed the way that people thought about it. You could actually treat it as a text, and it was as though the world was a graduate school in which everyone was just constantly persevering about particular shows that they loved or hated.</p>
<p>As for becoming a television writer, that’s a different situation. I feel like I have a dream job. I’m very, very lucky to be writing for The New Yorker, which is a place where I can write seriously about television and I can write at a pace where I can write longer essays.</p>
<p>It’s thrilling and I feel like I’m constantly trying to push myself forward with this. As anyone knows journalism is collapsing [laughs] and it’s very difficult to write arts criticism, so I never know what advice to give people who want to write about TV.</p>
<p>I have to hope that there will be models for doing it, but there’s no way that I could give any kind of meaningful advice given that I feel like I came of age during a period of transformation not only for TV but for journalism. And, a lot of people I know are writing at very fast paces online and writing recaps and things like that.</p>
<p>I think that can be very brutal, I mean, ideally I hope we’re working toward a stage where people actually will get compensated for writing thoughtfully about TV, and essentially every year I’m just hoping that the bottom doesn’t drop out on the possibility of doing that.</p>
<p><strong>LF</strong>: You just touched on something that I wanted to ask you about, which is: how technology has changed your work, how it’s changed whether a television critic might have a social media strategy, how to keep up with your field and [if] technology has changed everything that you do?</p>
<p><strong>EN</strong>: Well, for one thing, I feel like the changes in technology are indistinguishable from the changes in TV itself. You wouldn’t have a show like The Wire unless you had two things that supported it. One of them is DVDs and DVRs that enabled people to pause, rewind, save, revisit and basically treat television shows as texts that they could analyse. And, the other thing is the internet, which allows people to decode more dense kinds of art.</p>
<p>Previously, television was just something that poured into people’s living rooms. They saw it once and then they just had to react to it as it happened – they couldn’t treat it the way that you would a song, a movie, a book or a variety of other art forms. I think that changed it a lot.</p>
<p>But, as for my own experience with it, as I said I was a very online kind of television viewer and I still am, and you know every year the whole thing changes in terms of how people talk about TV.</p>
<p>Twitter was invented a few years ago and I’m very active on Twitter, and for me, everybody uses these things different ways. I don’t think of it as a strategy, I think of it more as writing is isolating, and there’s something wonderful about the social world of being able to trade ideas back and forth with other people.</p>
<p>With TV specifically, I feel like it’s such an audience-driven art form, not to say that the shows don’t exist separate from the audience, but unlike a lot of other art forms, and this is sort of [an] ongoing thing with me is the question of: how do you distinguish the critical conversation about television from these anxious historical comparisons where they say “it’s become as good as movies! It’s as good as books!”</p>
<p>To me, I feel like people need to drop those comparisons and celebrate TV on its own terms. One of the things that happens with TV is it takes place over time, episodically, and in a kind of loop with the audience, and because of the way TV is made, often it reacts to the audience’s reactions to it.</p>
<p>So, this is a long way of saying I feel like for me, when I’m talking about a television show, I’m often writing about it part way through the series. It hasn’t necessarily ended, and being able to hear other people’s responses to the show is very valuable to me – because it does make me feel like I’m part of a live audience reacting to things, and being able to talk to people globally who have different reactions. It often makes me question my own responses and think about different perspectives on TV.</p>
<p>For me it’s great, but on the other hand, everybody has a different personality about this kind of thing, and I know a lot of people find online TV conversation overwhelming and it kind of drowns out their own responses. So, I think you can see it [in] all sorts of different ways.</p>
<p><strong>LF</strong>: One of the things I’ve noticed is, the television’s gained this whole new life that seems to be connected to, so I’m thinking True Detective, you know the kind of actors that are going and the kind of directors. Do you have any view on what might be causing that?</p>
<p><strong>EN</strong>: For one thing, I’m not going to make major judgements on what’s going on in Hollywood, but universally, people seem to find that it is more difficult to make idiosyncratic, independent films in Hollywood. I mean there’s opportunity that’s clearly available, especially on cable television, that there isn’t necessarily in Hollywood as far as funding something [goes]. So, there’s been this inflow that’s very exciting to me and challenging to me also, especially movie directors.</p>
<p>As far as the big name stars that are going on TV [go], I think that’s been happening for a while, because it used to be an area where it was a condescended kind of acting and that had to do with the kinds of shows that were on television. It was something that potentially could destroy somebody’s career because they had stepped down and they had gone from, you know, Hollywood and movies to TV. I just think that distinction doesn’t hold anymore.</p>
<p>But, as exciting as it is to me to see big name directors and big name actors go to television shows, to me it’s important to distinguish between the excitement of status names and the excitement of great, breakthrough and actually original work.</p>
<p>I’m not a huge fan of True Detective, I wrote a critical piece about it – I mean, I think it was a visually exciting and chaotic show, and it does stick with you, but I thought the praise for it was overblown. And, I think part of the reason it happened was because it fit in to all of these categories that people just tend to throw praise at, which are the kind of antihero dramas, big name actors and things like that.</p>
<p>However, I do think that when Jane Campion made Top of The Lake that was a lot more exciting to me. Because, I felt like what she was doing with the format of the experimental procedural by making [it] into something far more visually ambitious, strange, quiet, eerie and poetic than a lot of TV murder mysteries are – to me that was a much more exciting thing that was happening.</p>
<p>So, essentially, I’m just cautious about having a hierarchy in which things that come from Hollywood are better than things that are native to TV. And, similarly, you know this goes with sort of a larger feeling that I have where I really get excited when the conversation expands so that its not all about dark and gritty dramas, but it’s about sitcoms, it’s about all different kinds of TV and how TV is changing. I mean in a lot of ways I’m more interested in comedy than drama. But, it’s harder to talk about why a comedy is great.</p>
<p><strong>LF</strong>: If you think about Top of The Lake and Buffy, one of the things I’m wondering about is there seems to be, certainly in Australia, a lot more shows about women with women-centred characters, way more than there actually [are] I think in Hollywood, and what we’ve noticed in Australia is there are a lot more women creators and they’re creating a lot more interesting roles for women. Do you think there’s more going on in relation to good roles for women?</p>
<p><strong>EN</strong>: Yeah, I think it’s incredibly exciting and it’s not just exciting for, you know, identity politics numbers reasons. It’s exciting because I feel like on TV especially, first of all, there’s such a wide range of creators and good roles that I feel like we’ve finally moved past the point where people are excited about one of them, and then that show or that person has to represent all women. That to me is a terrible situation, where you have one person that are like “look, it’s so-and-so, they’re representing how women can be funny!” I mean it’s just ridiculous because there’s a million different stories to tell.</p>
<p>But, I have to say, the last couple of years have been really explosive in terms of great female characters and great female creators, and in terms of female comedy especially – there’s a wide range of interesting voices on TV.</p>
<p>I think the main thing that’s been really exciting, and this is true for men as well, has been [that] historically there was this problem where all television characters had to be likeable. You had to invite them into your living room every week and, because TV was a mass medium that was very driven by advertising on network television, there was a demand that characters not have off-putting qualities.</p>
<p>That’s changed a lot for both men and women, and for men a little bit earlier, because the change with the great antihero characters like Tony Soprano really broke open that rule. And so, suddenly, you could have characters who acted badly, or made the audience uncomfortable. I feel like there was a second wave of characters that did that for women, and the main thing about it is that it’s completely expanded the rhetoric of what an exciting central female character can be.</p>
<p>Not every character has to be inspiring and somebody who represents women and somebody everyone can identify with. A lot of the shows that did that earlier were really terrific, like Mary Tyler Moore, but it’s a neutralising kind of thing for a woman to always have to be basically a credit to her gender on television.</p>
<p>And also, the other thing that’s exciting to me are shows that have ensembles of women where it’s not just one or two women on the show, but you have a whole range, and you get shows like: Orange is the New Black, Call the Midwife and, I was going to say Orphan Black, but that’s actually one woman, eight times [laughs] so it’s slightly different.</p>
<p>Again, I just think it’s a great moment, because you don’t get that Smurfette problem where you have one woman in a larger ensemble and she’s like “the girl” character. That is a problem in big, mass Hollywood movies and it doesn’t seem to me to be a problem on TV at all. That’s not to say I love every show, but there’s so many different shows on TV that sometimes it’s hard to point out larger trends.</p>
<p>But, I do think there is an exciting improvement in terms of having characters who range from Alicia Florrick on The Good Wife to Amy Jellicoe on Enlightened that are just indelible, memorable, complex characters and great performances.</p>
<p><strong>LF</strong>: I wanted to ask you about bingeing, I know you’re going to talk a bit about it and you just mentioned the idea of television coming into your room, you know, into your house once a week or whatever, and I read one of your columns where you talk about trying to resist the urge to binge The Returned, which I wasn’t able to resist that urge and had to binge the whole lot and I’ve actually found that my entire relationship to television has changed since I became a binger and I just – it’s like I come rushing home and I have to get my fix.</p>
<p>So, I wonder what you think about that kind of phenomena that you know you can buy the whole series, or you know, like you don’t actually have to resist, like is it changing how you know because instead of thinking about it all week you actually have to you get onto the next you don’t know how you can stop it not where the cliffhanger is you can just go in for as much time as you have and so I wonder whether that changes the sort of passionate engagement in how you might like something and then you might after a while change your mind?</p>
<p><strong>EN</strong>: Yeah I think that it’s true, it’s a particularly wonderful thing for shows like, I was talking about Orange is the New Black and a friend of mine pointed out to me that she thought that if Orange is the New Black was something that people watched episodically it might not have caught on the way that it did because it was different enough in terms of its environment and its tone that it’s the kind of thing that if it was weekly people might’ve watched two episodes and been like “yeah, you know I’m not sure it’s for me” whereas when you were able to watch the whole thing in my review I said something about scarfing down the episodes like they were Thin Mints, like they were girl scout cookies, where you just eat the whole thing. </p>
<p>There really is a delicious quality to certain shows and especially, you know, melodrama plots or things that are just very immersive, it’s thrilling to be able to watch them at once. I have mixed feeling about it because, you know, it does take away from the historical thing of people watching shows over long periods of time when everybody’s watching a show at a different point it’s actually hard to critically respond to it. </p>
<p>It’s been a tricky thing for me to figure out, you know, should I talk about the whole season of a show? Should I talk about three quarters of the way through? I got onto Breaking Bad really late in the game, so I actually watched the first three seasons of that show all in one week by myself, which was a wonderful week, it was really great to be able to watch the show that way. And, you know, it was odd because I felt like I was suddenly watching it in a very different way than many people that I knew had watched it, like they’d watched it over years debating the characters, and I was watching it very independently in this kind of giddy wave-state of just ignoring everybody and watching all day long. </p>
<p>It’s interesting to me that there are these new things like Netflix and Amazon, where whole seasons are being produced all at once. I mean, I think it depends on the show whether that’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing. It definitely frees the television creator from having to shift gears halfway through when they realise that the audience is reacting to something. That’s good probably in some cases and not in others. But, it does make me excited that there’s a show, Jill Soloway’s show, Transparent is going to be coming out in September. I really realised with this jolt that the entire season was coming out at once and so I was just looking forward to it in a very different way than realising the show was going to debut in late September because I sort of realised I’m just assigning a day to watch the whole thing.</p>
<p><strong>LF</strong>: In Australia, we don’t get things when you get them and we have to wait a long time. So, often we, like when I watch Breaking Bad I can buy the whole lot in the shop and then I could go and get the next series so I could binge them, and that’s one of the reasons why Australians are actually the greatest pirates in the world because they can’t get what they want, when they want, and they can’t get their fix. And so, that’s something that’s playing out in the media right now. </p>
<p>I wonder whether this changes the kind of fan bases for television? You know, when I went to see the movie of Sex and The City I was a big fan of the show, mainly for the frocks actually and the first part, and I love New York, so I couldn’t get over the hundreds of women all drinking Cosmopolitans and, you know, there’d be a single shot of a shoe stepping out of the car – you know, the Manolo Blahnik shot – and the whole audience would go [gasps] like this, and you know that thing of you watch it then you kind of go into work and then you might or to school or wherever and you might talk to someone about it you know, you might go to your old book club and you might all be talking about it. So, do you think the kind of nature of fandom has changed because of this technology and online and in different ways?</p>
<p><strong>EN</strong>: In some ways yes and in some ways no. I mean, one of the nice things that I think about online conversation is that they happen both immediately and over time so I if you’re in a discussion thread about a show you can write something and then somebody can come back a week later and write a response to you and you end up having ongoing conversations so its not a live audience all watching it at once, but the conversation itself still can be very, you know, immersive, I mean, people have been talking about this with the Netflix shows because the question becomes: “When can I start talking about it and spoiling things, like has everyone caught up?” </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are still some shows in the states that people do still watch live together, one of them is Scandal, which everybody tweets about simultaneously and I have really mixed feelings about live tweeting television shows, I mean TV is not only a dialogue experience, it’s a visual experience, and there’s part of me that feels like it’s disrespectful to be constantly looking down at your phone or tweeting and talking to people during the thing. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a show like Scandal really just begs for that response. It’s a very high octane crazy melodrama and a lot of the fun is responding simultaneously with people as it goes on so, you know, it’s a developing etiquette as far as these things go but my main thing is I just think there are so many ways of being an audience for TV solo or joined together or watching live and in a group together that there’s a level where I don’t think that the intense fanhood has gone away. </p>
<p>I can’t judge exactly how the viewing operates in Australia because I understand from what people are saying that there’s a lot of online pirating but I assume that people still watch it together sometimes for shows like Game of Thrones that have big fanhoods. I’m excited though that there’s more of an opportunity for shows that have small audiences because I think some of the most interesting and striking things happen on shows that will never be like huge fan-engaged, crazy sensations that are the must talk about things. A show like Enlightened, which was a small show and got cancelled after two seasons, but was, to me, one of the best things that’s been on TV in a long time. </p>
<p>The great thing to me is that people can still come to it years later. The Wire also had a relatively small audience until a few seasons in and I’m just grateful that people can become enthusiasts years after the show was actually on the air by watching it on DVD, and then it just becomes part of the cultural knowledge of television. </p>
<p>What I worry about actually is great shows being lost just because they’re not available to people, and honestly, one of them is Sex and The City because the horrible truncated re-runs are shown at least here, there’s these ones that were shown on mainstream TV and so they cut out almost all of the graphic sex and language and it just changes the show into a much blander romantic comedy and I feel like most people don’t have access to the original episodes.</p>
<p>And I have this very frustrated feeling like the younger generation is not growing up with the full knowledge of Sex and the City, the kind of thing that only I am upset about, but I am upset enough for everybody else about this. I feel that there should be public funding for the entire episodes of Sex and the City to be shown so that everybody can discuss them with me 20 years later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa French does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the past decade we have witnessed the rise and rise of long form television – from The Sopranos to The Wire, Game of Thrones to Orange Is the New Black – and no one has been watching this transformation…Lisa French, Deputy Dean, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.