HBO's Original Voices

This book constitutes the first major exploration of HBO's current programming, examined in the context of the transformation of American television and global society. With studies of well-known shows such as Game of Thrones, Girls, Insecure, Looking, Silicon Valley, The Comeback, The Leftovers, True Detective and Veep and Vinyl, the authors examine the trends in current programming, including the rise of queer characters, era-defining comedy, reinvented fantasy series, and the content's new awareness of gender, sexuality and family dysfunction.

Interdisciplinary and international in scope, HBO's New and Original Voices explores the sociocultural and political role and impact that HBO's current programmes have held and the ways in which it has translated and reinterpreted social discourses into its own televisual language. A significant intervention in television studies, media studies and cultural studies, this book illuminates the emergence of a new era of culturally relevant television that fans, students, and researchers will find lively, accessible and fascinating.

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

Introduction (Giuliana Monteverde and Victoria McCollum)

Part I: Authorship, Gender, Reception

1. Our Bodies, Our Self(ies): Mediating and Mitigating Social Media and Selfveillance in Girls (Hannah Bonner)

2. The Rise and Fall of the HBO Empire: Vinyl and the Gender of TV Legitimation (Stéfany Boisvert)

3. Queer Fantasies, Queer Echoes: The Post-Closet World of Looking (Nicholas Manganas)

4. Feminism, "Dick" Jokes, & (Re)Defining Masculinity: Satirising the Tech World in Silicon Valley (Amy Mackelden)

Part II: Race, Place, Power, Risk

5. The Personal and Political: Exploring Comedic Masculinity and Femininity in Veep (Carrie Hou, Nathan Stewart and Elena Chabbi)

6. Race and Place in Black and White: The False Dichotomy in True Detective (Jessica Maucione)

7. Praising, Erasing, Replacing and Race-ing Girls - Intersectional Online Critiques and the Ascent of Insecure (Francesca Sobande)

8. Forced Devotion vs. Acceptable Doubt: The Leftovers as a Paradigm Shift for Religion in Popular Culture (Kristen Donnelly)

Part III: Consumption, Criticism, Fandom

9. HBO's Hall of Mirrors: The Comeback as Meta-Commentary on Television and Celebrity Culture (Jennifer O'Meara)

10. Marnie is the Worst: Antipathetic Characters in Contemporary HBO Programs (Oliver Kroener)

11. The Last-night's Watch Game of Thrones, Contemporary Recap Culture, and HBO's Continuing Legacy (Andrew Lynch)

12. Tone Deaf? : Game of Thrones, Showrunners and Criticism (Shiloh Carroll)

Index