Gitlin & Superman, Core Response 1/5

Petrus writes that she was “struck…reading… Todd Gitlin’s contemplations of the upholding of ideological hegemony in television.” Prior to reading Gitlin, I had never defined genre as a “popular mood” and I found the Superman franchise example to be especially interesting (257). Gitlin surveys the evolution of this specific superhero as a form of social conscience. I graduated from Bowdoin College with an Art history Major and so reading how the later Marvel Comic renditions of Superman may have been influenced by “Pop and minimal art” was especially interesting to me: In the sixties and seventies, individuals were learning to not take themselves too seriously which meant Superman’s character should do the same (258). Put simply, though genres are formulaic, the changes in the formula often are reflection of what is considered fashionable for audiences (258). And the producers in charge of identifying these trends complicates the issue.

On an entirely separate note, I also found it interesting to learn that producers in the 50s were willing to show more “risky” material on a TV movie than a weekly airing show (261).