Synopses & Reviews
Passengers disco dancing in
The Love Boatandrsquo;s Acapulco Lounge. A young girl walking by a marquee advertising
Deep Throat in the made-for-TV movie
Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway. A frustrated housewife borrowing
Orgasm and You from her local library in
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Commercial television of the 1970s was awash with references to sex. In the wake of the sexual revolution and the womenandrsquo;s liberation and gay rights movements, significant changes were rippling through American culture. In representingandmdash;or not representingandmdash;those changes, broadcast television provided a crucial forum through which Americans alternately accepted and contested momentous shifts in sexual mores, identities, and practices.
Wallowing in Sex is a lively analysis of the key role of commercial television in the new sexual culture of the 1970s. Elana Levine explores sex-themed made-for-TV movies; female sex symbols such as the stars of Charlieandrsquo;s Angels and Wonder Woman; the innuendo-driven humor of variety shows (The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Laugh-In), sitcoms (M*A*S*H, Threeandrsquo;s Company), and game shows (Match Game); and the proliferation of rape plots in daytime soap operas. She also uncovers those sexual topics that were barred from the airwaves. Along with program content, Levine examines the economic motivations of the television industry, the television production process, regulation by the government and the tv industry, and audience responses. She demonstrates that the new sexual culture of 1970s television was a product of negotiation between producers, executives, advertisers, censors, audiences, performers, activists, and many others. Ultimately, 1970s television legitimized some of the sexual revolutionandrsquo;s most significant gains while minimizing its more radical impulses.
Review
andldquo;Wallowing in Sex is a groundbreaking and important examination of televisionandrsquo;s significant role in the increasingly sexualized culture of the 1970s. Painstakingly researched and smartly written, it is a crucial addition to the field of television history and, more generally, to the history of popular culture of the recent past. And if you grew up with 1970s television, Wallowing in Sex will make you look at the programming of the era in a thoroughly new light.andrdquo;andmdash;Aniko Bodroghkozy, author of Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion
Review
andldquo;Wallowing in Sex is important work: it pushes us to understand the institutional terrain of 1970s American television in the context of the sexual revolution and emergent feminist and gay liberation movements in a manner that no other scholarly work has done before.andrdquo;andmdash;Tim J. Anderson, author of Making Easy Listening: Material Culture and Postwar American Recording
Review
andldquo;Wallowing in Sex is an excellent contribution to the fields of television studies, gender studies, and popular culture. Levineandrsquo;s blend of textual, historical, and industrial analysis paints a thorough picture of andlsquo;the new sexual culture of 1970s America,andrsquo; making it a necessary text for any and all students of the decade. Moreover, her extremely thorough coverage of all aspects of 1970s television, and its peculiar obsession with female sexuality make an important intersection between feminist theory and broadcast history. In this vein, Wallowing in Sex is on par with such germinal texts as Lynn Spigelandrsquo;s Make Room for TV and Julie Dandrsquo;Acciandrsquo;s Defining Women, making it an important and exciting addition to the canon of feminist media studies.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Levine makes a substantial contribution to television scholarship . . . . This is a significant book that television scholars, in particular those with an interest in feminism, cannot afford to overlook.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Levineandrsquo;s book successfully reexamines televised representations of sexuality during a watershed decade of American culture marked by the rise of the feminist and gay movements. . . . Written in a straightforward and clear manner, [Levine] passionately guides the reader through the different issues and ambivalences that televised sexuality encountered during the 1970s. . . . Levineandrsquo;s work should be appreciated not only as an historical overview of screened sexualities, but also as a critical inquiry into a-historical processes of regulation, prohibition and shame which are affecting what can and cannot be displayed on screen.andrdquo;
Synopsis
A cultural history of sexual content in television shows and TV advertising during the 1970s.
About the Author
Elana Levine is Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsinandndash;Milwaukee.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introdution 1
1. KIDDIE PORN VERSUS ADULT PORN
Inter-Network Competition 17
2. NOT IN MY LIVING ROOM
TV Sex That Wasnandrsquo;t 46
3. THE SEX THREAT
Regulating and Representing Sexually Endangered Youth 76
4. SYMBOLS OF SEX
Televisionandrsquo;s Women and Sexual Difference 123
5. SEX WITH A LAUGH TRACK
Sexuality and Television Humor 169
6. FROM ROMANCE TO RAPE
Sex, Violence, and Soap Operas 208
CONCLUSION 253
NOTES 261
BIBLIOGRAPHY 299
INDEX 309