Title: From Handheld to HD: Aesthetics, Identity, and Legibility in Reality TV

Description: Discussion of reality television has largely focused on narrative and characters. Particularly in matters of race, gender, and class, an emphasis on storylines – what happens and how – has seemingly made the most sense. While narrative analyses (including discussions about stereotypes and character tropes and how they function) are undoubtedly important, questions about style, form, and major historical developments have been underexplored when it comes to the “trashy” genre of reality television. In this talk, Gates examines shows like Mob Wives, Love & Hip Hop, and others to argue that an emphasis on style provides new insights into how race, gender, and sexuality function on reality tv, and in film and media more broadly.

Bio: RacquelGates is an Associate Professor of Film and Media at Columbia University. Her research focuses on blackness and popular culture, with special attention to discourses of taste and quality. She is the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke, 2018), and is currently working on her second book, titled Hollywood Style and the Invention of Blackness. In 2020, she was named an Academy Film Scholar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

This event series is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality Studies; the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; the Department of Cinema and Media Studies; the Department of English; the Franke Institute for the Humanities; and the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture.