Treme’s focus on how its culture and cultural economies are created and presented through music and cuisine has meant a majority of its almost 22 narrative hours watching musicians struggle with bar owners, the recording business, the law and each other.
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"That's What Lovers Do" finds Treme meditating on what New Orleans means not only locally, but also for those who find themselves elsewhere.
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For many in New Orleans there comes a point when we have to answer a difficult question: is living here worth your life or that of your family? Where do you draw the line? What are you willing to risk, to possibly sacrifice, in order to live in such a magical place?
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That night Donald told me that music was a character on Treme. That made some sense to me, having argued in the past that product plugging turned commodities into characters on sitcoms. But that was a criticism. How did it work for the culture of jazz on TV exactly?
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This carnival episode, like last year's, also reminds me of the potential of every Mardi Gras to provide a transcendent collective experience. The heavily cross-cut montage creates a unity across the different stories to create a collective sense.
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The challenge facing Tremé (and every other media representation of New Orleans) is finding a way to balance a celebration of the city’s unique cultural contributions with an acknowledgment of its more conventional, and often more damning, histories, memories, and contemporary realities. Week 6’s episode “Feels Like Rain” responds to this challenge, self-consciously,...
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The producers/writers on Treme are under tremendous pressure: they ache to do right by New Orleans, they have to make a television show that people will continue watching, and they want to tell the truth about the city putting itself back together after the storm.
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Living here in New Orleans, one of the most striking conundrums about this series is that while its heartbeat lies with the culture of Black inhabitants, it seems their larger lives cannot be the focus –perhaps due to its audience of largely white and affluent viewers.
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While season one seemed to chart the resiliency of New Orleans as a place, defined by its people and its culture, season two is digging into localized spaces and demonstrating their continued vulnerability in the wake of the storm.
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The second season shapes up to reconnect the city with the world around it: New Orleaneans are confronted with outsider views of the city as becomes clear in Delmond's argument about New Orleans music with fellow jazz lovers and Janette's conversation with her fellow cooks after reading Alan Richman's devastating review.
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“Wrap your troubles in dreams,” the sign read.
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David Simon's Treme returns this Sunday for its second season. Antenna will be following all of the action with a weekly column on the program to be published each Wednesday.
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