Perspectives

As we reinvent our lives through gamification, we have to ask ourselves what it means to be alive.
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A few concerns about open access, and especially about the predatory journals that swim in them.
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The new findings on player concussions have caused an onslaught of negative media attention for the NFL, and may soon bring the sport of professional football to a crucial crossroads.
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Comedy Central's new sketch comedy program Kroll Show offers an infinite regression of media industry meta-discourses, recreating a dominant reading position that masquerades as oppositional.
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A year of misogyny in geek culture resurrected the booth babe debate that has contributed to a backlash against female fandom.
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NBC's new First Family sitcom, 1600 Penn, is surprisingly devoid of conventional political engagement, instead relying on traditional domestic comedy in the form of interpersonal conflict.
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As audiences migrate away from live TV viewing and advertisers become increasingly concerned about how to get their messages out, series like "Escape My Life," which invite viewers to engage more directly and deeply with a brand (while being entertained!), might just be the wave of the future.
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A few months ago I examined the re-launched Real Housewives of Miami(RHOM) series, part of Bravo’s immensely popular Real Housewives franchise, in another Antenna post.  Now that the season has officially ended with the airing of the second part of the cast’s explosive reunion special, I would like to return to this text once...
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It has been a really hard fall for a feminist TV lover. Problems abound with both the character of Julia Braverman-Graham of Parenthood, and Mindy Kaling's character on her new show, The Mindy Project. But nothing–nothing–has exceeded my disappointment more than the transformation of Up All Night.
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If the development of a symbiotic relationship between actors and products in reality television is the casting director’s responsibility, then who is excluded by Absolut Vodka’s sponsorship of RuPaul's Drag Race?
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Django Unchained functions as a product of post-race logic that paradoxically deals with a culturally specific thematic--slavery--while making the central storyline so universal slavery functions as a terribly horrific backdrop for a love story.
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Flipping through the post-Christmas sales, I'm reminded of how the TV show on DVD has become an ubiquitous part of our culture. But it's those series or seasons of shows that are not for sale that tell a narrative of what's worthy of archiving within our popular culture and collective memory.
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Rudolph was created when gayness as identity was rarely represented on screens, instead shunned off into the shadowy world of coded meanings waiting to be activated by knowing readers or “appearing” as semiotic excess waiting to be queered through the practice of camp.
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As the Canadian Museum of Civilization transforms into the Canadian Museum of History, it seems that meaningful conversations about historical issues that are actually formative of Canadian culture are less compelling than the $25 million incentive that comes with the tunnel vision of the Ministry of Heritage.
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Canada’s sesquicentennial is eagerly anticipated by Canada’s Conservative government, which is planning a series of commemorative events. The trouble is, these events are contrived to commemorate the Conservative government far more than the nation’s glorious (or inglorious) pasts.
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