Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die for (Reading Contemporary Television)
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Book Summary Information
Editor: Kim AkassEditor: Janet McCabe
Foreword: Mark Lawson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-06-04
ISBN: 1850438099
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: I. B. Tauris
Book Reviews of Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die for (Reading Contemporary Television)
Book Review: The Ideal Companion for the HBO Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Academic in nature, this is perhaps the best and only place to start examining Alan Ball's monumental series, Six Feet Under. I read this book in a day, wishing and praying there will be further media studies written about this breakthrough in television. Simply put, this tome is not for everybody, a work probably more at home on a university student's bookshelf.
While there are many films that may merit criticism and further reading, I would be hard-pressed to name a handful of television shows worth examining. What makes the series so fascinating and alluring is not only its near cinematic approach to capturing the daily lives of funeral directors in southern California, but its ability to go beyond television and go beyond film to discuss topics routinely ignored in mainstream movie theatres and on network television. Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For provides the commentary those of us who love the many intellectual/psychological/philosophical/spiritual layers the series possesses.
From the first few essays, we begin to understand why Six Feet Under went beyond other series - death, as Mark Lawson writes in the foreword, is the last taboo. The dead body is on the table in the show, the momento mori is there in front of us. Watching each episode we are in the threshold space (or liminal as Rob Turnock describes it in his essay, 'Death, liminality and transformation in Six Feet Under)from the moment the death occurs to the funeral/burial by the last scene.
But the contributors here offer more than an examination of death. They look at mainstream America's love affair with self-help, its difficulties with pornography, homosexuality and feminism. We read about teenage angst, the identity crisis faced by both Brenda and Claire as well Ruth's matriarchal role. The book closes with a touching, human essay on death by famed Funeral Director/Poet, Thomas Lynch whose books Alan Ball had his actors read before beginning the series.
Since finishing this book, I am hard pressed to find something else that will nourish my unquenchable curiosity concerning this brilliant t.v. series. Six Feet Under deserves to be studied and hopefully one of the essayists in this book will take the time to write a full-length critique. My only criticism (minor though) is that book was written and published before the fifth and last season. Hopefully a revision is in the making that will allow the writers an opportunity to re-examine and bring closure to the numerous topics they have tackled.
Summary of Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die for (Reading Contemporary Television)
Praised for its unabashed portrait of the "death care" industry, HBO's Six Feet Under is less about the business of death than the art of living well. Created by the Oscar winner Alan Ball (American Beauty), this innovative, controversial show charts difficult territory--from death, dying and bereavement, to female and gay sexualities, to family obligation and relationships--laying bare in the process an American cultural consciousness. This book examines such predominant themes as the dead body, magic realism and the grotesque, American cultural politics, family relationships, homosexuality, motherhood and more. A complete episode guide to the first four seasons is included.
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