Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure (International Library of the Moving Image)

"In terms of visual impact, television has often been regarded as inferior to cinema. It has been characterised as sound-led and consumed by a distracted audience. Today, it is tempting to see the rise of HD television as ushering in a new era of spectacular television. Yet since its earliest days, the medium has been epitomised by spectacle and offered its viewers diverse forms of visual pleasure. Looking at the early promotion of television and the launch of colour broadcasting, Spectacular Television traces a history of television as spectacular attraction, from its launch to the contemporary age of surround sound, digital effects and HD screens. In focusing on the spectacle of nature, landscape, and even our own bodies on television via explorations of popular television dramas, documentary series and factual entertainment, and ambitious natural history television, Helen Wheatley answers the questions: what is televisual pleasure, and how has television defined its own brand of spectacular aesthetics?"-- Site de l'éditeur In terms of visual impact, television has long been regarded as inferior to cinema. It has been characterised as sound-led, dull to look at and consumed by a distracted audience. Today, it is tempting to see the rise of HD and 3D as ushering in a new era of spectacular television. Yet since its earliest days, the medium has embraced spectacular content. Television has been positioned as a spectacular 'attraction' from the outset. In its early days, it was introduced to audiences in public; today, programmes are viewed on large HD screens at home accompanied by surround sound and special effects. In the 1950s and 1960s, the BBC beamed exotic colonial territories into British homes; more recently, documentaries such as The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet emphasise visual and aural pleasure as central to their mandate of public service. Countering the industry's intense focus on new technologies, Helen Wheatly charts the development of spectacular television across its history. Looking at lifestyle and makeover shows, costume dramas, televised sport, travel shows and ambitious natural history series, Helen Wheatley answers the questions: what is televisual pleasure, and how has television defined its own brand of spectacular aesthetics? At a time when the distinctions between television and cinema seem to be collapsing, this book fundamentally reconsiders what television is, putting questions of visual pleasure at the heart of its analysis. Introduction : What Is Spectacular Television? What Is (tele)visual Pleasure? -- Part I: Spectacular Histories, Spectacular Technologies. Television Comes To Town : The Spectacle Of Television At The Mid-twentieth-century Exhibition And Beyond -- Spectacular Colour? Reconsidering The Launch Of Colour Television In Britain -- Part Ii: Spectacular Landscapes And The Natural World : Exploring Beautiful Television. At Home On Safari : Colonial Spectacle, Domestic Space And 1950s Television -- Visual Pleasure, Natural History Television And Televisual Beauty -- Television's Landscapes, (tele)visual Pleasure And The Imagined Elsewhere -- Part Iii: Spectacular Bodies And (tele)visual Pleasure. Fascinating Bodies : Looking Inside Television's Somatic Spectacle -- The Erotics Of Television -- Conclusion : Sites Of Wonder, Sights Of Wonder. Helen Wheatley. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.