[ID: A purple book cover with a black and white photo in the center. The photo shows two women dressed in pretty dresses from about the 50s (possibly?) and there is a very small, old fashioned television in the background. White text at the top reads “Private Screenings” and then on the side is black writing in pink boxes that reads: “Television and the Female Consumer”. Small white text at the bottom says: “Lynn Spigel and Denise Mann, editors” End ID]
I found Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer edited by Lynn Spigel and Denise Mann in a little free library by my house, and I picked it because I’m really interested in film and television, but I don’t know a lot about the earlier history of it.
Private Screenings is a collection of essays that are about television from about the 1950s to the “present” aka the early 1990′s when this was first published. All the essays connect to gender and how consumerism relates to that as well as television. It’s super interesting. A lot of the earlier essays in the book talk a lot about class, and one or two talk about race and sexuality.
My favorite essays were definitely at the beginning, but that might just be because I read those each in one sitting, and the rest I read spread over a longer period of time which made it harder to remember the details of each essay. What’s also cool about this book is the back section has a list of different sources you can look into if you’re interested in learning more/doing research for your own project. I think that’s super helpful and unique.
