Television And The Red Menace

In America, lipstick is the foundation of empires; it’s a signature of identity; it’s propaganda, self-expression, oppression, freedom, and rebellion. It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry and one of our most iconic accessories of gender. This engaging and entertaining history of lipstick from the colonies to the present will give readers a new view of the little tube’s big place in modern America from defining the middle class to building Fortune 500 businesses to being present at Stonewall and being engineered for space travel. Lipstick has served as both a witness and a catalyst to history; it went to war with women, it gave women of color previously unheard-of business opportunities, and was part of the development of celebrity and mass media. In the Twentieth Century alone, lipstick evolved from a beauty secret for a select few to a required essential for well turned-out women but also a mark of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion and a political statement. How has this mainstay of the makeup kit remained relevant for over a century? Beauty journalist Ilise S. Carter suggests that it’s because the simple lipstick says a lot. From the provocative allure of a classic red lip to the powerful statement of drag, the American love affair with lipstick is linked to every aspect of our experience of gender, from venturing into the working world or running for the presidency. TheRed Menace will capture all of those dimensions, with a dishy dose of fabulosity that makes it a must-read for lipstick’s fiercest disciples, its harshest critics, and everyone in between.

Tracing the mayhem caused by a handful of anti-Communist watchdogs who in 1950 created the blacklist in radio and TV, David Everitt makes clear that the conflict over free speech was not a simplistic morality tale of persecutors and the persecuted, as routinely portrayed. The blacklisters, though excessive and destructive, were not deluded hunters of an imaginary menace. A Shadow of Red is a cautionary tale about civil liberties in a time of emergency, and a vivid example of the polarized political battle over who controls the media, a battle that continues to this day.

How US government and media collaborated in their dissemination of Cold War propaganda.

"Red Scared! offers valuable lessons from the vault on how to identify Communists, media reports on the jolly side of Stalin, guidelines for bomb shelter chic, and much more. As they did in their other lively pop-culture histories, Teenage Confidential and Wedding Bell Blues, Michael Barson and Steven Heller once again bring the nearly forgotten details of American culture into full relief with Red Scared!"--BOOK JACKET.

La couverture indique : "Alan Nadel's new book reminds us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences. Television did not invent whiteness for America, but it did reinforce it as the norm - particularly during the Cold War years. Nadel now shows just how instrumental it was in constructing a narrow, conservative, and very white vision of America." "During this era, prime-time TV was dominated by "adult Westerns," with heroes like The Rebel's Johnny Yuma reincarnating Southern values and Bonanza's Cartwright family reinforcing the notion of white patriarchy - programs that, Nadel shows, bristled with Cold War messages even as they spoke to the nation's mythology. America had become visually reconfigured as a vast Ponderosa, crisscrossed by concrete highways designed to carry suburban white drivers beyond the moral challenge of racism, racial poverty, and increasingly vocal civil rights demands."

"A new interpretation of the l965 Broadway musical"--Cover, p. 3.