Jeremy G. Butler is Professor of Telecommunication and Film at the University of Alabama. He has taught television, movie, and new media courses since 1980 and is active in online educational resources for television and movie studies.
What TV shows do you watch?
Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, Modern Family, The Office, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Mad Men (when it's not on hiatus), America's Funniest Home Videos (a guilty pleasure I admitted to in an In Media Res piece titled, "Guts Don’t Come Cheap in the Cinématheque, Pal"), Damages (although the most recent season was a bit of a disappointment), Misfits. Yep, a lot of sitcoms. Their recent resurgence in shows like Happy Endings, The New Girl, and The Big Bang Theory has threatened to overload my DVR.
What do you think is the most cutting-edge TV show airing today?
It's hard for any show to be consistently "cutting-edge." And that edge invariably dulls over time. The Simpsons was brilliantly subversive when it began, but two decades of programs later it is only occasionally so. AMC's The Killing's first episodes reworked TV narrative in intriguing ways, but it stalled out before the first season ended.
So, I guess my point is that innovation is quickly co-opted on television. That said, I still find Mad Men can surprise me, even after four seasons.
What was your favorite TV show growing up?
A locally produced kids program called The Wallace and Ladmo Show. It only aired in Phoenix, despite a brief flirtation with syndication, and was on for some 36 years. It included a lot of the crappy, low-budget cartoons that were common in after-school kids shows, but it also took great glee in deconstructing the kids-show format itself. There were characters on it that parodied superheroes, clowns and cowboy heroes. And many of the jokes and gags were aimed at adults who tuned in. Looking back on it, I'd have to say that it introduced me to a postmodern aesthetic. And was hilarious.
How did you get interested in TV studies?
I was trained in movie studies--with a BA, MA and PhD in that area. One of my early research interests was movie melodrama, which soon led me to investigate its close relation, the television soap opera. From there I grew more interested in how television could disrupt conventional narrative and non-narrative forms.
What inspired you to write textbooks?
I began teaching television studies in the late 1980s and was constantly frustrated with the lack of textbooks in that area at that time. I frequently had to teach out of readers that I would assemble for my students. In 1992, I decided to write my own and I modeled it on the best introduction to movie studies, in my opinion: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art. My immodest goal was to create the equivalent of Film Art for television studies.
Do you ever “bring work home” and try to teach your family about the TV shows they watch?
I do, but only when I think it'll enrich their experience of programs they already like. My own taste can be quirky and inexplicable and so I would never criticize my wife's or my 8-year-old son's television pleasures--even though, in the case of the latter, I can't say I share my son's enthusiasm for Thomas the Tank Engine.
What is your most memorable academic experience?
One time I was unexpectedly forced to spend the night in Chicago, due to a canceled plane flight. I decided to go to Evanston and visit Northwestern University, where I'd gotten my PhD. My plan was to surprise some of my old professors there. Chuck Kleinhans wasn't in his office and so I went to the classroom in which he was teaching. When I entered the room, the lights were out and he was showing a TV clip. So, I sat down in the corner. When the lights came on, he saw me there, started to laugh, and said to the class, "Well, if you have any comments about the textbook we're using, here's its author, Jeremy Butler!"
Series: Routledge Communication Series
For nearly two decades, Television: Critical Methods and Applications has served as the foremost guide to television studies. Designed for the television studies course in communication and media studies curricula, Television explains in depth how television programs and commercials are made and...
Published November 16th 2011 by Routledge
Style matters. Television relies on style—setting, lighting, videography, editing, and so on—to set moods, hail viewers, construct meanings, build narratives, sell products, and shape information. Yet, to date, style has been the most understudied aspect of the medium. In this book, Jeremy G....
Published December 16th 2009 by Routledge
