The new primitives: Irishness in recent US Television

Irish Studies Review

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 229-239

  Negra, Diane ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS   (United States)

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EID: 84937335739     PISSN: 09670882     EISSN: 14699303     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09670880120062795     Document Type: Note

References (27)

1. Conway, Eamonn. 1996. 'Shamrogery in America'. Film Ireland, December: 21 /fanuary 1997
2. Berlant, Lauren. 1996. “ 'The Face of America and the State of Emergency' ”. In DisapKnarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies, Edited by: Nelson, Cary, and Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar. 398Routledge.
3. Gitlin, Todd. 1995. The Twilight of Common Dreams: How America is Wracked by Culture Wars, 141Henry Holt. To borrow a phrase used by
4. Alba's. 1990. “ 'The Emergence of the European Americans' ”. In Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America, Yale University Press. As sociologist Richard Alba has shown, the transformative eradication of ethnicity through the twentieth century, its Objective decline', may not prove an accurate index of the subjective importance of ethnic identity in the lives of Americans. See
5. Decker, Jeffrey Louis. 1997. Made in America: Self-styled Success from Horatio Alger to Oprah Winfrey, 107University of Minnesota Press.
6. King, Desmond. 2000. Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy, 263Harvard University Press.
7. Berlant. “ 'The Face of America and the State of Emergency' ”. 417
8. 1993. The Threepenny Review, Summer: 33 In 'Falling Down and the Culture of Complaint", Carol Clover discusses the conversion of white masculinity to the status of a victim category. Clover asks: 'How exactly does one go about carving an interest group out of the default category? The same way other interest groups made themselves: by claiming oppression. In the identity-construction business, victim status is the coin of the realm. The Average White Male's claim is bankruptcy, both fiscal and spiritual'.
9. 1998. Taking it Lute a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture, Princeton University Press. David Savran also discusses the politics of white male victimhood throughout his excellent book
10. Robinson, Sally. 2000. Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis, Columbia University Press. and most particularly in 'The White Male as "Victim" ', pp. 206-210. See also
11. Negra, Diane. 2001. 'Consuming Ireland: Lucky Charms, Irish Spring Soap and 1-800-SHAMROCK'. Cultural Studies, 15 (1) January: 76–97.
12. Pear, Robert. 2000. 'Marketing Tied to Increase in Prescription Drug Sales'. New York Tunes, 20 September: A16 Television and print advertising of prescription medication has exploded in the USA since the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its rules for drug marketing in 1997. For an account of the way that increased marketing has been tied to rising drug sales, see
13. 1999. The Irish Empire, RTÉ. Miller's comments are made in the 'Dreams of Home' episode of the five-part series, directed by Alan Gilsenan, Dearbhla Welsh and David Roberts
14. Williams, Florence. 2000. 'Dublin: Now Fair and Worldly'. New York Times, 12 October: B12 For another representative example of this sort of coverage, see
15. 1999. Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit, 8Princeton University Press. In this way they sustain John Hartigan's point that class 'profoundly shapes how whites identify racially'.
16. Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 1999. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Beauty Pageants and National Identity, 20University of California Press.
17. 2000. 'Simple Sells: Chic Back-to-basics Explosion Carries Hefty Load of Irony*. USA Today, 2-4 June The 'New Simplification' trend spawned two magazine launches in mid-2000, Real Simple and Simpfycity. Brace Horovitz has noted that, 'marketers are tapping into our national craving for all things simple. Our lives have gotten so darned complex. With cellphones. And pagers. And PalmPilots. And autopilots. A recent poll found that nearly one in five Americans say they are seriously seeking alternatives to their hectic daily lives.' See
18. Prime-time dramas such as Walker Texas Ranger (CBS) and Lots & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (ABC) have used Irish terrorist characters in the mid-1990s to generate dramatic conflict. The CBS drama Murder She Wrote set several episodes in a haunted Irish castle, while Touched By An Angel features an Irish character named Monica (Roma Downey) among its stock ensemble. Among the most noteworthy Irish characters on American television in recent years is Doyle (Glenn Quinn) on the WB's drama Angel, a spin-off of the highly successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Doyle displays an innate understanding of mystical matters and can channel visions of endangered people. In this way, the show equates his Irishness with access into realms of intuitive/emotional knowledge lost in contemporary US culture.
19. Hartigan. Racial Situations 192
20. Quinn, David. 2000. 'A recent Bord Faute survey revealed last year that for the first time more tourists enjoyed their stay here because of the scenery rather than the "friendliness of the people" '. Sunday Times, 9 July: 19 As images of Irishness proliferate in US culture, it is useful to consider the implications of such a 'disconnect' for the traditional social contract of tourism in Ireland.
21. Gates, Anita. 2000. 'There's No Place Like Home'. TV Guide, 14-20 October: 16–22. 59
22. Jacoby, Russell. 1999. The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy, xiBasic Books.
23. Garber, Marjorie. 2000. Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses, 176Pantheon.
24. Sherwin, Richard K., 2000. When Lota Goes Pop: The Vanishing Lute between Lota and Popular Culture, 165University of Chicago Press.
25. 1995. In Still Irish: A Century of the Irish in Film, Red Mountain. Kevin Rockett observes that 'the most frequent representations of Irish men in American cinema have been in a small handful of action professions: firemen, policemen, soldiers, priests, politicians, gangsters, sportsmen and entertainers', p. 74
26. Wilson, Christopher P., 2000. Cop Knowledge: Police Power and Cultural Narrative in Twentieth-century America, 216University of Chicago Press.
27. Banet-Weiser. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World 9