Corresponding to and partially driven by economic and technological convergence in the postnetwork era, American television programming in the past decade has produced a form of ethno-racial convergence in an array of prominent dramatic series such as Boston Public, Lost, Heroes, Grey's Anatomy, and Ugly Betty. Featuring multiracial and multigendered casts, prime-time soap narrative structures, and, most significant, interracial romance, these popular shows are clearly responding to global economic forces, sociocultural changes, and media monitoring pressures. They also have antecedents in the platoon films of World War II and the platoon sitcoms of the 1970s, extending their forebears' capitalist realist tendencies to the point of capitalist surrealism. Offering personal and industrial solutions to the postmodern dissolution of identity and the breakdown in network hegemony, the “neo-platoon” shows present a multicultural and transnational universe in which not only everything is interconnected but also interconnectedness provides the key to salvation.
Barr, T.1993. Stars, light, and finding the way: The emergence of Jewish characters on contemporary television. Studies in Popular Culture15 (2): 87-89.
2.
Basinger, J.1986. The World War II combat film: Anatomy of a genre . New York: Columbia University Press.
3.
Bernstein, D.2007. Cast away. Chicago, August.
4.
Bowlt, J.R.1977. Russian and Soviet painting. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rizzoli.
5.
Braxton, G.1999a. A mad dash to diversityLos Angeles Times, August 9.
6.
---. 1999b. A white, white world on TV's fall schedule. Los Angeles Times, May 28.
7.
---. 2000a. Study finds blacks seen most in comedies, new networks . Los Angeles Times, February 15.
8.
---. 2000b. TV's color and gender lines examined anew. Los Angeles Times, January 12.
9.
---. 2006a. NAACP says TV still lacks color. Los Angeles Times, June 16.
10.
---. 2006b. NAACP's stance on "Survivor."Los Angeles Times, September 13.
11.
---. 2007. The hot button of a casual embrace. Los Angeles Times, February 11.
12.
---. 2008. NAACP gives a stern warning to TV. Los Angeles Times, December 19.
13.
---. 2009. "Reality televison" in more ways than one. Los Angeles Times , February 17.
14.
Brook, V.2003. Something ain't kosher here: The rise of the "Jewish" sitcom. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
15.
Caldwell, J.T.1995. Televisuality: Style, crisis, and authority in American television. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
16.
---. 2004. Convergence television: Aggregating form and repurposing content in the culture of conglomeration. In Television after TV: Essays on a medium in transition, ed. L. Spigel and J. Olsson, 41-74. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
17.
Collins, S.2007. Kiss & make up?Los Angeles Times , February 5.
18.
Erens, P.1984. The Jew in American cinema. Bloomington : University of Indiana Press.
19.
Fernandez, M.E.2008. The TV biz: Conceived abroad, born in the U.S.A . Los Angeles Times, April 20. Feuer, J. , P. Kerr, and T. Vahimagi, eds. 1984. MTM: `Quality television'. London: BFI .
20.
Fiske, J.1989. Reading popular culture. Boston : Unwin Hyman.
21.
Franks, T.2000. One market under God: Extreme capitalism, market populism, and the end of economic democracy. New York: Doubleday.
22.
Gray, H.1995/2004. Watching race: Television and the struggle for blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
23.
Hamamoto, D.Y.1994. Monitored peril: Asian Americans and the politics of TV representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
24.
Henderson, F.2006. Superspade and mammy get a makeover: Race as a floating signifier in "Grey's Anatomy." Unpublished manuscript.
25.
Hills, M.2002. Fan culture. London: Routledge.
26.
Hollinger, D.1995. Postethnic America: Beyond multiculturalism. New York: Basic Books.
27.
Hutchinson, E.O.2006. In defense of "Survivor" segregation. AlterNet, September 13.
28.
Huyssen, A.1984. Mapping the postmodern. New German Critique33 (Fall): 5-22.
29.
Jacobs, L.1967-1968. World War II and the American film. Cinema Journal7 (Winter): 1-21.
30.
Jenkins, H.1992. Textual poachers. New York: Routledge.
31.
Jensen, E.1999. Groups band together to press for diversity campaign . Los Angeles Times, September 11.
32.
Koppes, C.R.1997. Wartime stars, genres, and production trends. In Boom and bust: American cinema in the 1940s, ed. T. Schatz, 203-61. Berkeley: University of California Press.
33.
Lotz, A.D.2007. Textual (im)possibilities in the U.S. post-network era: Negotiating production and promotion processes on Lifetime's Any Day Now. In Television: The critical view, 7th ed., ed. H. Newcomb, 223-44. New York: Oxford University Press.
34.
Lowry, B.1998. Change is on the air. Los Angeles Times , August 30.
35.
MacDonald, J.F.1994. One nation under television: The rise and decline of network TV. Chicago: Nelson-Hall .
36.
Meehan, E.1991. "Holy commodity fetish, Batman!": The political economy of a commercial intertext. In The many lives of Batman , ed. R. Pearson and W. Uricchio, 47-65. New York: Routledge .
37.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.2008. Out of focus-out of sync take 4: A report on the television industry. http://www.naacp.org/news/press/2008-12-18/NAACP_OFOS_Take4.pdf
38.
Oldenberg, A.2005. Love is no longer color-coded on TV. USA Today, December 20. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-12-20-interracial-couples_x.htm .
39.
Oren, T. G., and P. Petro, eds. 2004. Global currents: Media technology now. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
40.
Parks, L., and S. Kumar, eds. 2003. Planet TV: A global television reader. New York: New York University Press.
41.
Schudson, M.1984. Advertising, the uneasy persuasion: Its dubious impact onAmerican society. New York: Basic Books.
42.
Spigel, L., and J. Olsson , eds. 2004. Television after TV: Essays on a medium in transition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
---. 1975b. Television's interchangeable ethnics: "Funny, they don't look Jewish." Television Quarterly12 (4): 49-56.
45.
Torres, S, ed. 1998. Living color: Race and television in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
46.
Zimmermann, S.2006. Jungle fever: A harmless reality-TV race gimmick . TNR Online, September 14.
47.
Zook, K.B.2003. The Fox Network and the revolution in black television . In Gender, race, and class in media: A text reader, 2nd ed., ed. G. Dines and J. M. Humez, 586-96. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
48.
---. 2008. I see black people: The rise and fall of African American-owned television and radio. New York: Nation Books.
49.
Zynda, T.H.1988. The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the transformation of situation comedy. In Media myths and narratives: Television and the press , ed. J. W. Carey, 126-45. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
