Research Catalog

Title

The Americans / Linda Mizejewski.

Author

Mizejewski, Linda

Publication

• Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2022]
• ©2022

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 113 pages : illustrations (black and white); 18 cm.

Summary

"Based on the actual KGB strategy of planting "illegals" into American life during the Cold War, The Americans (FX 2013-2018) focuses on Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Kerri Russell), Soviet spies posing as middlebrow travel agents in the Virginia suburbs. Groundbreaking and unsettling, The Americans spins its stories of espionage, violence, and politics around narratives of marriage, romance, bromance, and family. Exploring the series' bold merger of the spy genre and domestic melodrama, author Linda Mizejewski focuses on the characters and relationships that made this series memorable: the extraordinary women who defy the femme fatale stereotype of the spy genre, the conflicted men, and perhaps most shockingly, the children who are both victims and provocateurs. Do viewers of this Cold War thriller root for "the good guys"-the American agents in pursuit of the Jennings-or for the Jennings themselves, the attractive couple whose personal stories compel us even as they plot the takedown of the United States? Mizejewski argues for the importance of The Americans' portrayal of 1980s suburban life as a microcosm of the moral complexities of citizenship and national identity. Drawing on television studies and feminist media theory, this book examines the series' seamless loop of espionage violence and family melodrama, as well as its savvy uses of 1980s pop culture and music. Far from invoking nostalgia, the replication of the 1980s "look" invokes uncertainties about how, exactly, we should see Reagan's America and the Cold War. Yet the appeal of this series rests on solid footing in the Americanism it both critiques and espouses. Mizejewski examines The Americans' struggles with this ambiguity and with the contradictions of identity, gender, marriage, and the meanings of home."--Amazon.

Series Statement

TV milestones

Uniform Title

Contemporary approaches to film and television series. TV milestones.

Subject

• Americans (Television program : 2013-2018)
• Television programs > United States
• Television series > United States
• Spy television programs > United States
• Families on television
• Spy television programs
• Television programs
• Television series
• United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 103-108) and index.

Contents

Wigs, sex, and women's work -- Marriage and bromance -- Family TV.

Call Number

MWGT 22-3867

ISBN

• 9780814347430
• 0814347436

OCLC

1308956397

Author

Mizejewski, Linda, author.

Title

The Americans / Linda Mizejewski.

Publisher

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2022]

Copyright Date

©2022

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

TV milestones

Contemporary approaches to film and television series. TV milestones.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 103-108) and index.

Research Call Number

MWGT 22-3867