As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s

Marling merges era icons, fads, and seminal events more seamlessly into social statement than Halberstam did or Kammen attempted. Her understanding of cars evolving into social statements segues best into the image of Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll" for whom the "gorp"-covered Cadillac was chariot of choice. (she also credits Martin and Lewis with exposing the entertainment's dual sensibilities during early TV).

Marling also writes of home convenience from new appliances and quick dinners colliding with the rustic, more honorable life many felt had been replaced. This clash inspired and popularized Grandma Moses' idealized portraits of American country life, Walt Disney's scale model re-creation of small-town America at Disneyland (and on the accompanying TV program), and Betty Crocker's shorthand version of motherly mentoring through General Mills' best-selling cookbook. Marling's chapter on Walt Disney's inspirations for creating the park is among the book's most fascinating. But a chapter on "American Bandstand," should Marling have chosen to include it, may have tied even more loose ends together.

The book may also have done with some re-arrangement; the closing chapter accurately and humorously chronicles the 1959 Richard Nixon-Nikita Krushchev "kitchen debate." But its tale of form of function, argued by its most important leaders at the peak of Cold War hysteria, may have been more effective introducing Marling's tale. The book may then have received more social context by stating sooner Nixon's belief, according to Marling, in "style as a manifestation or a symbol of difference and, in difference, multiplicity - the possibility of choice - as...connecting idle consumer fetishism to ideology." This would also have more closely tied the 1950s' garish color imagery with its parallel, grainier black-and-white images (Nixon, the Cold War, and Joe McCarthy, a standout 50s figure seen on TV but not in this book.) Nonetheless, "As Seen On TV" is a fun, informative read for those wishing to understand the reasoning behind an era's unforgettable images.


Visual and narrative time capsule   August 9, 2008
The Ginger Man
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Brief, entertaining and containing some excellent period photos, this book is also literate and insightful. 1950's cultural and social history is examined through the prism of the exploding medium of television. The author describes how the increased free time available to American families resulting from improved productivity is employed. A major focus is on changing roles in the family. The term "togetherness" is coined for the family by McCalls magazine in 1954. Marling says, "It legitimated the new postwar suburban family - affluent, isolated, reared on a bland diet of TV and TV dinners - by stressing the compensatory benefits of a greater parental role in the household."

The post war era is also marked by mass consumption (three quarters of all appliances produced on earth are bought in the US), new icons ("Disney motifs constituted...a kind of civic religion of happy endings, worry free consumption, technological optomism and nostalgia") and conformity ("Now people no longer have any opinions; they have refrigerators") according to the author.

Above all is the author's thesis that the way things look counts for a great deal.

As Seen on TV provides a unique perspective on the visual fifties. The reader can see the genesis of modern developments such as Disney's domination of family entertainment and New Age parenting. At the same time, largely forgotten figures such as Mamie Eisenhauer are dusted off and submitted for reconsideration. The author has strong opinions but is not overly forceful in their expression. The book becomes a guided tour with commentry rather than heated polemic and, as a result, is entertaining while illuminating.