Contexts

Today’s tabloids, and their messages, are remarkably similar to the first glossies that appeared in Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” Even the first female film stars were caught between celebration and condemnation as they navigated traditional notions of femininity.

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Pushy parenting is a central theme in Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” but Chinese mothers aren’t the only caregivers well-schooled in the business of concerted cultivation.

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Contradictory views of addiction as both sickness and moral failing have resulted in a broken system in which famous substance users (like their everyday counterparts) are bounced between overcrowded jails, prisons, and rehab centers, all with little expectation of “success.”

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By and large, the recent crop of nanny-tales ignores the realities of childcare workers (and their employers), relying instead on messages of racial and cultural superiority and assurances that money cannot buy happiness.

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Books Reviewed

• My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
• The Nanny Diaries, by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
• You’ll Never Nanny in This Town Again: The True Adventures of a Hollywood Nanny, by Suzanne Hansen

It’s been years since the last episode of The Wire, a crime drama set in Baltimore, Maryland, aired on HBO, but its dedicated fan base, including many social scientists, still continues to grow. Every term, another course in sociology, public health, or media studies is formed around the show, and students form long lines to enroll. Contexts reached out to several illustrious professors (and one eager student) to learn more about the social importance and pedagogical value of this groundbreaking series which examined Baltimore’s drug trade, seaports, government, schools, and media in five critically-acclaimed seasons.

Our Informants

Todd M. Sodano is a professor of communication and journalism at St. John Fisher College. He taught “Inside HBO’s America: A Case Study of The Wire” at Syracuse University, and his research has examined The Wire and the influences of TV critics.

William Julius Wilson is in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he taught “Urban Inequality and The Wire.” His book When Work Disappears has been cited as an inspiration for the show’s second season, and he has a forthcoming article (with Anmol Chadda) in Critical Inquiry tentatively titled “Sociology Looks at The Wire.”

Peter Beilenson is a health officer with Howard County, MD and is in the pub- lic health studies department at Johns Hopkins University, where he taught “Baltimore and The Wire: A Focus on Major Urban Issues.” As Baltimore’s former Health Commissioner, Beilenson is portrayed on The Wire, and he’s now developing a textbook for teaching with the show.

Marc Levine is in the department of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he taught “The Crisis of the American City—Viewed through HBO’s The Wire.” His work focuses on economic change, urban development, and cultural diversity in the North American city.

Eva Smith is a student at Johns Hopkins University. She took Beilenson’s course on The Wire and is now its TA.

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For over half a century, magazines aimed at teens have been teaching girls how to inhabit stereotypical gender roles. Surprisingly, though the celebrities on the covers have changed, the messages have remained the same.

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In their respective books, Alex Jones and Jack Fuller examine what news is, how traditional journalism has been threatened, and how it can sustain its mission in the future. Lee Konstantinou’s novel brings these theories to life, painting a picture of the “mediasphere” in the not-so-distant future.

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Books Reviewed

• What Is Happening to News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism, by Jack Fuller
• Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy, by Alex Jones
• Pop Apocalypse: A Possible Satire, by Lee Konstantinou

Stereotypes and media mischaracterizations prohibit conversations between Muslims and non-Muslims that could otherwise counteract false assumptions.

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Two books offer balanced ideas of how video games deliver messages about empire and militarism, but also allow space for resistance.

• Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games, by Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter.
• Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games, edited by Nina B. Huntemann and Matthew Thomas Payne.

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