Moving outside the text

Hello All. I enjoyed these first blog posts about Westworld and think they thoughtfully called attention to a variety of things going on in Westworld. I think it would be interesting to think about how those very same points might help move us outside the text as well. What does Westworld, both the "amusement" park and the HBO television show, tell us about the media? about television? about what might be going on outside Westworld--both outside the theme park and outside the context of HBO where we are watching it. I think one of our challenges over the course of the semester as we watch and comment on Westworld is going to be moving beyond commenting on what's happening on the screen and thinking more deeply about what this might have to say (or maybe not say) about television. As you continue to watch and think about and comment on Westworld, think about how we might use some of the resources from our class readings and discussions to dissect the show. How might we bring in the televisual sublime? TV Studies 1.0 or 2.0? The role of visual style?

I find Uricchio's comments on television's intermedia character interesting in this regard. Uricchio suggests that television ought to be positioned along side the telegraph, telephone, and telescope as emphasizing liveness and simultaneity. I wonder to what extent we might think of Westworld as the logical extension of the historical development of media--ever more immersive, ever more live, ever more simultaneous. Entering Westworld might be something like entering Pleasantville.

In this regard, is Westworld serving to comment on the nature of television? In entering Westworld, are we entering the wild west, or at least our televisual mythic wild west? After all, hasn't television played an inordinately large role in shaping our myth of the wild frontier? And isn't Westworld (both the theme park as well as the TV show) just the epitome of that myth? The gamification and glorification of Gunsmoke and Bonanza--some of the longest running TV shows in the history of TV. Here too there might be an interesting connection to Uricchio's emphasis on temporality as a dimension of analyzing television. Westworld both nods backwards in the direction of TV's past (Bonanza) and forward to its eventual immersive live experience (Bonanza with Little Joe making out with robots).

I think we might also deepen our reflections on Westworld by pursuing suggestive connections in our post. For instance, how might we draw on AJ's recognition that the player piano is playing the Stones' "Paint it Black" as commentary on the misogyny that Leo notes? The nice thing about a blog is that it allows an asynchronous conversation to take place. So think about how your own posts might link up to and extend conversations that are happening in other posts.