Movie stars, entertainers, game-show hosts, jugglers, plate-spinners, gospel choirs, corporate executives posing with over-sized checks, household name-brand products, smiling children in leg braces-all were fixtures of the phenomenon that defined American culture in the second half of the twentieth century: the telethon. Hundreds of millions watched these weekend-long variety shows that raised billions of dollars for disability-related charities. Drawing on over two decades of in-depth research, Telethons trenchantly explores the complexity underneath the campy spectacles. At its center are the disabled children, who, thanks to a particular kind of historical-cultural marginalization, turned out to be ideal tools for promoting corporate interests, privatized healthcare, and class status. Offering a public message about helping these unfortunate victims, telethons perpetuated a misleading image of people with disabilities as helpless, passive, apolitical members of American society. Paul K. Longmore's revelatory chronicle shows how these images in fact helped major corporations increase their bottom lines, while filling gaps in the strange public-private hybrid U.S. health insurance system. Only once disabled people pushed back in public protests did the broader implications for all Americans become clear. Mining insights from great thinkers such as Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Alexis de Tocqueville, along with contemporary cultural figures like Jerry Lewis, Ralph Nader, and several disability rights activists, Telethons offers a provocative meditation on big business, American government, popular culture, Cold War values, and "activism" both narrowly and broadly defined. As highly popular entertainment, telethons schooled Americans about how to feel about their bodies, fitness, health, and appropriate ways to interact with people whose bodies did not fit norms determined by advertisers. The programs also taught them about when to weep and how to cure guilt through "conspicuous contribution." Longmore's astute observations about psychology, economics, and society reveal how writing off telethons as kitsch and irrelevant has enabled many individual attitudes, corporate practices, and government policies to go unquestioned. Ultimately, Telethons reveals the passion, humanity, resistance, and triumph that were not center-stage on these popular telecasts by offering insights into the U.S. disability movement past and present.
Polyester the Musical is the story of The Synchronistics, an over-the-hill ABBA wannabe group that re-unites after 20 years to perform at a public access TV telethon.
HoustonPBS 50th Anniversary Gala Honoring the Legacy of Hugh Roy Cullen Join us as we celebrate 50 years of excellence in broadcasting , while we β Set the Stage β for the future of HoustonPBS / Channel 8 !
1945 ; pressbook accompanying release of Pride of the Marines ) ; Suid , Guts and Glory , 72-3,92 , Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black , Hollywood Goes ...
In August 1953 , Chester Bowles , former governor of Connecticut , wrote to Stevenson suggesting the need for a more vocal opposition to the Eisenhower administration . Later that month Stevenson responded favorably to the idea and ...
... writer) 1982 The Merry Wives of Windsor 1983 An Englishman Abroad (writer) 1986 The Insurance Man (writer) 1986 Breaking Up 1986 Man and Music (narrator) 1987 Talking Heads ("A Chip in the Sugar," "Bed Among the Lentils," "A Lady of ...
... telethons is soliciting financial pledges from the viewing audience. The earliest telethon was hosted by comedian Milton Berle in 1949 for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Since that time, telethons became a tried-and-true ...
The third edition of Disability remains an indispensable tool for human service practitioners in understanding disability from an empowerment perspective.
Collects over one thousand entries that provide insight into international views, experiences, and expertise on the topic of disability.
This volume includes the full proceedings from the 1982 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This work peels back the curtain on how political campaigns influence America, covering everything from social media to getting to the Oval Office.