Introduction : welcome to the neighborhood -- Traditional values : nostalgia and self-reflexivity in visual representations of suburbia -- Back yard fences : the public, the private, and the family in suburban dramas -- Suburban citizenship : defining community through the exclusion of racial and sexual minorities -- Desperate husbands : the crisis of hegemonic masculinity in post-9/11 suburbia -- Protecting the suburban lifestyle : consumption, crime, and the American dream -- Conclusion : there goes the neighborhood
Summary
This book examines contemporary media texts that use American suburbia not just as a setting, but as a central component of narrative and thematic development. It discusses the myth of suburban perfection popularized by postwar sitcoms and advertisements and explores how the directors and producers behind films and television series use the spaces of suburbia to tell stories about America, as well as to critique the conservative ideologies that underpin the suburban American Dream
