Popular Culture Review 30.2 • Summer 2019 Book Review
Religions Across Television Genres : Community , Orange Is the New Black , The Walking Dead , and Supernatural . Valenzano III , Joseph M . and Erika Engstrom . New York : Peter Lang , 2019 . 162 pp .
ISBN : 978-1-4331-5280-1
Reviewed by Jarret Keene University of Nevada , Las Vegas
Communications Studies professors and English academics approach writing about visual pop narratives very differently . The former relish linking communication theories to films in an effort to reveal hidden meaning and manipulation�for instance , applying Uncertainty Reduction theory ( when people rely on the initial interactions that occur before actual communication plays out ) in , say , the Harry Potter franchise . The latter borrow critical terms reserved for genre-literature and apply them to Hollywood releases in an attempt to remove barriers between the so-called “ low ” and “ high ” culture�for example , the male gaze and Pretty Woman . The goal , however , is the same . Indeed , the pop culture-attuned comm scholar and lit-crit pedagogue each argue for the relevancy of entertainment that is adored by the masses and eschewed by serious scholars .
The contrast in assumptions is more pronounced . Communications people operate from the premise that all entertainment is a form of communication and therefore merits study . English folks , meanwhile , categorize pop culture as either reifying inequalities ( of race , class , and gender ) or
257 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.2.11