With the debut of Deadwood on HBO, a vision of the “Old West” emerged that was unlike anything done before on TV. David Milch, also the creator of NYPD Blue, imbued the series with his signature use of harsh language, complex storylines, and shocking acts of violence. The characters he created redefined the hackneyed stereotypes of the Western genre, from the harassed but defiant "Chinaman," Mr. Wu, to the murderous, ferociously funny Al Swearengen, to the whiskey-drinking Calamity Jane who's only too happy to help her friend run the new brothel in town. Reading Deadwood offers an entertaining and eye-opening look into everything from the use of profanity, the characters, and the way the show bends the genre, to subjects like prostitution, race, and the making of American civil society. Complete with episode and character guides, no fan of Deadwood--and no one interested in Westerns--should be without this book.
With the debut of Deadwood on HBO, a vision of the “Old West” emerged that was unlike anything done before on TV. David Milch, also the creator of NYPD Blue, imbued the series with his signature use of harsh language, complex storylines, and shocking acts of violence. The characters he created redefined the hackneyed stereotypes of the Western genre, from the harassed but defiant "Chinaman," Mr. Wu, to the murderous, ferociously funny Al Swearengen, to the whiskey-drinking Calamity Jane who's only too happy to help her friend run the new brothel in town. Reading Deadwood offers an entertaining and eye-opening look into everything from the use of profanity, the characters, and the way the show bends the genre, to subjects like prostitution, race, and the making of American civil society. Complete with episode and character guides, no fan of Deadwood--and no one interested in Westerns--should be without this book.
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Apart from its brilliance as television, it's amazing what "Deadwood" gets away with. This acclaimed series from HBO, which premiered in 2004, is set in the teeming outlaw camp of 'Deadwood'. This work assesses "Deadwood's" many facets: its profane language, its characters, from Al Swearengen and Calamity Jane, to B B Farnham and Mr Wu, and more.
| Acknowledgments |
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vii | |
| Contributors |
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ix | |
| Introduction Deadwood, David Mulch, and Television Creativity |
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1 | (10) |
| Part I CHARACTERS |
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Chapter 1 Al Swearengen, Philosopher King |
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11 | (12) |
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Chapter 2 You Motherfucker: Al Swearengen's Oedipal Dilemma |
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23 | (10) |
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Chapter 3 Six Shooters and the Fourth Estate: A.W. Merrick and Deadwood's Information Society |
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33 | (10) |
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Chapter 4 Why Wild Bill Hickok Had to Die |
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43 | (16) |
| Part 2 THE WOMEN OF DEADWOOD |
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Chapter 5 Myth Maketh The Woman: Calamity Jane, Frontier Mythology and Creating American (Media) Historical Imaginings |
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59 | (20) |
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Chapter 6 Whores, Ladies, and Calamity Jane: Gender Roles and the Women of HBO's Deadwood |
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79 | (14) |
| Part 3 DEADWOOD AND GENRE |
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Chapter 7 "The Horse Doesn't Get a Credit": The Foregrounding of Generic Syntax in Deadwood's Opening Credits |
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93 | (8) |
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Chapter 8 Robert Penn Warren, David Mulch, and the Literary Contexts of Deadwood |
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101 | (14) |
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Chapter 9 Old, New, Borrowed, Blue: Deadwood and Serial Fiction |
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115 | (18) |
| Part 4 THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY IN DEADWOOD |
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Chapter 10 "Laws and Every Other Damn Thing": Authority, Bad Faith, and the Unlikely Success of Deadwood |
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133 | (12) |
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Chapter 11 Pimp and Whore: The Necessity of Perverse Domestication in the Development of the West |
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145 | (12) |
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Chapter 12 Divining the "Celestials": The Chinese Subculture of Deadwood |
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Paul Wright and Hailin Zhou |
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157 | (14) |
| Part 5 THE BODY IN DEADWOOD |
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Chapter 13 "What's Afflictin' You?": Corporeality, Body Crises and the Body Politic in Deadwood |
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171 | (14) |
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Chapter 14 Deadwood Dick: The Western (Phallus) Reinvented |
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185 | (16) |
| Appendix A Deadwood Episode Guide |
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201 | (2) |
| Appendix B A Deadwood Encyclopedia |
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203 | (20) |
| Notes |
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223 | (18) |
| Bibliography |
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241 | (12) |
| Index |
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253 | |
David Lavery is Chair in Film and TV at Brunel University in London, co-editor of the online journal Slayage and a founding editor of Critical Studies in Television. His books include Reading The Sopranos (I.B.Tauris 2006) and volumes on Twin Peaks, X-Files, Seinfeld and My So Called Life.
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