Making Sense of Suburbia Through Popular Culture.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Seeking Culture in a Cultural Void? The Relationship between Suburbia and Popular Culture -- Culture and representation -- The suburban context -- Suburbia and shifting national norms -- Structure and omissions: Popular culture missing in action -- Conclusion: New popular cultural paradigms -- 2 Writing Suburbia: The Periphery in Novels -- Pre-war antecedents: The narrative of English decline in Coming Up for Air -- Post-war Americana -- Sex and the suburbs -- Macabre suburbia -- Conclusion: Suburbia in the post-millennial age and continuities with the past -- 3 The Sound of the Suburbs: Noise from Out of Nowhere? -- Suburban sensibilities in early popular music -- Suburban punk and post-punk -- The 1990s and on: Hip hop, Britpop and beyond -- Common themes and future directions in suburban pop -- 4 Pastoral Paradises and Social Realism: Cinematic Representations of Suburban Complexity -- History and memory: Depictions of suburbia of and from the 1950s and 1960s -- Social realism: Slice of life depictions of British suburbia -- Minorities and the suburban feelgood film -- Dysfunctioning suburbia and suburban alienation -- Conclusion -- 5 Suburbia on the Box -- No laughing matter? Suburban sitcom -- In a lather: Suburban soaps -- Genre-bending -- Changing depictions of ethnic suburbia -- Conclusion -- 6 Women on the Edge? Representations of the Post-War Suburban Woman in Popular Culture to the Present Day -- The problem with no name: The post-war suburban housewife and classic portrayals -- Revolting moms -- New formats and retreads -- Discussion and conclusion -- 7 Darkness on the Edge of Town: Mapping Asian London in Popular Culture -- Situating Londons suburbia and the place of Asians within it -- On-screen Asians on television -- Stranger than fiction.

New directions in Asian fiction -- Suburban soundtrack case-study: Bhangra in Ilford -- On-screen II Asians on film -- Discussion and conclusion -- 8 Conclusion: Same As it Ever Was? -- Bibliography -- Index.

The majority of us live in suburbia, yet there is no formal definition of the concept. By examining novels, cinema, popular music and television in the US and UK, this book explores how notions of suburbia have developed in our collective imagination.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.