Michael Szalay is professor of English and film and media at the University of California, Irvine, and a film/TV editor at Los Angeles Review of Books. He’s published widely on 20th-century literature, culture, and politics. His most recent book is Second Lives: Black-Market Melodramas and the Reinvention of Television (University of Chicago Press, 2023).
Michael Szalay
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Writing on Public Books
Price-Tag TV and the Transformation of Television Prestige
Apple’s “Price-Tag TV,” to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the difference between good and expensive.
Miyazaki’s Last Flight
Hayao Miyazaki’s greatness derives from his willingness to sit with and amplify the contradictions that define his animation.
“Succession” & Prestige TV’s Fascism Problem
Prestige TV, which has a presumptively liberal audience, churns out a steady diet of illiberal fare. Shows like “Succession” force the viewer to ask why.
