Core Response #1: Andrea

 In Heather Hendershot’s essay, “Parks and Recreation: The Cultural Forum,” she writes that the sitcom Parks and Recreation acted as a televisual site of political negotiation during a period of heightened Right-wing political action. While Hendershot examines the ways main characters Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson present conflicting ideologies between liberal and conservative politics, she emphasizes the inherent political contradictions each character embodies, ultimately resulting in a breakdown between the conservative-liberal binary. For example, Leslie embraces liberal ideas regarding gender and sexuality, yet she holds a more conservative ideology about labor and meritocracy. On the other hand, Ron satirizes the extremism of Tea Party conservatism while also remaining an anti-government government employee. The fact that these complex and contradictory political ideologies work inside both of the main characters illustrates Hendershot’s conclusion that “The lesson offered, as Leslie might declare with naive optimism, is that liberals and conservatives can work together within local government,” yet this conclusion enforces the idea that government can overcome division because of some political middle ground (211). As Americans alive during a post-Trump era, clearly, this idea is merely a fantasy, a representation of a world that doesn’t exist.

In his essay, “Prime Time Ideology,” Todd Gitlin writes, “This [liberal capitalist] ideological core is what remains essentially unchanged and unchallenged in television entertainment, at the same time the inner tensions persist and are even magnified,” which accurately summarizes both the positive and negative aspects of Parks and Recreations according to Hendershot’s analysis (265). While the sitcom indeed “suggests that we should respond to the issues it raises,” particularly that of the division the conservative-liberal binary causes, the show still enables hegemonic appeals to neoliberal politics to remain unchallenged. Perhaps, as Newcomb and Hirsch write, Parks and Recreation practices a longstanding tradition in television history where the recognition and questioning of the problem is enough; that “We remain trapped, like American culture in its historical reality, with a dream and the rhetoric of peace and with a bitter experience that denies,” because the show would end if the characters could not move beyond their internal and external clashes in politics. For Pawnee, and America by extension, the government functions because of the recognition that the Right and Left “can communicate and collaborate,” yet Gitlin asks that we be cognizant of the pull towards hegemonic ideology. From what I gather, the show makes no overt political stance, it just “slants” in a liberal direction without challenging the status quo outright, however, I personally have never watched Parks and Recreation. What I know is based on largely positive public discourse (mostly seen in online spaces like Twitter and Tumblr) and the interpretations based on Hendershot’s essay.

In addition to my problems with the centrist ideology put forth by Parks and Recreations (one that, additionally, presents itself as advocating for the activism of "special interest groups," yet denies the dangers of neutral politics for those same groups), I believe that Hendershot's assertions that "the forum idea truly fizzled out" and that people are no longer interested in extremely controversial topics on television no longer applies to this new era of television streaming (206). From my own experience, I see the rise of social media and live-tweeting as a new form of the public forum idea put forth by Newcomb and Hirsch, increasing interest in 'niche' programs and controversial topics as people want to share viral and controversial opinions online more now than ever before.