The Past Is Never Dead: On TV’s Backstory Problem
In the latest Screen Shots column, Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Elizabeth Alsop teaches film and media studies at CUNY. She is the author of Making Conversation in Modernist Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2019) and a forthcoming book on the films of Elaine May. Her cultural criticism has appeared in outlets including The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, TLS, Bookforum, Film Quarterly, Public Books, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she is also a film and television editor.
In the latest Screen Shots column, Elizabeth Alsop explores the ubiquity—and limitations—of the “trauma backstory.”
Recent TV series have been imagining worlds without men. What does this absence make possible? asks Elizabeth Alsop.
Elizabeth Alsop considers the supernatural series Evil alongside neo-procedurals like Mindhunter, Twin Peaks: The Return, and Search Party
Why Don’t We Want Our TV Series to End?