James Baldwin and the Great Divide
Adapting "Equal in Paris" for Golden Age Television
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11272233 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Kaiserman (College of the Canyons, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 112-134 |
| Publication date | 2014-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mlu036 |
| OpenAlex | W2034473482 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
This essay traces James Baldwin and Sol Stein’s failed adaptation of “Equal in Paris” (1955) from the pages of Commentary to the script they presented to United States Steel Hour (1953-63). By situating Baldwin at the intersection of the New York Intellectuals and the institutions of New York-based television, I demonstrate that Baldwin’s portrayal of race, gender, and sexuality was determined by the mass culture critique and the possibilities afforded by the field of cultural production, and I argue that the adaptation of “Equal in Paris” failed because the pair was unwilling to sacrifice Baldwin’s commitments to the civil rights of African Americans in order to appease his new television patrons. Although Baldwin was capable of repurposing the conventions of New York Intellectual discourse in order to support the Civil Rights Movement, the racial codes of Golden Age drama proved less malleable.
Art, Politics, and Modernism · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Social and Cultural Dynamics
| Highly cited | No |
|---|