Following Up on White's Critique of HSN

In 1992, when Mimi White published her book, Tele-Advising: Therapeutic Discourse in American Television, the Home Shopping Network had become a household name. White’s article, however, predates the network’s entrance into the e-commerce industry and its campaign to engage with younger audiences through social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter) (“Home Shopping Network,” Wikipedia). By keeping pace with technological advancements, the channel has remained a viable shopping option, a cultural institution, and one that offers comic fodder.

In the mid-90s, Saturday Night Live spoofed the network brilliantly, providing yet another opportunity for Will Ferrell and Chris Kataan to shine as middle-class, mustachioed everyman hosts who pitch to an intended white, middle-class viewership. SNL points to how attractive the channel is not only to female viewers, but male viewers as well, who will watch HSN not for jewelry or clothes but for the sports or entertainment memorabilia being sold. Ferrell’s and Kataan’s impersonations of hosts Don West and Eddie Lewis are not too far off the mark. Much like other white, middle-class males, I remember watching West and Lewis late at night, a thoroughly entertaining diversion during Late Night with Conan O’Brien commercial breaks. The manic, boisterous personalities with a penchant for exaggeration made shoppers laugh, truly a “television of attractions,” as White suggests (91).

In one SNL sketch using HSN as its premise, they actually sell “the real Mark Hamill” (the actor who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) as a collector’s item during a hyped-up “Star Wars bonanza!” (follow link below).

http://www.hulu.com/watch/10350/saturday-night-live-shop-at-home-network

Quite famously, Hamill’s acting career was haunted by his success as the Star Wars trilogy’s protagonist, and the writers of SNL are working at that level, as if Hamill has being cryogenically preserved for twenty years. This skit’s broader message, however, no matter how funny, is a disturbing critique of HSN appear so desperate in their hard sell they would even set a price on a human being, literally only steps away from black market street vendors or even whoring.

More generally, this course often returns to the dark side of modern day consumption and its dangerous effects on humanity, be it sweatshops in Third World countries, the increasing trend of eating disorders among women, or the racial inequalities that stem from America's present economic model. White and SNL both further that course.