OLD AND NEW MEDIA AFTER KATRINA O N M LD AND EW EDIA K AFTER ATRINA Edited by Diane Negra OLD AND NEW MEDIA AFTER KATRINA Copyright © Diane Negra, 2010. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-10266-8 All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28707-9 ISBN 978-0-230-11210-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230112100 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Old and new media after Katrina / edited by Diane Negra. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—Press coverage. 2. Mass media— Objectivity—United States. 3. Mass media—Political aspects—United States. 4. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—Political aspects. 5. Hurricane Katrina, 2005—Social aspects. 6. United States—Social conditions— 21st century. I. Negra, Diane, 1966– HV636 2005 .G85 O43 2010 976(cid:2).044—dc22 2010007919 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: September 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America. C ONTENTS List of Figures vii Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction: Old and New Media after Katrina 1 Diane Negra 2 Uncovering the Bones: Forensic Approaches to Hurricane Katrina on Crime Television 23 Lindsay Steenberg 3 The Big Apple and the Big Easy: Trauma, Proximity, and Home in New (and Old) Media 41 Joy V. Fuqua 4 Expanded Medium: National Public Radio and Katrina Web Memorials 67 Maria Pramaggiore 5 Life Preservers: The Neoliberal Enterprise of Hurricane Katrina Survival in Trouble the Water, House M.D., and When the Levees Broke 89 Jane Elliott 6 Discovery Channel’s Nature-Reality Hybrid Shows: Representing Survival in the Wake of Katrina 113 Andrew Goodridge 7 Exile, Return, and New Economy Subjectivity in Last Holiday 131 Diane Negra 8 Media Artists, Local Activists, and Outsider Archivists: The Case of Helen Hill 149 Dan Streible vi Contents 9 In Desperate Need (of a Makeover): The Neoliberal Project, the Design Expert, and the Post-Katrina Social Body in Distress 175 Brenda R. Weber 10 From Mr. Pregnant to Mr. President: Prepositioning Katrina Online 203 Jeff Scheible Bibliography 231 Notes on Contributors 245 Index 247 F IGURES 1.1 Ads such as this commodify urban recovery while drawing upon long-standing stereotypes of New Orleans’ local “spice.” 4 2.1 America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh on Bourbon Street with Louisiana police. 28 3.1 Visual artists such as Takashi Horisaki represent trauma through a focus on the remnants of “home.” Social Dress New Orleans—730 Days After, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City (August 2007, photograph by author). 59 4.1 A novelty keychain transforms New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin’s bold complaints about the lack of government action, first broadcast on radio station WWL-AM, into an aural object. With kind permission of Steve Winn. Photo credit: Melinda Pfeiffer. 79 5.1 Documentaries such as Trouble the Water and When the Levees Broke associate the positive, agential action of survivors with the imperatives of neoliberal self-governance. 98 8.1 Helen Hill drawing in Recipes for Disaster: A Handcrafted Film Cookbooklet. The bomb shelter (upper right) appears in Madame Winger Makes a Film, as voiceover asks “fellow filmmakers” and “future filmmakers”: “What Will You Do if there is a Nuclear War? Or gigantic Terrorist Attack? When your film lab is reduced to rubble, how are you going to keep making films?” Reproduced with permission. 165 viii Figures 9.1 Through his “Make It Right” Foundation Brad Pitt has maintained a high profile in celebrity efforts to make over post-Katrina New Orleans. 183 10.1 YouTube character Mr. Pregnant performs a post-Katrina racial burlesque. 217 A CKNOWLEDGMENTS Iw ould like to warmly thank the contributors for their work in preparing the essays that make up this collec- tion. For practical and/or intellectual contributions to this book I thank Mary Beth Haralovich, Liam Kennedy, Vicki Mayer, Kimberly Springer, Ruth Barton, and Alan Nadel as well as the par- ticipants in the 2009 Clinton Institute Summer School at University College Dublin. Grateful acknowledgment also to Monica Cullinan and the staff of the James Joyce Library at University College Dublin, the efficacious Karen Jackman, Aisling Jackman, Sarah Hartley at Taylor & Francis, Amisha Kondaskar and Junez Ali at Corbis, and Shaun Vigil and Felicity Plester at Palgrave. Finally I want to express my gratitude to Dolores Tierney and Eddie Besancon with whom I left New Orleans on August 27, 2005, never dreaming of how events would unfold in the city we were leaving behind. DIANE NEGRA