The Dissident Press Book

This is a shockingly inept analysis of Jewish programs and characters over the history of prime time television. There are so many mistakes in it that at one point I found them on every page, sometimes a couple of mistakes per page. Everything from basic scheduling errors (All in the Family began in 1971, not 1972!) to complete mischaracterizations of entire programs. What this author does to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the character Rhoda is unforgivable. All he does is complain about every show he mentions, then complains some more. Nothing is Jewish enough by his standards (though he never really says what those standards are or why shows should be held to them), and even the most Jewish of shows like Seinfeld make the Jews look bad, so he complains some more. He also skips completely over a number of key early popular shows that starred Jews and contained a lot of Jewish humor (Jack Benny, Burns & Allen).

The worst part is that the writer seems confused about what it means to be Jewish--he wants to identify Jews as an ethnic group or even inappropriately as a racial group but downplay them a religious group. He needed to do a lot more homework and come up with many more facts instead of just spouting his ill-informed opinion. Unfortunately this will now be used for generations to come as a reference work and a factual basis of shows they'll never see or truly value. There needs to be a great book written about this subject, but this isn't it.