I Know You Are, but What Am I? : On Pee-Wee Herman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKinney, Cait.

Series:

Forerunners: Ideas First Series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (92 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

University of Minnesota Press 2024

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2024.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How Pee-wee and his playhouse help us reimagine our relationships to technologyI Know You Are, but What Am I? explores the cultural legacy of Pee-wee Herman, the cult television star of Pee-wee's Playhouse. This children's show-that was also for adults-ran on network TV from 1986 to 1990 and starred comedian Paul Reubens as Herman, a queer man-boy whose playhouse, the set for the show, was tricked out with a profusion of animate computational toys and technologies. Cait McKinney shows how three defining scenes from the show inform, and even foretell and challenge, our present moment: the playhouse as an alternative precursor to networked smart homes that foregrounds caring and ethical relationships between humans and technologies; a reparative retelling of Reubens's career-wrecking 1991 arrest for indecent exposure inside a Florida adult film theater as part of an AIDS-phobic, antigay sting operation; and worn-out, Talking Pee-wee dolls and their broken afterlives on eBay and YouTube. McKinney looks at how queer people who were children in the 1980s remember and relate to Pee-wee now, showing that the moral panic about sexuality, gender, and children from the past can help us refute anti-trans and anti-queer political movements organized today.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-4529-7203-6