Dr. Marsha Cassidy This is Me

Education

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1. 1. The Salt Lake Tribune -- Coca, Francis Were Gentle TV Pioneers

   www.sltrib.com/06102001/Arts/1 - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/10/2001   Last Visited: 6/15/2001

   Both Coca and Francis are underrated and understudied , said Marsha Cassidy , an English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who is writing a book on daytime television from 1948 to 1960.
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   Yet the contributions of those women , as well as those of Coca and Francis , often are overlooked , Cassidy said.
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   Historical attitudes toward Coca and Francis are distorted because we live in a patriarchal society , Cassidy added.
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   As scholars such as Cassidy begin to view the 1950s through a richer and more complicated prism , moreover , Francis' contributions may be recognized by a new generation , Gabel said.
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   Episodes of Home , a show Francis hosted that originally was packaged with NBC's Today and Tonight shows and that created a new genre for network television , are not available on videotape , Cassidy said. You have to work to find them.. Yet what you do find when you view them , she added , is a competent , confident , charming Francis who put her guests at ease as she enthralled audiences. She set a high standard for what women of the future could do on television -- a Barbara Walters , a Diane Sawyer.. Similarly , Coca set a high standard for female comedians who followed her such as Carol Burnett , Gilda Radner , Lily Tomlin and Poundstone. Poundstone recalled that when she once talked with Mary Tyler Moore about comedic influences , Moore claimed that she had learned everything she knew from Nanette Fabray ; Fabray , for her part , had replaced Coca as Caesar's sidekick and had learned everything she knew from Coca.

2. 2. FOX11AZ.com | News for Tucson, Arizona | Entertainment

   www.fox11az.com/entertainment/ - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 12/1/2005

   "Cultural clashes started playing out on TV in the '50s," says Marsha Cassidy, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s . And some of these clashes can be seen with the rise of the controversial sob-story shows during daytime telecasts.
   
   By the mid-1950s, two of the biggest daytime TV hits were Glamour Girl and Queen for a Day. Both featured women who told sad stories, and the person with the biggest tear-jerking tale that prompted the loudest audience applause would get a prize. In the case of Glamour Girl, the prize was a makeover. And on the surface, Glamour Girl appeared to be "advocating the return to domesticity, the idea of charm, the idea that you need to be glamorous and be made into a new postwar ideal," Dr. Cassidy says.
   
   But the sad stories women had to tell to win also undermined the national image of prosperity.
   
   Both Queen for a Day and Glamour Girl, in fact, turned out to be "an affirmation that women were in a difficult spot" economically and culturally, Dr. Cassidy says.
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   "Even though Lucy is set in the domestic scene with Ricky, the unresolved premise of the show is that she's always trying to escape, to get out of domesticity, to get into showbiz or do a commercial," Dr. Cassidy says.

3. 3. www.cmstudies.org

   www.cmstudies.org/conferences/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/4/2006   Last Visited: 11/19/2007

   Chair: Marsha Cassidy (University of Illinois, Chicago)