Book Review: The Fugitive in Flight: Faith, Liberalism, and Law in a Classic TV Show by Stanley Fish

Abstract

in Flight: Faith, Liberalism, and Law in a Classic TV Show. Stanley Fish. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 160 pp. $24.95 hbk.With the publication of in Flight: Faith Liberalism, and Law in a Classic TV Show, literary theorist Stanley Fish provides a template for how to analyze a or television program and how to engage readers unfamiliar with the text.The story of Dr. Richard Kimble enjoys universal significance, appealing to anyone who has been falsely accused of wrongdoing. Convicted of murder, Kimble sets out on a pilgrimage to prove his innocence, and as he flees from law enforcement officials, he meets a series of strangers. With attentive engagement and quiet wisdom, he transforms their lives.The (1963-1967, ABC) became an iconic text for a younger generation when the starring Harrison Ford was released in 1993. Fish distinguishes the television series from the by the same name, and although he appreciates each of them for different reasons, he considers the television program one of the most compelling and intelligent texts in American media history.Well known as a New York Times contributor, Fish polarizes readers with opinions about everything from the role of the American university, to the contributions of George Herbert and John Milton, to the place of theory in legal, literary, and political studies. Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University in Miami, Fish also is dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former visiting professor at John Marshall Law School. These roles in the American academy highlight Fish's dual interest in legal issues and literary study and help to account for his devotion to the 1960s saga of a man without a place to call home. Often described as a reader-response critic, Fish here turns his gaze to popular culture; instead of addressing interpretive communities and reading norms, he introduces as a seminal text that provides a self-reflexive experience for the reader.Dedicated to creator Roy Huggins and actor David Janssen, who played Kimble, in Flight is composed of three chapters and an index of episodes. An exercise in aesthetic criticism, Part 1 is entitled Why Fugitive? Part 2, The Stands Alone: Morality in Black and White, provides analysis of some of the most representative episodes. Part 3, Fugitive Variations, introduces the reader to the television show's creative and historical context. Extended tributes in both the introduction and conclusion reveal Fish's admiration for Huggins, whom he describes as an ardent intellectual fascinated by the American preoccupation with guilt and salvation.Fish acknowledges his own appreciation for popular culture and makes it clear that he both admires the series and enjoys television in general; in fact, he confesses that he often writes while listening to television programming: don't use television as background noise, he states. pay a certain low level of attention all the time, and I pay undiluted attention some of the time.In the 1990s when the Arts and Entertainment Network aired reruns of twice a day, Fish became enthralled with the series, partly because of what he calls the film noir style-black-and-white images of bleak, usually interior scenes populated by men, women, and children with anxious and furtive looks on their faces, and partly because of the combination of nonstop tension with the (relative) absence of slam-bang action. …