Written for The Unquiet American: Transgressive Comedies from the

U.S., a catalogue/collection put together to accompany a film series at the

Austrian Filmmuseum and the Viennale in Autumn 2009. — J.R.

Long before the advent of Slavoj Zizek, U.S.
academic Joan Braderman in 1986 offered a bracing
exercise in standup theory and comic deconstruction
in this half-hour unpacking on video of the most successful
nighttime soap opera on television, which is
said to be the favorite series of one hundred million
people in 78 countries. Utilizing some of the special
effects of codirector and coeditor Manuel De Landa
to project herself literally into Dynasty and thereby
critique its cultural and ideological underpinnings,
Braderman manages to mix appreciation with scorn
in almost equal quantities.