August 2001
The Director - Features
Funeral Industry Makes Way Into Mainstream TV
On June 3, 2001, HBO introduced a new television series called "Six Feet Under" about the dysfunctional Fisher family who happens to run a funeral home business in Southern California. What makes "Six Feet Under" different from other television programs is that the family business woven into the story line also functions as a morbidly fascinating backdrop for character development, which plays on contemporary American viewing audiences fascination with programming related to the funeral industry and death.
In "Funeral Industry Makes Way Into Mainstream TV," John Troyer, who grew up surrounded by the funeral service profession, explains the spectacle of the corpse as it related to his graduate school research on the emergence of the contemporary funeral industry. He also explains how nothing draws attention to a subject more quickly than dead bodies, and how "Six Feet Under" has found a way to monopolize on it.
John Troyer is the son of Ron Troyer, Kok Funeral Home, St. Paul Park, MN.
