Termed 'Hollywood South' New Orleans is the site of a burgeoning cultural economy of film and
television production. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina this production plays an important
role in the city's rebuilding. Down in Treme: Race Place and New Orleans on Television takes
the HBO series Treme filmed on-location in New Orleans as a case study for exploring
relationships between television production and raced and classed geographies in the rebuilding
of post-Katrina New Orleans. Treme demonstrates how city efforts to attract film and television
production collide with the television industry's desire to create new forms of connection for
increasingly distracted audiences through the production of authentic connections to place.
Down in Treme explores what is at stake in these collisions for local culture and struggles
over the right to neighborhood and city space. By putting post-broadcast television studies
critical race theory and urban studies into conversation Down in Treme provides a poignant
case study that enjoins scholars to go beyond the text to consider how media industries and
production practices intervene into the contemporary media city.
