Dr. Ruth Westheimer: upsetting the normalcy of the late-night talk show.

For the most part, the late-night talk/variety television genre has been analyzed as little more than a promotional device for producers of popular culture products. Using concepts of dialogic discourse borrowed from M.M. Bakhtin and of star discourse theorized by Jimmie Reeves, this paper explores the ideological complexity available in the content of late-night programming. The various inflections of Dr. Ruth Westheimer within the broadcast context of the late-night talk/variety genre provide the focus of this analysis.