33 FILM QUARTERLY SPECIAL FOCUS: RETHINKING BINGE-WATCHING IN THE AGE OF COVID-19 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: RETHINKING BINGE-WATCHING Neta Alexander Originating with the advent of DVD box sets, binge- watching is often described as “an emergent media behav- ior that blends culture and technology.” 1 Despite its ever-growing popularity, bingeing continues to be a rela- tively undertheorized spectatorial mode. As demonstrated by Caetlin Benson-Allott, bingeing scholarship to date has often relied on metaphors of inebriation, distraction, or addiction. 2 Pushing against this trend, the authors in this Special Focus section argue that the COVID-19 pandemic recast bingeing as a civic duty and a survival mode—an ideal antidote to quarantine malaise. In order to “flatten the curve,” those living under lock- down were told they must stay put, avoid contact with oth- ers, and consequently double down on their attachment to screens and fictional worlds. This entails a surprising plot twist for the short history of bingeing scholarship: instead of associating bingeing with feelings of shame, guilt, exhaus- tion, and regret, more positive terms such as “marathon viewing” linked it to athleticism and well-being, while listi- cle culture reframed bingeing to claim it as a means to com- bat white supremacy. 3 Exploring these recent developments, this Special Focus section seeks to update and expand Tanya Horeck, Mareike Jenner, and Tina Kendall’s previous work on binge-watch- ing. 4 In an earlier essay, they had defined binge-watching as a form of “self-determined viewing” that happens only in relation to serialized formats, and they argued that the automated play and “skip intro” features on Netflix reshape domestic spectatorship as an “insulated flow.” 5 Building on the work of Jonathan Crary, they described Netflix’s self-declared war on sleep as “a key form of biopolitical production.” 6 How does “pandemic time,” then, relate to temporali- ties of bingeing, labor, and sleep? How can media scholars explain the global success during lockdown of true-crime documentaries like Tiger King (Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, Netflix, 2020) or beloved sitcoms such as Friends (David Crane and Marta Kauffman, NBC, 1994–2004 / Netflix, 2015–2020 / HBO Max 2020–)? 7 And how can the pandemic expand preexisting theories of domestic spec- tatorship in light of the nascent division between “home” (safe, clean, pathogen free) and “non-home” (public, uncon- trollable, dangerous, deadly)? Bringing together new con- ceptual frameworks and case studies, the following essays explore this ubiquitous spectatorial mode under the condi- tions of corona capitalism in relation to boredom, co-watch- ing, healing, activism, and labor. Opening the section, Tanya Horeck expands the analy- sis of bingeing as a survival mode by focusing on the “Net- flix and heal” phenomenon. Seen as a nascent civic duty, bingeing social-justice films and shows became a crucial part of the news coverage of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States during the summer of 2020 and continu- ing into 2021. 8 While bingeing scholarship is too often limited to Net- flix, Hulu, HBO, and other American-based streaming platforms, Tina Kendall theorizes how scrolling through TikTok videos proved crucial for combating boredom and cabin fever during lockdowns. Her analysis leaves the Net- flix universe to focus instead on memes, scrolling-as-watch- ing, and the bingeable potential of social media. Kartik Nair reassesses the continuity between pan- demic media and the fraught relationship between binge- ing, labor, and “the political economy of loafing.” Focusing on the case of an employee who lost her job following an escapade of bingeing Friends, Nair asks whether it is possi- ble to binge while asleep and wonders what happens when bingeing becomes a professional hazard. Finally, I close the section by offering a series of new critical propositions for reevaluating binge-watching after the pandemic: paying close attention to interface design Film Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 1, pp. 33–34. ISSN: 0015-1386 electronic ISSN: 1533- 8630 © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://online.ucpress.edu/journals/pages/reprintspermissions. DOI: 10.1525/FQ.2021.75.1.33