Acknowledgements Introduction: "Better Today Than They Were Yesterday": Playing Nice in Nicecore TV Owen Cantrell (Georgia State University, USA) & Sage Westfall (Independent Scholar, USA) PART I: Gender and Niceness 1. Reimagining Niceness: The Role of Indian Television Soap Operas in Perpetuating Traditional Gender Norms Sony Jalarajan Raj (MacEwan University, Canada) & Adith K. Suresh (MacEwan University, Canada) 2. "'Hey, takin' ona challenge is a lot like ridin' a horse": Ted Lasso and Left-Populism Colleen Tripp ( California State University-Northridge, USA) 3. In the Matter of Ronald Gladden vs. James Marsden: Nicecore Guys Finish First in Freevee's Jury Duty Emily Hoffman (Arkansas Tech University, USA ) 4. Just a Small Town Girl: Hallmark Movie Small Towns and the Politics of Niceness Andrea Braithwaite ( Ontario Tech University, Canada) PART II: Nicecore TV Roster 5. "Just your typical all-American, Catholic, divorcing, disgraced, lawbreaking, gay family": Nicely Queering the Sitcom with ABC's The Real O'Neals Francesca Petronio ( Stony Brook University, USA) 6.

You're Simply the Best: Character Growth and Making the Unlikable Likable in Schitt's Creek Colleen Etman ( University of South Carolina, USA) 7. "Real and alive and good": Nicecore Conventions in The Bear Judith Clemens-Smucker ( Sam Houston State University, USA ) PART III: New Sincerity and Irony 8. Joe Pera Talks with You and the Post-Ironic Comfort Watch Sage Westfall 9. "Do You Want to Feel Something Real?" Sincere Irony in the Work of Nathan Fielder Owen Cantrell 10. "More than just ball hairs": (Post-)Irony, Sincerity, and Digitization Netflix's American Vandal Dominik Steinhilber ( University of Konstanz, Germany) About the Editors and Contributors Index.