Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 45
ThePrisoner and TheX-FHes
V. TV —Use only as directed
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These series in particular illustrate a discourse we might
consider structured like the position of separation. But why is this
structure appealing to the viewer? An answer might be that, though
we find the shows illustrating the separated (and possibly
psychotic) subject, their very presentation solidifies the relationship
of alienation for the viewer. That is, the shows present possible
signifiers with which the viewer may align her/himself in regards
to the Other. Thus, the viewer has a representative to be frightened,
paranoid, or in danger for her/him. / don't have to be afraid of the
government because television is watching it for me. We have only to
took at the recent proliferation of pseudo-documentary programs
discussing UFOs, paranormal activity, and government cover-ups
(Unsolved Mysteries, Sightings, Encounters, etc.) to see evidence of
television asking our most difficult questions for us. Television also
gives us a name and image for that which we do not know (space
aliens and secret agents). The marketing of paranoia is the
marketing of these signifiers, which give the viewers a sense of an
inherent order to everything. In other words, we have a signifier for
whatever we need.
That the viewer remains in alienation is helpful, because the
subject in alienation can be relatively certain that, as in The X-Files,
"The Truth (the Other] is out there,” which is good since if it were
here, there is the danger of psychosis, a conflagration of subject and
Other. We might look at the relationship as that of transference, in
that the viewer places the television in the position of knowing (of
Other), just as the analysand does the analyst in successful analysis.
Even the same problems arise. In analysis, the analysand may begin
to enjoy this relationship (it becomes an object of jouissance, and so a
symptom). Certainly, we know that it is possible to become addicted
to watching television, and for much the same reason.
However, this is not to say that television tiua television
forecloses the possibility of psychosis. It may in the position of
alienation, in that it keeps the Other separate and the viewer
desiring. It seems possible, though, for the viewer to be in separation,
for her/him to conceive of something missing in the set of signifiers
that television provides. In this sense, it is the realization of the
beyond-the-script with which the viewer (subject) becomes attached.