Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 45

ThePrisoner and TheX-FHes V. TV —Use only as directed 41 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.