STRANGE TV: NEW BOOK EXAMINES TELEVISION’S COMMENTARY ON CAPITALISM, CULTURE

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - From "The Twilight Zone" to "The X-Files," it seems the most important television shows have always been a tad weird. But is that weirdness purely stylistic, or does it say something deeper about society and culture? A new book by University of Arkansas professor Keith Booker examines innovative television series throughout the decades to determine whether they challenge the status quo and what they say about the capitalist culture that gave rise to them.

Published this week by Greenwood Press, "Strange TV: Innovative Television Series from The Twilight Zone to The X-Files," discusses four programs, all hailed as revolutionary in their time: "The Twilight Zone" (which aired 1959-64), "The Prisoner" (1968-69), "Twin Peaks" (1990-91) and "The X-Files" (1993-2002). "Strange TV" represents one of few scholarly criticisms to examine the content of specific television programs and assess their commentary on American culture. According to Booker, that commentary was not necessarily flattering.

"Stylistically, thematically, these programs urged viewers to question the conventions of their everyday lives. In doing so, they suggested that many of our most widely-accepted social and economic policies may not represent the wisest, most beneficial or most humane course of action," Booker said.

In "Strange TV," Booker explains how each series used cognitive estrangement - a favorite device of science fiction writers - to lure audiences into unfamiliar territory, be it a futuristic setting, faraway planet or alternate reality. By superimposing real-world issues and themes over unusual circumstances, the shows offered people new perspectives on the conditions of their lives.

Further, by guiding viewers into fantastical settings and plotlines, these series used their creative license to illustrate the potentially negative repercussions of maintaining a highly capitalistic society. Booker notes that the programs frequently explored themes of alienation and routinization, what he calls "the dehumanizing consequences" of capitalism - feelings of disorientation and entrapment that arise from a society grown ever more mechanized, standardized and dissociated.

For example, in an episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "The Lonely," a man convicted of murder must serve out his sentence alone on a desolate asteroid. Separated from society, stripped of meaningful identity or activity, he faces the mind-numbing routine of his imprisonment with growing catatonia. When a female robot is delivered to ease his isolation, the prisoner falls in love. Alienated from humanity, he fails to recognize her for what she is - an object, a machine.

Airing less than a decade later, "The Prisoner" depicted similarly pessimistic social circumstances. An abducted British spy finds himself captive in a strange village, where anonymous forces wish to assimilate him into their restrictive social order and elicit information from him. The spy, called Number Six by his captors, resists their efforts, proclaiming himself a free man who "will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered." Nonetheless, Number Six never escapes the oppressive social conditions of the village, even after re-entering what he assumes to be the real world.

Such pessimistic outcomes may explain why each of the four series discussed in "Strange TV" failed to fulfill their subversive reputations. While their portrayal of capitalist culture may not have been flattering, neither was it particularly revolutionary, Booker concludes.

"Mere criticism of the negative consequences of capitalism cannot strike telling blows against it," he writes in the book. "To be truly effective, any critique of capitalism must also contain a utopian dimension that gets beyond the capitalist order and thinks thoughts that are, within the confines of capitalism, unthinkable. Aesthetic innovation, in itself, can certainly never do this."

In other words, despite the ground-breaking style and thought-provoking content that set these programs apart from the inane sitcoms and melodramas that comprise much of TV, their inability to propose a better system means they fell short of any meaningful social impact. They inspired viewers to question without providing alternative answers.

As a Marxist critic, Booker knows that subverting the capitalist system requires both questions and answers. By offering criticism without suggesting a solution, these programs reiterated - and therefore reinforced - the status quo. Additionally, they highlighted faults that the system itself could then recognize and fix without altering its fundamental purpose: to make money at the cost of the working class.

"Capitalism is not by nature a stagnant, static system," Booker explained. "It has to keep innovating in order to survive. Challenges and new ideas feed it. That’s true to such an extent that some people have suggested Marx, himself, made a greater contribution to capitalism than almost any other person. He pointed out its flaws, many of which the capitalists then fixed."

Another factor that may have limited the subversive impact of these shows was the medium of television, itself. The trick of using television as a subversive instrument is that it represents the very vehicle of modern capitalism - the core of commercial marketing. Television exists to deliver product enticements directly into the homes of consumers. Within that function, Booker claims that television series act almost like carnival barkers, drawing viewers in for the real show: the commercials. In other words, these programs participated in the system they purported to subvert.

Despite this conflict of interest, Booker believes that the power of television - its ability to reach millions of people, night after night, week after week - makes it a potentially powerful instrument of change. "Strange TV" makes it clear that commercial television has not yet produced a truly subversive series, but Booker holds faith that it someday will. In the meantime, he considers the four programs mentioned in his book an important part of the modern dialogue on capitalism.

"The messages in television aren’t especially effective. But at least they reach out to huge numbers of people with the suggestion that capitalism has flaws," he said. "If television, the most capitalist of all art forms, can suggest that, then there must be some credence to the idea."