How lo look at television
The effect of television cannot be adequately expressed in terms of success or failure, likes or dislikes, approval or disapproval. Rather, an attempt should be made, with the aid of dcpth-psychologicai categories and previous knowledge of mass media, to crystallize a number of theoretical concepts by which the potential effect of television - its impact upon various layers of the spectator's personality - could be studied. It seems timely to investigate systematically socio-psychological stimuli typical of televised material both on a descriptive and psychodynamic level, to analyse their presuppositions as well as their total pattern, and to evaluate the effect they arc likely lo produce. This procedure may ultimately bring forth a number of recommendations on how to deal with these stimuli to produce the most.desirable effect of television. By exposing the socio- psychological implications and mechanisms of television, which often operate under the guise of false realism, not only may the shows be improved, but, more important possibly, the public at large may be sensitized to the nefarious effect of some of these mechanisms.
We aic not concerned with the effectiveness of any particular show or programme; but we are concerned with the nature of present-day television and its imagery. Yet, our approach is practical. The findings should be so close lo the material, should rest on such a solid foundation of experience, that they can be translated into precise recommendations and be made convincingly clear to large audiences.
Improvement of television is not conceived primarily on an artistic, purely aesthetic level, extraneous (o present customs. This docs not mean that we naively take for granted the dichotomy between autonomous art and mass media. Wc all know that their relationship is highly complex. Today's rigid division between what is called 'longhaired' and 'short-haired' art is the product of a long historical development. It would be romanticizing to assume that formerly art was entirely pure, (hat the creative artist thought only in terms of the inner consistency of the artifact and not also of its effect upon (he
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sjioelalors. Theatrical art, in particular, cannot be separated (rom audience reaction. Conversely, vestiges of ihc aesthetic claim to be something autonomous, a world unto itself, remain even within the most trivial product of mass culture. In fact, the present rigid division of art into autonomous and commercial aspects is itself largely a function of commercialization. It was hardly accidental (hat the slogan ľan pour ľan was coined polemically in (he Paris of (he fits! half of the nineteenth century, when literature really became large-scale business for the first lime. Many of (he cultural products bearing the anti-commercial trademark 'art for art's sake' show traces of commercialism in their appeal lo (he sensational or in (he conspicuous display of material wealth and sensuous stimuli at the expense of the mcaningfulness of the work. This trend was pronounced in the Neo-Romantic theatre of the first decades of our century.
Older and recent popular culture
In order to do justice to all such complexities, much closer scrutiny of Ihe background and development of modern maw media is required lhan communications research, generally limited to present conditions, is aware of. One would have to establish what the output of contemporary cultural industry has in common with older 'low* or popular rorms of art as well as with autonomous art. and where the differences lie. Suffice it here lo slate that the archetypes of present popular culture were set comparatively early in the development of middle-class society - at about ihc turn of ihe seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries in England. According to the studies of the English sociologist Ian Wall, the English novels of that period, particularly the works of Defoe and Richardson, marked the beginning of an approach to literary production that consciously created, served, and finally controlled a 'market'. Today the commercial production of cultural goods has become streamlined, and Ihe impact of popular culture upon the individual has concomitantly increased. This process has not been confined to quantity, but has reft suitedIjnjicw qualitics^VVhilc recent popular culture has absorbed all the elements and particularly all ihe 'don'ls' of its predecessor, it differs decisively inasmuch as it has developed into a system. Thus, ( popular culture is no longer confined to certain forms such as novels -TT" or dance music, buljhas scizčiTälI media of artistic g»p"*ession/ TEc )ff structure and meaning ol these Icrms Show an amazing parallelism, even when ihcy appear to have Utile in common on (he surface (such as jazz and Ihe dclective novel). Their output has increased to such an extent that it is almosi impossible for anyone to dodge them; and
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even those formely aloof from popular culture - the rural population on one hand and the highly educated on the other - aie sonte-V? how affected. The more the system of ^merchandising" culture is ^J_ expanded, the more it tends alsSlo^SŠurníläte thc^šcrTôW art of the past by adapting this art to (he system's own requirements. The control ň so extensive that any infraction 'of its rules is ú priori stigmatized as 'highbrow" and has but little chance to reach the population at large. The system's concerted effort results in wh.it might be called the prevailing ideology of our time-Certainly, there arc many typical changes within today's pattern; for example, men werctformerly jresentcd as cjoticalj^jfißess^e and women on the defensive, whereas thiinas hčcnlargcly reversed in modern mass" culture, as pointed out particularly by Wolfcnslein and LeiteS- More important, however, is that the pattern itself, dimly perceptible in the early novels and basically preserved today, has by now become congealed and standaribicd^Abovc all. this rigid   -j\ institutionalization transforms modern mass culture into a medium __}| of undreamed of'psychological  control The  lepctitivcness, the selfsamcncss, and the ubiquity of modern mas* culture tend to make for automatized reactions and to weaken the forces of individual resistance^;
\vnen the journalist Defoe and the printer Richardson calculated the effect of their wares upon the audience, they had to speculate, to ft>llow hunches; and therewith, a certain latitude to develop deviations remained. Such deviations have nowadays been reduced to a kind of multiple choice between very few alternatives. The following may serve as an illustration. The popular or scmi-popular novels of the first half of the nineteenth century, published in large quantities and serving mass consumption, were supposed to arouse tension in the reader- Although the victory of the good over the bad was generally provided for, the meandering and endless plots and subplot! hardly allowed the readers of Sue and Dumas to be continuously aware of the moral. Readers could expect anything to happen. This no longer holds true. Every spectator of a television mystery know» with absolute certainty how it is going to end. Tension is but superficially maintained and is unlikely to have a serious effect any more. On the contrary, the spectator feels on safe ground all the time. This longing for 'feeling on safe ground' - reflecting an infantile need for protection, rather than the desire for a thrill - is catered (o. The element of excitement is preserved only with tongue in cheek. Such    _ changes fall in line with the potential change from » freely competitive to a virtually 'closed' society into which One wants to be admitted . or from which one fears to Pe rejectedTEvirything somehow appears  ' 'predestine-' '
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The increasing strength of modern mass culture is further enhan- / ccd by changes injhjLsj^idogicaUtruciuie of the audience. The old J cultured elite does not exist any more; the modern intelligentsia only partially corresponds to it. At the same time, huge strata of the population formerly unacquainted with art have become cultural 'consumers'. Modern audiences, although less capable of the artistic sublimation bred by tradition, have become shrewder in their demands for perfection of technique and for reliability of information, as well as in their desire for 'services'; and they have become more convinced of the consumers' potential power over the producer, no matter whether this power is actually wielded.
How changes within the audience have affected the meaning of popular culture may also be illustrated. The element of internalization played a decisive role in early Puritan novels of the Richardson type. This element no longer prevails, for it was based on the essential role of 'inwardness' in both original Protestantism and earlier middle-class society. As the profound influence of the basic tenets of Protestantism has gradually receded, the cultural pattern has become more and more opposed to the 'introvert.' As Ricsman puts it,
...the conformity of earlier generations of Americans of the type I term 'inner'directed' was mainly assured by their internalization of adult authority. The middle-class urban American of today, the 'other-directed', is, by contrast, in a cbaracterologjcal sense more the product of his peers - that b in sociological terms, his 'peer-groups', the other kids at school or in the block.'
This is reflected by popular culture. The accents on inwardness, inner conflicts, and psychological ambivalence (which plays so large a role in earlier popular novels and on which their originality rests) have given way to unproblematic, cliche-like characterization. Yet the code of decency that governed the inner conflicts of the Pamelas, Clarissas and Lovelaces remains almost literally intact-iTbe middle-class 'ontology' is preserved in an almost fossilized way, bul is severed from the mentality of the middle classes. By being superimposed on people with whose living conditions and mental make-up it is no longer in accord, this middle-class 'ontology" assumes an increasingly authoritarian and al the same time hollow character^
The overt 'naivete" of older popular_ culture is" avoided. Mass { cultuicüLuot sophisticated. nTBsTar tcasi be up to date - that is to sayf^realbljsjlj or posing as realistic - in order to meet the experta-lionšof a supposedly disillusioned, alert, and hard-boiled audience. Middle-class requirements bound up with'internalization — such as concentration, intellectual effort, and erudition - have (o bé continu-
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ously lowered. This does not hold only for (be United Slates, where historical memories are scarcer lhan in Europe, bul it Is universal, applying to England and Continental Europe as well.1
However, this apparent progress of enlightenment is more lhan counterbalanced by retrogressive trails(_Thc earlier popular culture maintained a certain cgujlibrium bclvccnJü social ideology and the actual social conditions under which its consumers lived. This probably helped to SeepThe border line between popular and serious art during ibe eighteenth ceniury more fluid lhan it is today. Abbé PrévosI was one of the founding fathers of French popular literature; but his Manon Lescaut is completely free from cliches, artistic vulgarisms, and calculated effects. Similarly, later in the eighteenth century, Mozart's Zauberflöte struck a balance between the 'high' and the popular style which is almost unthinkable today. Qhe curse of modern mass culture seems to be its adherence 10 Ihe almost unchanged ideology of early middle-class society, whereas ibe lives of its consumers are completely oul of phase wiih ibis ideology!] This is probably the reason for the garjhelwreenthe overt and the hjT den 'message' of modem popular art. AlrRoligrron an overt level the traditional" valües-of PngflsrTPuritan middle-class society arc promulgated, the hidden message aims at a frame of mind which is no longer bound by these values. Rather, today's frame of mind transforms the traditional values into the norms of an increasingly hierarchical and authoritarian social ^structure. Ev«S"hcřč"^~nas TtTbe admitted thai authoritarian elements were also present in the older ideology which, of course, never fully expressed the truth. But Ihe 'message' of adjustment and unreflecting obedience seems to be dominant and all-pervasive today. Whether maintained values derived from religious ideas obtain a different meaning when severed from (heir root should be carefully examined. For example, the concept of the 'purity* of women is one of the invariables of popular culture. In the earlier phase this concept is treated in terms of an inner conflict beiwecn concupiscence and the internalized Christian ideal of chastity, whereas in loday^popular culture ii is dogmatically posited asji value per se. Again, even thčTncnme'nTš'óTibu pattern arc visibTe~m productions such as Pamela. There, however, it seems a by-product; whereas in today's popular culture the idea that only the 'nice girl' gets married and that she must get married at any price has come to be accepted before Richardson's conflicts even start.*
The more inarticulate and diffuse ihe audience of modern mass media seems to be, Ihe more mass media tend lo achieve their integration'. The ideals ol conformity and conventionalism were inherent in popular novels from ihe very beginning. Now, however, these ideals have been translated inlo rather clear-cut prescriptions
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of what lo do and what not to do. The outcome of conflicts is pre-established, and all conflicts arc mere sham(_Šociety is always the winner, and the individual is only a puppet manipulated through social rules. True, conflicts of the ninetecnlh-ccnlury type - such as women running away from their husbands, the drabness of provincial life, and daily chores - occur frequently in today's magazine stories. However, with a regularity which challenges quantitative treatment, Ihesc conflicts are decided in favour oi the very same conditions from which these women want to break away. The stories teach their readers that one has to be 'icalislic', that one h ■ ■ . .c up romantic ideas, that one B5s Toadjust oneself ai any price, and that nothing more can be expected of any individual. The perennial middle-class conflict between individuality and society has been reduced to a dim memory, and Ihe message is invariably that of identification with the status quo. This theme loo is not new, but its unfailing universality invests it with an entirely different meaning. The constant plugging of conventional values seems to mean that these values have lost their substance, and that it is feared that people would really follow their instinctual urges and conscious insights unless continuously reassured from outside that ihey must not do so,Tbe less the message is really believed and the leu it is in harmony with the actual existence of the spectators, the more categorically il is maintained in modern culture. One may speculate whether its inevitable hypocrisy is concomitant with punitiveness and sadistic sternness.
M u Iti layered structure
A dcplh-psychological approach to television has to be focused on its mul (u aye red structure. Mass media are not simply the sum total of the actions they portray or of the messages that radiale from these actions. Mass media also consist of various layers of meanings superimposed on one another, all of which contribute to the effect. True, due lo their calculalivc nature, these rationalized products seem to be more clear-cut in their meaning than authentic works of art, which can never be boiled down to some unmislakeablc 'message'. But the heritage of polymorphic meaning has been taken over by cultural industry inasmuch as what it conveys becomes itself organized in order to enthral the spectators on various psychological levels simultaneously. As a matter of fad, Ihe hidden message may be more important than the overt, since this hidden message will escape the controls of consciousness, will not be 'looked through', will not be warded off by sales resistance, but is likely to sink into the spectator's mind.
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//u«» lo look at television
Probably all Ihc vatious levels in mass media involve all Ihc mechanisms of consciousness and unconsciousness siicsscd by psychoanalysis. The difference between Ihc suiface content, the over! message of televised material, and its hidden meaning is generally marked and rather clear-cut. Tbc rigid' súperi m pošili on of various layers probably is on- of Ihe fealures by which mass media arc distinguishable from ihc integrated products of autonomous art, where the various layers arc much more (hotoughly fused. The full effect of the material on the spectator cannot be studied wiihout consideration of the hidden meaning in conjunction with the overt one, and it is precisely this interplay of various layers which has hitherto been neglected and which will be our focus. This is in accordance with the assumption shared by numerous social scientists that certain political and social trends of our time, particularly those of a totalitarian nature, feed to a considerable extent on irrational and frequently unconscious motivations. Whether the conscious or the unconscious message of our material is more important is hard to predict and can be evaluated only after careful analysis. We do appreciate, however, that the overt message can be interpreted much more adequately in the light of psychodynamics - that is, in its relation to instinctual urges as well as control - than by looking at the overt in a naive way and by ignoring its implications and presuppositions.
The relation between overt and hidden message will prove highly complex in practice. Thus, the hidden message frequently aims at reinforcing conventionally rigid and 'pscudo-realistic' attitudes similar to the accepted ideas more ralionalistically propagated by rhe surface message. Conversely, a number of repressed gratifications which play a large role on the hidden level arc somehow allowed to manifest themselves on the surface in jests, off-colour remarks, suggestive situations, and similar devices. AH this interaction of various levels, however, points in some definite direction: the tendency to channelize audience reaction. This falls in line with the suspicion widely shared, though hard lo corroborate by exact data, that Ihe majority of television shows today aim at producing, or at least reproducing, the very smugness, intellectual passivity and gullibility that seem to fit in with totalitarian creeds even if the explicit surface message of the shows may be anti-totalitarian.
With the means of modern psychology, we will try (o determine the primary prerequisites of shows eliciting mature, adult, and responsible reactions - implying not only in content but ín tbc very way things are being looked at, the idea of autonomous individuals in a free democratic society. We perfectly realize that any definition of such 3n individual will be Hdz*irdou&t bu( wc know cjuitc well what a human being deserving of the appellation 'autonomous
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individual' should nor be, and this 'not' is actually the focal point of our consideration.
When we «peak of the multilayercd structure of television shows, wc arc thinking of various superimposed layers of different degrees of manifestness or hiddenness that are utilized by mass culture as a technological means of 'handling" the audience. This was expressed felicitously by Leo Lowenihal when he coined the term 'psychoanalysis in reverse'. The implication is that somehow the psychoanalytic concept of a multilayercd personality has been taken up by cultural industry, and that the concept is used in order to ensnare the consumer as completely as possible and in order to engage him psyebo-dynamically in the service of premeditated effects. A clear-cut division into allowed Gratifications, forbidden gratifications, and recurrence of the forbidden gratifications in a somewhat modified and deflected form is carried through.
To illustrate the content of the multilayercd structure: Ihe heroine of an extremely light comedy of pranks is a young schoolteacher who is not only underpaid but is incessantly fined by the caricature of a pompous and authoritarian school principal. Thus, she has no money for her meals and is actually starving. The supposedly funny situations consist mostly of her trying to hustle a meal from various jcnuainlanccs, but regularly without success. The mention of food and eating seems to induce laughter - an observation that can frequently be made and invites a Sludy of its own.3 Overtly, the play is just slight amusement mainly provided by the painful situations inio which the heroine and her arch-opponent constantly run. The script does not try lo 'sell' any idea. The 'hidden meaning' emerges simply by Ihc way the story looks at human beings; thus Ihe audience is invited to look at the characters in ihc same way without being made aware that indoctrination is present. Tbc character of the underpaid, maltreated schoolteacher is an attempt to reach a compromise between prevailing scorn for the intellectual and Ihe equally conventionalized respect for 'culture'. The heroine shows such an intellectual superiority and high-spiritedncss that identification with her is invited, and compensation is offered for the inferiority of her position and that of her ilk in the social set-up. Not only is the central character supposed to be very charming, but she wisecracks constantly. In terms of a set pattern of identification, the script implies: 'If you are as humorous, good-natured, quick-wilted, and charming as she is, do not worry about being paid a starvation wage. You can cope with your frustration in a humorous way, and your superior wit and cleverness put you not only above material privations, but also above the rest of mankind". In other words, ihc script is a shrewd method of promoting adjustment lo humiliating conditions by presenting
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them at objectively comical and by giving a picture of a person who experiences even her own inadequate position as an object of fun apparently free of any resentment
Of course, this latent message cannot be considered as unconscious in the strict psychological sense, but rather as 'inobtrusive'; this message is hidden only by a style which docs not pretend to touch anything serious and expects lo be regarded as featherweight. Nevertheless, even such amusement tends lo set patterns for the members of the audience without their being aware of it.
Another comedy of the same thesis is reminiscent of the funnies. A cranky old woman sets up the will of her cat (Mr Casey) and makes as heirs some of the schoolteachers in the permanent cast. Later the actual inheritance is found to consist of the cat's valueless toys. The plot is so constructed that each heir, at the reading of the will, is tempted to act as if he had known this person (Mr Casey). The ultimate point is that the cat's owner had placed a hundred-dollar bill inside each of the toys; and the heirs run to the incinerator to recover their inheritance. The audience is given to understand: 'Don't expect the impossible, don't daydream, but be realistic'. The denunciation of that archetypal daydream is enhanced by the association of the wish for unexpected and irrational blessings with dishonesty, hypocrisy, and a generally undignified attitude. The spectator is given to understand: Those who dare daydream, who expect (hat money will fall to them from heaven, and who forget any caution about accepting an absurd will are at the same time those whom you might expect to be capable of cheating'.
Here, an objection may be raised: is such a sinister effect of ihc hidden message of television known lo those who control, plan, write and direct shows? Or it may even be asked: arc those trails possible projections of (he unconscious of the decision-makers' own minds according to the widespread assumption that works of art can be properly understood in terms of psychological projections of (heir authors? As a matter of fact, it is this kind of reasoning that has led to the suggestion that a special socio-psychological study of decisionmakers in the field of television be made. We do not think that such a study would lead us very far. Even in the sphere of autonomous art, (he idea of projection has been largely overrated. Although the authors' motivations certainly enter the artifact, they are by no means so all-determining as is often assumed. As soon as an artist has set himself his problem, i( obtains some kind of impact of its own; and, in most cases, he has lo follow ihe objective requirements of his product much more than his own urges of expression when he translates his primary conception into reality. To be sure, these objective requirements do not play a decisive role in mass media, which stress
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the effect on the spectator far beyond any artistic problem. However, the lotal scl-up here lends lo limit the chances of the artists' projections utterly. Those who produce the material follow, often gram-blingly, innumerable requirements, rules of thumb, sel patterns, and mechanisms of control which by necessity reduce lo a minimum the range of any kind of artistic self-expression. The facl that mos! products of mass media are not produced by one individual but by collective collaboration - ai happens lo be true with most of the illustrations so far discussed - is only one contributing factor lo this generally prevailing condition. To study television shows in terms of Ihc psychology of the authors would almost be tantamount lo studying Ford cars in terms of the psychoanalysis of Ihe late Mr Ford.
Presumptuousncss
The typical psychological mechanisms utilized by television shows and the devices by which they are automatized function only within a small number of given frames of reference operative in television communication, and the socio-psychological effect largely depends on Ihcm. Wc arc all familiar with Ihe division of television content inlo various classes, such as light comedy, westerns, mysteries, so-railed sophisticated plays, and others. These types have developed into formulas which, to a certain degree, pre-established ihe atliludi-nal pattern of ihc spectator before he is confronted with any specific content and which largely determine the way in which any specific content is being perccivť-d.
In order to understand television, ii is. therefore, no! enough to bring oul the implications of various shows and types of shows; bul an examination must be made of the presuppositions within which the implications function before a single word is spoken. Most important is that the typing of shows has gone so far that Ihc spectator approaches each one with a set pattern of expectations before he faces the show itself-just as the radio listener who catches the beginning of TschaikowsiVy's Piano Concerto as a theme song, knows automatically, 'aha. serious music!' or. when be hears organ music, responds equally automatically, 'aha. religion!* These halo effects of previous experiences may be psychologically as important as Ihc implications of Ihe phenomena themselves for which they have set the stage, and these presuppositions should, iherefore, be treated with
equal care.
When a television show bears Ihe lillc "Dante's Inferno', when (he fiisl shot is thai of a night club by the same name, and when wc find silling at (he bar a man with his hal on and al some distance from him
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a siiMooking, heavily made-up woman ordering another drink, wc arc almosi cerlaín lhal tome murder will shortly he commiltcd. The apparently individualized situation actually works only as a sign.nl thai move* our expectations into a definite direction. If wc had never seer) anything but 'Dante's Inferno', wc probably would not be sure about what was going to happen; but. as. it is. we are actually given to understand by both subtle and not so subtle devices that this is a crime play, thai we are entitled lo expect some sinister and probably hideous and sadistic deeds of violence, that the hero will be saved from a situation from which he can hardly be expected to be saved, that the woman on the bar-stool is probably not the main criminal but is likely to lose her life as 3 gangster's moll, and so on. This conditioning to such universal patterns, however, scarcely stops at the television set.
The way the spectator is made to look at apparently everyday items, such as a night-club, and to take a* hints of possible crime common settings of his daily life, induces him to look at life itself as though it and its conflicts could generally be understood in such terms * This, convincingly enough, may be the nucleus of (ruth in the old-fashioned arguments against all kinds of mass media for inciting criminality in the audience. The decisive Ihing is that this atmosphere of the normality of crime, its presentation in lern» of an average expectation based on life situations, is never expressed it so many words but is established by the overwhelming wealth of material. It may affect certain spectator groups more deeply than the overt moral of crime and punishment regularly derived from such shows. What malters is not the importance of crime as í symbolic exp'cssion of otherwise uncontrolled sexual c>r aggressive impulses, but the confusion c'f this symbolism with a pedantically maintained realism in all matters of direct sense perception. Thus, empirical life becomes infused with a kind of meaning that virtually excludes adequate experience no matter how obstinately Ihe veneer of such 'realism' is built up. This affects the social and psychological function of ďama.
It is hard to establish whether the spectators of Greek Iragedy really experienced the catharsis Aristotle described- in fact this theory. evolved after the age of tragedy was over, seems to have been a rationalization itself, an attempt to state the purpose of tragedy in pragmatic, quasi-scientific letmí. Whatever the case, it seems; pretty certain that those who saw the Orcsteia of Aeschylus or Sophocles' Ocdipits were not likely to translalc these tragedies (the subject matter Df which was known to everyone, and Ihe interest in which was centred in artistic treatment) directly into everyday terms. This audience did not expect lhal on the next corner of Athens similar things would go on. Actually, pscudo-realism allows for the direct and
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extremely primitive identification achieved by popular culture, and it presents a facade of trivial buildings, rooms, dresses and faces as though they were the promise of something thrilling and exciting taking place at any moment.
In order to establish this socio-psychological frame of reference, one would have to follow up systematically categories - such as the normality of crime or pscudo-realism and many others - to determine their structural unity and lo intcrrxet the specific devices, symbols, and stereotypes in relation to this frame of reference. We hypothesize at this phase that the frames of reference and the individual devices will lend in the same direction.
Only against psychological backdrops such as pseudo- realism and against implicit assumptions such as the normality of crime can the specific stereotypes of television plays be interpreted. The very standardization indicated by set frames of reference automatically produces a number of stereotypes. Also, the technology of television production makes stereotyping almosi inevitable. The short time available for the preparation of scripts and the vast material continuously to be produced call for certain formulas. Moreover, in plays lasting only a quarter lo half an hour each, it appears inevitable that Ihe kind of person the audience faces each time should be indicated drastically through red and green lights. We arc not dealing with the problem of the existence of stereotypes as such. Since stereotypes arc an indispensable clement of the organization and anticipation of experience, preventing us from falling into menial disorganization and chaos, no art can entirely dispense with them. Again, the functional change is what concerns us. The more stereotypes become reified and rigid in the present set-up of cultural industry, the more people are tempted to cling desperately lo cliches which seem to bring some order into the otherwise ununderstandable. Thus, people may not only lose true insight into reality, but ultimately their very capacity for life experience may be dulled by the constant wearing of blue and pink spectacles.
Stereotyping
In coping with this danger, wc may not do full justice to the meaning of some of the stereotypes which are lo be dealt with- We should never forget that there are two sides to every psychodynamic phenomenon, the unconscious or id clement and the rationalization. Although the latter b psychologically defined as a defence mechanism, it may very well contain some non-psychological, objective truth which cannot simply be pushed aside on account of the psychological
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function of the rationalization. Thus some of the stereotypical messages, directed toward particularly weak spots in the mentality of large sectors of the population, may pro« to He quite legitimate. However, it may be said with fairness that the questionable blessings of morals, such as "one should not chase after rainbows', arc largely overshadowed by the threat of inducing people to mechanical simplifications by distorting the world in such a way that it seems to Tit into pre-established pigeonholes.
The example here selected, however, should indicate rather drastically the danger of stereotyping. A television play concerning a fascist dictator, a kind of hybrid between Mussolini and Pcron. shows the dictator in a moment of crisis; and the content of the play is his inner and outer collapse. Whether the cause of his collapse is a popular upheaval or a military revolt is never made clear. Bui neither this issue nor any other of a social or political nature enters the plot itself. The course of events takes place exclusively on a private level. The dictator is just a heel who treats sadistically both his secretary and his 'lovely and warmhearted' wife. His antagonist, a general, was formerly in love with the wife; and they both still love each other, allhough the wife sticks loyally to her husband. Forced by her husband's brutality, she attempts flight, and is intercepted by the general who wants to save her. The turning point occurs when the guards surround the palace to defend the dictator's popular wife. As soon as they learn that she has departed, ihe guards quit; and the dictator, whose "inflated ego' explodes at the same time, gives up. The dictator is nothing but a bad. pompous and cowardly man. He seems to act with extreme stupidity, nothing of the objective dynamics of dictatorship comes out The impression is created that totalitarianism grows out of character disorders of ambitious politicians, and is overthrown by the honesty, courage, and warmth of those figures with whom the audience is supposed to identify. The standard device employed is that of Ihe spurious personalization of objective issues. The rcpre-scniatives of ideas under attack, as in the case of the fascists here, arc presented as villains in a ludicrous cloak-and-dagger fashion, whereas those who fight for the 'right cause' are personally idealized. This not only distracts from any real social issues but also enforces the psychologically extremely dangerous division of the world into black (Ihe oul-group) and white (we, the in-group). Certainly, no artistic production can deal with ideas or political creeds in abstracto but has lo present them in terms of their concrete impact upon human heings; yet it would be utterly futile to present individuals as mere specimens of an abstraction, as puppets expressive of an idea. In ("der to deal wiih the concrete impact of totalitarian systems, U *ould be more commendable to show how the life of ordinary people
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is affected by terror and impotence than to cope with the phoney psychology of the big-shots, whose heroic role is silently endorsed by such a treatment even if they are pictured as villains. There seems to be hardly any question of the importance of an analysis of pscudo-pcrsonalizalion and its effect, by no means limited to television.
Allhough pscudo-personalization denote» the stereotyped way of 'looking at things' in television, we should also point O"1 certain stereotypes in the narrower sense. Many television plays could be characterized by Ihe soubriquet 'a pretty girl can do no wrong'. The heroine of a light comedy is to use George Legman's term, 'a bitch heroine." She behaves toward her father in an incredibly inhuman and cruel manner only slightly rationalized as 'merry pranks'. Bui she is punished very slightly, if at all. True, in real life bad deeds are rarely punished at all. bul this cannot be applied to television. Here, Ihosc who have developed the production code for the movies seem right: what matters in mass media is not what happens in real Üfc, but r.ilhcr Ihe positive and negative 'messages', prescriptions, and taboos thai the spectator absorbs by means of identification with the material he is looking at The punishment given to the pretty heroine only nominally fulfils the conventional requiremcnls of the conscience for a second. But (he spectator is given to understand lhal the pretty heroine really gets away with everything just because she is pretty.
The attitude in question seems to be indicative of a universal penchant. In another sketch that belongs lo a series dealing with the confidence racket, the attractive girl who is an active participant in ihe racket not only is paroled after having been sentenced to a long term, bul also seems to have a good chance of marrying her victim. Her sex morality, of course, is unimpeachable. The spectator is supposed to like her at first sight as a modest and self-effacing character, and he must not be disappointed. Allhough it is discovered lhat she is a crook, the original identification must be restored, or rather maintained. The stereotype of the nice girl is so strong that not even the proof of her delinquency can destroy it; and. by book or by crook, she must be what she appears to be. Il goes without saying that such psychological models tend lo confirm exploitative, demanding, and aggressive attitudes on the part of young girls - a character structure which has come lo be known in psychoanalysis under ihe name of oral aggressiveness.
Sometimes such stereotypes arc disguised as national American trails, a part of the American scene where the image of the haughty, egoistic, yet irresistible girl who plays havoc with poor dad has come to be a public institution. This way of reasoning is an insult to the American spirit. High-pressure publicity and continuous plugging lo institutionalize some obnoxious type docs not make the type a sacred
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symbol of folklore. Many considerations of an apparently anthropological nature today (end only to veil objectionable trends, as though (hey were of an ethnological, quasi-natural character. Incidentally, it is amazing to what degree television material even on superficial rumination brings to mind psychoanalytic concept« with the qualification of being « psychoanalysis, in reverse. Psychoanalysis has described the oral syndrome combining the antagonistic trends of aggressive and dependent (rai(s. This character syndrome is closely indicated by the pretty girl [hat can do no wrong, who. while being aggressive against her father exploits him 41 the same lime, depending on him as much as, on the surface level, she is set against him. The difference between (he sketch and psychoanalysis is simply tha( (he sketch exalts (he very same syndrome which is treated by psychoanalysis as a reversion (o infantile developmental phases and which the psychoanalyst tries to dissolve. 1( remains to be seen whether Something similar applies as well to some types of male heroes, particularly the super-he-man. It may well be that he too can do no wrong.
Finally, we should deal with a rather widespread stereotype which, inasmuch as it a taken for granted by television, is further enhanced. At the same time, [he example may serve to show that certain psychoanalytic interpretations or cultural stereotypes are not really too farfetched; (he latent ideas that psychoanalysis attributes to certain stereotypes come to the surface. There is the extremely popular idea that the artist is not only maladjuucd. introverted and a pňori somc-whai funny, but that he is really an 'aesthete', a weakling, and a 'sissy. In other words, modern synthetic folklore (ends to identify the artist with the homosexual and 10 respect only (he 'man of action' as a real, strong man. This idea is expressed in a surprisingly direct manner in one of the comedy scripts at our disposal. It portrays a young man who is not only (he 'dope' who appears So often or television but is also a shy, retiring, and accordingly untalented poet, whose moronic poems are ridiculed.' He is in love with a girl but is too weak and insecure to indulge in the necking practices she rather crudely suggests; the girl, on her part, is caricatured as a boy-chaser. As happens frequently in mass culture, the roles of the sexes are reversed - the girt is utterly aggressive and the boy, utterly afraid of her, describes himself as 'woman-handled* when she manages (o kiss him. There arc vulgar innuendoes of homosexuality of which one may be quoted: the heroine tells her boy-friend (hat another boy is in love with someone, and the boy friend asks, 'What's he in love with?' She answers, 'A girl, of course', and her boy-friend replies, 'Why, of course? Once before it was a neighbour's turtle, and what's more i(s name was Sam*. This inlerprc(ation of the artist as innately incompetent and a social
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How to look at fe'evifio't
outcast (by the innuendo of sexual inversion) is worthy of examination.
We do not pretend that the individual illustrations and examples, or the theories by which they arc interpreted, arc basically new. But in view of the cultural and pedagogical problem presented by television, wc do not (hink that (he novel(y of (he specific findings should be a primary concern. We know from psychoanalysis (hat (he reasoning, 'But wc know all (his!' is often a defence. This defence is made in Order (o dismiss insights as irrclcvan( because they are actually uncomfortable and make lite more difficult for us (han i( already is by shaking our conscience when we are supposed to enjoy the 'simple pleasures of life'. The investigation of the television problems we have here indicated and illustrated by a few examples selected at random demands, most of all, taking seriously notions dimly familiar to most of us by putting (hem into their proper context and perspective and by checking (hem by pertinent material. We propose (o concentrate on issues of which we arc vaguely but uncomfortably aware, even at (he expense of our discomfort's mounting, the further and the more systematically our studies proceed. The effort here required is of a moral nature itself: knowingly to face psychological mechanisms operating on various levels in order not to become blind and passive vic(ims. We can change (his medium of far-reaching potentialities only if we look a( it in the same spirit which we hope will one day be expressed by its imagery.
1   DavidRiesmanfWOjTíiť/lonříyCrOHti.Newllaven. p.v.
2  The evolution of (he ideology o( the extrovert has probably also its long history, particularly in the lower types of popular literature during the nineteenth century when the code of decency became divorced trom its religious roots and therewith attained more and more (he character of an opaque taboo It seems liVcly, however .that m this respect the triumph of the films marked the decisive step. Reading as an act of perception and apperception probably carries with K a certain kind of internalization; the act of reading a novel a fairly dose (o a monologue inurittir. Visualization m modern mass media maices for extemaluation. The idea of inwardness, still maintained in older portrait painting througn the expressiveness of the lace, gives way to unmistakable optical signals that can be grasped at a glance. Even if a character in a movie or television show a not what he appears to be, his appear3nte n ireaicd m such a way as to leave no doubt about his iruc nature. Thus a villain who b not presented as » Mute must at least be 'suave,' and hn rcpubrvc slKkncss and misj manner unambiguously indicate what wc are 10 think of hm.
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How to look at television
3   li should be noted ihat the lendency again« 'erudition* was already pre«ni ai tne very beginning of popular culiurc, particularly m Defoe who »as consciously opposed 10 ihe learned literature of his day. and has become famous for having scorned every refinement of style and artist« construction in favor of on apparent faithfulness to 'tafe'.
4   One of ihe significant differences seems to be that m the eighteenth century the concept of popular culture itself moving toward an emancipation from the absolut istic and semi-feudal tradition had a progressive meaning, stressing autonomy of the individual as being capable of making hts own decisions. This means, among older things, thai Ihe early popular literature left space for authors who «denUy disagreed with the pattern set by Richardson and. nevertheless, obtained populárny of their own. The most prominent case m question is thai of Fielding, whose first novel started as a parody of Richardson. It would be interesting to compare the popularity of Richardson and Fielding at that time. Fielding hardly achieved the same success as Richardson. Yd il would be absurd lo assume thai today's popular culture would altow the equivalent of a TomJontt. This may illustrate ihe contention of Ihe 'rigidity' of today's popular culture. A crucial experiment would be to make an attempt to base a movie on a novel such as Evelyn Waugh's Th< Lo\*d One. Ti is almost certain that ihe script would be rewritten and edited so often lhal nothing remotely similar to the idea of the original would be left.
5   The more rationality (the reality principle) is earned to extremes, the more us ultimate aim (actual gratification) tends, paradoxically, to appear as 'immature' and ridiculous. Not only eating, but also uncontrolled manifestations of sexual impulses tend to provoke laughter in audiences - kisses in motion pictures have generally to he led up to, ihe stage has m be set for them, in order to avoid laughter. Yet mass culture never completely succeeds in wiping out potential laughter. Induced, of course, by the supposed infantilism of sensual pleasures, laughter can largely be accounted for by ihe mechanism of repression. Laughter s a defence against the forbidden fruit.
6  This relationship again should ne* be oversimplified. No matter lo whal exient modern mass media tend lo blur the difference between reality and ihe aesthetic, our realistic spectators are still aware that all u *m fun*. Il cannot be assumed ihal the direct primary perception of reality takes place within the television frame of reference, although many moviegoers recall the alienation of familiar sights when leaving the theatre: everything still has ihe appearance of being pan of the movie plot. What is more important is ihe interpretation of reality in terms of -••■■-■:  'z :• ■ carry-overs, Dat pftpttdnc n IBB DfvjMr) ejects as though some threatening mystery were hidden behind them. Such an attitude seems to be syntonic with mass delusions such as suspicion of omnipresent graft, corruption, and conspiracy.
7   It coukl be argued thai this very ridKuK expresses ihm thrs boy is not meant to represent ihe artist bul just the 'dope'. Hut this is probably loo rationalistic. Again, as in the case of the schoolteacher, official
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respeei lor culture prevenis caricaturing the artist as such. 1 lowever, by characterizing the boy. among other things by ho writing poeiry. it is indirectly achieved thai the aritsiie activities and silliness arc associated with each other. In many respects mass culture is organiied much more by way of such associations than in strictly logical terms. Il may be added thai quite frequently attack! on any social lype seek protection by apparently presenting the object of the attack as an exception, while it is understood by innuendo that he is considered as a specimen of the whole eoneer*.
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