STANTONfrom, the freaks and horror, the unnamable, the irresistible 'perversions' presented on the screen. A new primeval release is safely packaged. The modern mysteries are participated in, but this time not in blood rituals beyond the city walls. Here the other is devoured from the easy-chair. Pumped up on fear and righteousness, the couch potato surfs restlessly from channel to channel, between scenes of ersatz passion, carnage, humor, and the freakshowonfessionalnquisition of the talk show,36 finally incapable of separating this world from that which is really experienced, replacing the city with the even more violent and bizarre urbanism of the networks. The talk show itself is a prophylactic penetration of 'normalcy' and a viscous counter-attack by the normal on that which penetrates. Sanctimony and xenophobia become inevitable.After all, American culture is basically one of images, so that changes effected at the level of imagery cannot be underestimated, Since commodification is one of the main modes of integration in the United States, it can certainly be used as a vehicle of symbolic intervention. Rather than of active or passive cultures, one can now speak of mutual appropriation. Celeste Olalquiaga, Megalopolis: Contemporary Cultural Systems111The oral tradition has been resurrected, with the story-teller replaced by what Barbara Kruger calls a 'piece of talking furniture,'38 but with the same potential for uncritical assimilation of propaganda and the same likelihood of an increasingly docile audience. Nothing is left to the imagination and little mental action is necessary beyond controlling the remote. Like the allegorical imagery of the Gothic church, where the illiterate, incapable of independent access, were provided with symbol and accompanying rhetoric, the TV presents a seamless space. A new mythic return occurs to the excesses that must associate themselves with this sort of information matrix�transcendence, directed consumerism, the impression of choice masking control, most importantly the extreme animosity directed toward fellow citizens who are marked as 'different' by race, language or sexual preference and who thus stand outside the myth. When polled, safely suburban Milwaukee residents statistically felt as threatened138WHITE PAPERS, BLACK MARKS
