Core Response #1 (Kallan)

  Something that I often find missing from discussions of hegemonic and dominant messaging in mainstream media is an example of what the imagined alternative or oppositional formations might look like. Gitlin writes that changes in TV programming create the illusion of viewers’ power and choice “while keeping deep alternatives off the agenda,” thereby affirming “hegemonic liberal capitalist ideology” (255). But what are these “deep alternatives”? What might a mainstream, non-capitalist TV show or programming slate look like? And would anyone tune in? The implication that revolutionary non-dominant forms are available if only, presumably, we step up and challenge some authority points to an idealism that is not often borne out by TV/film history (as “the masses” often seem to be alienated by the experimental techniques that are supposed to drive them to collective revolt). At the same time, an author (like Gitlin) might reasonably protest that defining alternatives is not their responsibility and that pointing to the absence of possibilities is a necessary step in opening up new ones. Gitlin also acknowledges the uncertainty involved in imagining radical new forms, as he notes that the “emergent formations” these forms will stem from are themselves not yet known (263-264). He also makes the important point that “there is no reason a priori to expect that emergent forms will be expressed as the ideologies of rising classes, or as ‘proletarian ideology’ in particular” (264), thus tempering the idealism that elsewhere equates the new, emerging, or non-dominant with a given author’s desired revolutionary change.

Taking a different approach, Newcomb and Hirsch work from what is already knowable, exploring the flexibility available within existing constraints. They point to a key element of mainstream-media viewing: even if dominant, conservative, capitalist values are affirmed in a given narrative’s end, these forms often allow room for interesting, challenging, non-dominant ideas leading up to that conclusion. This element of their argument reminded me of Jeanine Basinger’s point that in the woman’s picture, the images of a woman enjoying her career and independent lifestyle (flying planes, chasing a lead, dancing on stage) stay with us long after the film ends, even if she is married off and leaves her job in the final minutes (she said this in a class I took at Wesleyan University, but I believe she also discusses it in her book A Woman’s View). Newcomb and Hirsch’s compelling analysis of the “Betty, Girl Engineer” episode of Father Knows Best similarly points to the fact that not only does the episode raise questions about contemporary gender roles, but it also spends most of its running time depicting Betty determining to be an engineer, producing a strong impression that is not totally nullified by the misogyny and conservatism affirmed in the close. It is not progressive, it is not wholly satisfying, but it is an interesting example of the space that can be found within even the most “innocuous” mainstream media (Newcomb and Hirsch, 565).