TY - JOUR
T1 - Challenging Disenchantment
T2 - The Discreet Charm of Occult TV
AU - Glynn, Kevin
PY - 2003/12
Y1 - 2003/12
N2 - Occult imagery is widespread in the contemporary global mediaverse, including in TV programs such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Sightings, and The X-Files. This article considers the popular cultural presence of the otherworldly and the magical in relation to the strand of theorizing, beginning with Max Weber and taking a postmodern turn in Jean Baudrillard, that treats the cultures of Western modernity as disenchanted ones. In particular, it turns to Baudrillard's concept of seduction, which, while generating controversy in cultural theory circles, has had only a limited impact in media studies. The article argues that 'tele-visions of the otherworldly' constitute an enchanting challenge to modernist dis-illusionment, serve as a counterpoint to Baudrillard's 'obscene' media hyperrealism, and promote forms of imagination that, like magic realist literary fiction, undermine certain drives toward mastery associated with the dominant knowledge formations of Western modernity. TV's occult imagery can thus serve as the site of an unsettled and unsettling critical imagination, a skeptical popular subjunctivity.
AB - Occult imagery is widespread in the contemporary global mediaverse, including in TV programs such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Sightings, and The X-Files. This article considers the popular cultural presence of the otherworldly and the magical in relation to the strand of theorizing, beginning with Max Weber and taking a postmodern turn in Jean Baudrillard, that treats the cultures of Western modernity as disenchanted ones. In particular, it turns to Baudrillard's concept of seduction, which, while generating controversy in cultural theory circles, has had only a limited impact in media studies. The article argues that 'tele-visions of the otherworldly' constitute an enchanting challenge to modernist dis-illusionment, serve as a counterpoint to Baudrillard's 'obscene' media hyperrealism, and promote forms of imagination that, like magic realist literary fiction, undermine certain drives toward mastery associated with the dominant knowledge formations of Western modernity. TV's occult imagery can thus serve as the site of an unsettled and unsettling critical imagination, a skeptical popular subjunctivity.
KW - television
KW - SUBJUNCTIVE
KW - SEDUCTION
KW - OTHERWORLDLY
KW - OBSCENITY
KW - MODERNITY
KW - MAGIC REALISM
KW - DISENCHANTMENT
KW - BAUDRILLARD
U2 - 10.1177/1477570003014002
DO - 10.1177/1477570003014002
M3 - Article
VL - 1
SP - 421
EP - 447
JO - Comparative American Studies
JF - Comparative American Studies
SN - 1477-5700
IS - 4
ER -