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NORTHERN
EXPOSURE A
Site for Hegemonic Struggle? Popular
Culture can be defined in any number of ways, but is generally thought to
consist of cultural texts and cultural practices that are consumed on a
large scale. These texts and practices are creations and reflections of
the western industrial societies that produce them. The analysis of
popular culture is a worthy endeavor because of what it can reveal about
our society. Popular culture says something about who we are and who
we’d like to be, and as with any artifact of culture, there are many
theoretical approaches that may be utilized in its analysis. One of these many
approaches to the analysis of popular culture is the Gramscian concept of
hegemony, based on the theory of Marxism. This approach treats pop culture
as a site of exchange between dominant and subordinate ideologies; a
struggle between the forces of resistance by subordinate groups and the
forces of incorporation by dominant groups (Storey, 1998). Gramscian
theory suggests that texts move within a ‘compromise equilibrium’ of
resistance and incorporation. I propose that the television program Northern
Exposure is a cultural text that demonstrates this compromise
equilibrium; it moves between resistance and incorporation. The fictional
community of ‘Cicely, Alaska’ is the site of this struggle. ‘Cicely’ is a small
remote town in Alaska that was founded in the early 1900’s. What began
as a frontier trading post was transformed through a re-birth of the human
spirit, under the guidance of Roslyn and Cicely. These two lesbian women
had traveled from Billings MT on a quest to create a place for people to
live in freedom and harmony, to live how they chose and to explore their
human potential. They inspired the depressed and the oppressed of the
outpost to reach within themselves and to tap their inner strength, civic
pride and humanity. Through the hard work of a diverse group of people
from all walks of life, Cicely became a ‘Paris of the North’, an
artist colony of freethinkers that attracted the likes of Kafka, Lenin and
Anastasia Romanov. The town was unofficially founded on the day of a
‘wild west’ showdown of words –when the townsfolk defended their new
Utopia from the bullying wealthy cowboy who would continue to ‘own’
and dominate them, keeping them in fear and subjugation. Cicely lost her
life to a stray bullet of ignorance and social reform was born, forever
stamped on the town. The television show is an hour long weekly drama that
features a storyline based on the experiences of a New York City doctor
who gets stationed in Cicely in 1990 to work off his medical school debt
to the state of Alaska. Says Rob Morrow, the actor who played Dr. Joel
Fleischman on the show, “I can’t think of another mirror world more
emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually right than the one that we
created in Cicely”(Will, 1999). While operating within a completely
identifiable physical world, Northern Exposure challenges our perceptions and our assumptions
about the society we’ve created. The television series Northern
Exposure, currently airing as re-runs on the Hallmark Channel on
weekdays 2-3:00 pm, was produced from 1990–1995 and aired during
primetime on CBS. It enjoyed amazing critical and commercial success,
winning an Emmy for Outstanding Drama in its first season and launching
its cast into commercial stardom. The text, which amasses to 110 episodes,
was originally intended to be a quirky medical drama created by the
producers of St. Elsewhere, John Falsey and Joshua Brand. There is a
strong following of the series even today with active fan clubs on the
internet as well as in ‘real’ space. There are several annual
gatherings of fans in the town of Roslyn WA, where many of the outdoor
scenes for the show were filmed. There were many changes in the world in
1989-1990 that likely contributed to the success of a show like this one:
the revival of Earth Day and the Environmental Movement (post Exxon
Valdez), the eruption of New Age Spirituality, unprecedented
‘political correctness’ and global awareness, the collapse of
communism: Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, etc. It was a time in
America’s history for reevaluation, and social change seemed possible. A
Republican administration, with George Bush Sr. as President of the United
States, was in office when the show was formulated. The global events
combined with the political framework for its historical production
indicates a possible need for a competing ideology. Evidence of this need
for shift in political power was the election of Democratic President Bill
Clinton in 1992, mid-series for Northern
Exposure. Regardless of whether or not this was an attempt to satisfy
the masses by providing a cultural placebo for conflicting ideology, or
whether the demise of the show several years later was evidence of the
Democratic Administration providing a sense that our liberal welfare was
being safeguarded, the television industry recognized that the American
audience was becoming more diversified and saw an opportunity to target a
fragmented population. Building off the popularity of quirky shows, such
as Twin Peaks, the producers of Northern Exposure used political fads as character traits and
challenged political correctness and stereotypes. I’ve addressed the
possible appeal of a show like Northern
Exposure in the early 1990’s, but what is it about Northern Exposure that continues to be so appealing today? The text
has become integrated into a cultural practice for some fans. The show
influenced the economy of the real-life town as ‘outsiders’ began
buying property in Roslyn, WA, presumably to feel closer to the fictional
paradise. Some has been written on the mythological content of the show
and its value as such, but I believe there might be more to it than a much
needed and inclusive global mythology. Taylor and Upchurch (1996) reported
that Northern Exposure quite
possibly provides the needed global mythology spoken of by Joseph Campbell
in his PBS interview with Bill Moyers called ‘The Power of Myth’.
Campbell, a sorely missed leading scholar of world mythology and
oft-quoted source on the ‘Chris in the morning’ radio show on Northern
Exposure, asserted that the social problems faced by industrial
societies are partly a result of a failure to embrace a powerful mythology
that guides individuals in finding their place in society (Taylor and
Upchurch, 1996). Taylor and Upchurch say that, in a Hegelian dialectic of
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, Northern
Exposure combines elements from many traditional myths to create a
modern functional myth. They point to the episode where Chris flings the
piano from Maggie’s fire ravaged house to demonstrate “that we need
myths to help put aside the ‘things’ of our lives”. By ‘things’
they mean anything that prevents us from finding inner freedom and
meaningful relationships with other people; mental and physical obstacles
including “childhood fantasies, desire for possessions, fame or power”
(Taylor and Upchurch, 1996). This analysis indicates an appropriate link
between mythology and political and economic ideology because they infer
that the mythology is needed to alleviate the distracting baggage of our
political and economic existence, our everyday ‘reality’. The degree
to which Northern Exposure
succeeds in providing such a mythology depends on how it is read. Northern
Exposure is an intellectual show and can be read on many levels. The
structuralist approach says meaning is the result of interplay of the
relationship of selection and combination made possible by the underlying
structure, in this case the theme of myth, and is analogous to language (Storey,
1998). There are very obvious themes for each episode and an eclectic cast
of characters that might appeal to almost any segment of the viewing
audience. It is possible that Northern
Exposure is a site for the disenfranchised in today’s world to find
expression, a site for the ideological struggle in America to be played
out. The series begins with a
Jewish New York doctor coming to Alaska to work off a contractual debt to
the state for his medical education. He imagines that he is to be
stationed in Anchorage or Fairbanks and is horrified when he finds himself
instead marooned in the backwoods town of Cicely, population 800. The
first several episodes feature him struggling with this incarceration
(control issues) and trying to think of an escape plan. The townsfolk he
encounters are entirely alien and ‘weird’ to his highly ‘cultured’
urban worldview. He is a man of concrete and skepticism, ‘alone’ in a
wilderness of ‘freaks’. The series develops as Joel and his community
learn life lessons in dealing with humanity. Joel’s only ‘kindred
spirit’ is his captor, Maurice Minnifield, the benefactor and patriarch
of the town; a man who held Joel at gunpoint when he’d heard of his
plans to welch on the repayment deal. Maurice is an extremely
wealthy ex-marine, ex-astronaut and frontier developer with western
notions of law and dreams of his own legacy. He is a man comfortable and
self-identified with his status as an elite in a nation of economic,
cultural and political hierarchy, although he continues to be unaware of
the fact that his prominence as leader is unrecognized in the rural town.
His prominence is indeed a figment of his imagination when it is placed
out of context with the outside world. There is a peripheral rival of
Maurice’s in town, Edna Hancock, a woman who also owns timber and mining
companies and plans of fiscal dreams come true in the wilderness.
Interestingly enough, the only other regular character who buys into the
status quo of the standard economic ‘American Dream’ is Lester Haines,
the Native American millionaire who’s “lost touch with the old
ways”, according to our Native spiritual guide, Marilyn Whirlwind.
Lester employs Phillipino servants and contracts out to other Native
Americans, but expects special discounts for his nepotism. In effect,
he’s assimilated and become the ‘white man’. There are some
supporting characters when it becomes necessary to set an exclusive
capitalist environment. One such event was the episode where Holling, the
endearing tavern owner and long time friend of Maurice, wants to become a
member of the Sons of the Tundra Club. This exclusive club of businessmen,
which admitted a scraggly old trapper and recovering Wall Street junky
named Walt, would not initiate Holling due to Lester’s prejudice against
his Huguenot heritage. Holling found himself questioning the exclusive
nature of current society. Besides this peripheral brotherhood of
capitalists, Joel and Maurice generally find themselves in the minority,
sharing a common set of values when it comes to politics and goals.
In contrast to the
capitalist ideology expounded by Joel and Maurice, the rest of Cicely’s
residents tend to fall into the alternative category of diverse values,
none placing much merit on financial gain. And while they all participate
in the capitalist system without contestation, as a whole they place more
value on intangibles, a counter hegemonic ideology that minimizes
consumption. Their residence choice denotes their placement of value.
Besides the Indians, many of the residents are transplants from other
states, dreamers and gypsies who settled in Alaska to enjoy more freedom
and a higher quality of life. They certainly were not lured with economic
incentive, and their access to market goods is limited by location. The
only characters that did come to Alaska with a business venture were Ron
and Eric, two homosexual innkeepers looking for a dream life where they
could still maintain their financial quality of life. While Maurice
initially revels in their overwhelming similarities in taste (culinary and
music, ‘high culture’) and ethics (fiscal and as fellow marines), he
struggles with his homophobic disgust with their lifestyle. But with
Maurice, tolerance can be bought, and he sells them property for their
‘bed and breakfast’. In episodes that follow, Maurice continually
confronts his homophobia as he learns to accept these newest additions to
his growing enterprise, the town itself. While Cicely was originally
founded by a homosexual couple, Maurice is uncomfortable with the
direction it may now take under his ‘command’, and with how it would
reflect upon him and his legacy as benefactor. Maurice and Joel are
offended by any lack of respect for elitism. Maurice holds tightly to his
position as king of the lonely castle and his imaginary reign over the
kingdom of Cicely, while Joel holds tightly to his inflated self-image as
glorified ‘healer of man’ and automatic leader in his forced
community. Both cling to illusions of control and illusions of their role
of power and influence, none of which are recognized in this wilderness.
What is power in this fictional world? Who has it in Cicely? Just as money
is worthless in the wilderness, Maurice’s restrictive agenda and brazen
display of authority is worthless in a setting of freethinkers with
relatively nothing material to lose. In a world where political
correctness is not expected and most take little offense to the insulting
opinions of others, Cicelians are free to speak their minds without
repercussion. Just as the stereotypical old west, Cicelians don’t seem
to need a leader. In fact they had gone without an election in town since
its founding days, up until Edna Hancock needed a stop sign in front of
her house and realized she was not going to get one unless she became
mayor. Power displays itself as self-expression and self-realization. The true revelations of
power come through as recognition of individual human nature and
self-determination. An example of this is when Maggie O’Connell, the
young antagonistic bush pilot from Gross Point Michigan, finds an
archaeological site in her front yard and is suddenly overrun with Maurice
and his band of hired excavators. Maggie is never consulted on the project
and is told to use her back door so as not to disturb such an important
operation. When she realizes that the artifacts are largely comprised of
women’s paraphernalia, she takes back the power and kicks them all off
of her property in a bulldog display of empowerment, promptly eating the
written contract and reburying the artifacts in an all female ritual.
Other episodes end in glory when characters simply reject the oppressive
feel of “should” and “have to”. For example, Maurice suffers a
minor heart attack and feels like the world is trying to bury him and his
ambition by sending him away for a series of medical tests. He takes
matters into his own hands and risks his health by canceling his trip to
the hospital, choosing instead to high dive into a waterhole of icy stream
water, resurfacing triumphant with adrenalin and self-determination.
Another episode features Maggie coming to the realization that she
doesn’t have to let Fleischman’s abrasive character affect her,
because she is inherently nice and he is not. She proceeds to try
desperately to be nice, something she has always believed to be part of
her nature, and she struggles and is unhappy. When her patience is finally
tested with someone treating her like a doormat, she breaks the
politeness, screams and threatens the offender. She turns to face the
camera with an exuberant face of found identity and empowerment. These
episodes featuring agency as victorious over structure propose a challenge
to the dominant ideology of American culture. These characters feel the
pressure of dominant forces in patriarchy, gender metanarratives, and a
youthful culture that negates the elderly. In response to these forces is
a brief period of habitual acquiescence before an eventual realization of
discomfort and ultimately self-determination. These characters have
essentially rebelled against the structure; a very subtle and private
rebellion, but that is how revolution begins. Individual
self-determination may ultimately lead to a re-evaluation of the system by
which we define ourselves as a group. In this way agency may challenge
structure in a hegemonic struggle over ideology. As a base feature of the
dominant ideology of capitalism, class structure is represented in this
text, but what’s questionable is the extent to which the hierarchy
functions. Two very clear examples of this class struggle are the
dichotomies of Maurice and Chris, and Maggie and Joel. Maurice’s polar
opposite is Chris Stevens, ex-con DJ, artist and employee who contently
resides in a trailer. Maurice and Chris are opposites on every scale, but
they share common cultural texts. The interpretations of those texts are
quite different, but the appreciation is ‘equal’. While Maurice and
Chris are both from very humble backgrounds, both are quintessentially
‘American’ by very different definitions. Maurice’s childhood was
based on conservative mid-western American morals, and Chris’ childhood
was based on liberal, low class criminal delinquency. Each archetype has a
different value for money, and different motivations. They represent the
upper class and the lowest class, and each is very comfortable with their
class status. In fact each identifies himself heavily by that status.
Maurice worked hard to move from the lower to the upper class, and can’t
possibly comprehend the idea that everyone wouldn’t trade shoes with him
in a minute for the fame and fortune he’s acquired. But, he is lonely.
Chris is proud of his class and sees no division separating him from an
intellectual life of both great literary culture and beer. He is an artist
and a philosopher, and wants nothing more than to explore every dimension
of existence. In an episode where Maurice wanted an heir to pass on the
Minnifield fortune, he tried to adopt Chris, his employee and friend.
Chris hesitantly agreed because he’ll try anything once. It was an
incredibly awkward experience as Maurice tried to ‘father’ and mold
Chris into someone worthy of such prestige. In a typical father-son duel
of egos, Chris finally ‘quit’, as all Stevens do. Both men have vastly
different identities connected to their class status and are
self-identified by them. Another dichotomy of
class struggle is seen in the characters of Joel and Maggie. While Joel
and Maggie act out an obvious struggle with gender roles and competition,
they also act out their struggles to break free from the classes they were
born into. Joel was born to a blue-collar family and strives for the
republican American Dream of success, while Maggie was born to a Country
Club executive and socialite, and strives to live out the reverse, an
idealized democratic vision of equality. Maggie and Joel are living their
version of the American Dream by challenging the roles and classes they
were born into. Maggie was raised to be a successful and professional
socialite and reacted dramatically by following her own desires to be a
combative mechanic and bush pilot. She is an excellent example of an
individual who challenges the dominant gender metanarrative, who is quick
to rebellion, and who makes attempts to understand and practice liberal
social responsibility. Joel is living the quintessential American Dream by
being born to a middle class family and working his way up to the elite
upper class of medical professionals. Having been a child prodigy, he is
not exactly challenging the role he was born into but he is shifting class
status, by choice and through effort. In this way he is buying into the
dominant ideology with all of its high culture and emphasis on prestige
and privilege. Throughout the show we watch him wrestle with his black and
white worldview and in his last season he relinquishes the illusion of
control he’s been clinging to and decides to live with a remote Indian
village during his inner search for ‘enlightenment’. Joel completely
morphs through a spiritual rebirth following a vision quest, and returns
to New York with an alternative and ‘eastern’ (as opposed to
‘western’) worldview. We see that both Maggie and Joel have challenged
the dominant ideology in very different patterns, revealing that there are
as many paths to choose as there are individuals, and that ideologies are
not only not necessarily
imposed, but also not static. We have agency. We can decide what success
means to us individually regardless of what dominant ideology is telling
us. Northern
Exposure subverts the American Ideal of success and power to include
those who resist competitive capitalist oppression. As a hegemonic site of
resistance, the show empowers those who don’t personally legitimize the
system by reversing the definition of ‘success’. In Cicely, more value
is generally placed on art and free spirit than on a sizeable financial
portfolio. In one episode Ed invites Ruth Ann Miller, general store owner
and his new boss, to dinner and she tells him of her children. She proudly
describes her son Rudy who is a truck driver in Portland and writes
pastoral poetry in his spare time. And with an air of regret and
disappointment she describes her son Matthew by saying. “and well
….Matthew, that boy had such potential…..he’s in Chicago… he’s
an investment banker.” (Ed offers his condolences). “Life’s full of
surprises Ed, some good and some bad.” Northern
Exposure offers an environment where the alternative lifestyle and
values are not only appreciated and nurtured, but constitute the majority.
The minority is the capitalist ideology of materialism, and that is OK
too, so long as it does not impose on the rights of the others. I believe
that this idyllic village, where art and individuality are revered, may
alleviate the pain of failure felt by many in the ‘lower 48’;
‘failure’ of choosing not to conform to the capitalist standard.
Cicelians have chosen instead to ‘follow their bliss’ (Campbell,
1988). Failure is embraced in
Cicely. Failure is inevitable if life is truly lived and risks taken.
Perhaps this can be seen as embracing the American ideal, the myth of the
American west and the pledge of the pursuit of individual happiness. Risk
taking is encouraged in capitalism. It may also be a new definition of an
America painfully aware of its sins and in need of redemption. In
the episode where Chris is struggling with the logistics of remodeling his
trailer in a timely efficient manner, he remarks to Joel on the lesson he
learned from the universe in his failure to do so. “What is a house, but
a metaphor for the mind….You gotta tear down the old before you can
build the new. You gotta lose your mind before you can find it….Give up
man. Throw out all those old plans and sink your face in the here and now.
Whether it works out or not, I’m a free man.” Failure is relative. All
is relative in Cicely; all is a state of mind…..even freedom. There are
several episodes that challenge the value of a house in our society and
its use as a status symbol, a benchmark of our ‘success’. In each
episode the character comes to the realization that, while conditioned to
want a house, it is not going to make them any happier than they already
are. And who needs to be isolated in organized personal space anyway?
Community is the lesson of Cicely. Community is a recurrent
theme on the show. The increasing isolation of the individual due to
technological advances is lamented in Cicely, where town meetings are the
forum to debate moral dilemmas, and potlatches and picnics abound. One
particular episode features Maggie getting fed up with the poor quality of
the machines in the Laundromat (itself an indicator of class distinction),
owned and operated by Maurice Minnifield, and buying her own personal
machines like those she had when growing up. Five minutes into her first
load of wash she realizes she is bored and lonely, sitting at home with
her laundry. She makes phone calls to idly chatter and starts to invite
people over to do their laundry at her house, just so she’ll have
company. Following a conversation with Chris about America’s
technological “blitzkrieg toward isolation”, Maggie realizes that the
Laundromat was more than a place to wash her clothes, it was an informal
bonding ritual that regularly reinforced her social ties with friends in
the community, her ‘family’. When she experiences a kink in the new
machine’s function, she seizes the opportunity to return it to the
factory. She is welcomed back to the laundry circle by those who’ve
missed her company. I believe that this sense of community, largely lost
in an expanding industrial nation, is a key component to the appeal of the
show. It’s not simply a group of friends, but a village of different
souls muddling together along individual paths of life. In an industrial
capitalist system that glorifies financial success, consumption and
mobility of the nuclear family, ‘community’ is a concept that has
become distanced and quaint. Community is now a matter of choice that one
must seek and create. But we are conditioned to purchase what we need
instead of creating it. I believe that a certain percentage of the
audience of Northern Exposure,
particularly those who later purchased Northern Exposure merchandise, may have been, in part, trying to
‘buy’ this old concept of community. Who was the audience of Northern
Exposure? By featuring characters with diverse personalities and
backgrounds, the text probably targeted an increasingly fragmented
audience. While the fan base is both male and female, I’ve never seen an
official survey. According to
a marketing project by Diet 7-UP, it may have been largely women. The
target audience for their taste test sweepstakes, featuring the moose
blindfolded, were women from 18-49 (Flynn, 1994). Of course this may have
simply been the target audience because it was a diet product, typically
thought to be more appealing to the ever self-conscious female. And what
of the marketing? Is this the dominant ideology still winning with all of
this focus on products and consumer activity? The program became quite a
windfall for marketing, with T-shirts available everywhere in stores and
the stars becoming regular commercial salesmen for car manufacturers like
Ford Motor Company. Perhaps fans wanted to buy into the concept of this
northern paradise where material goods are appreciated but not seen as the
ticket to happiness. In a society where everything is for sale, perhaps
they wanted to buy into the concepts of community, spirituality and
alternative ideologies. ‘Cityfolk’ began buying property in Roslyn WA
not long after the program began. Were they buying into the prestige of
the show or were they buying the concept of an alternative reality? The
former would indicate a support for the dominant ideology whereas the
latter would indicate a choice for an alternative ideology, albeit
‘consumed’ via the mechanisms of capitalism. If Cicely is a state of
mind, why would people relocate to find it? According to one reviewer,
Cicely is a pastoral myth of the secret garden, and this garden of Eden is
“wherever you are when you watch its tale unfold” (McConnel, 1993). ‘Cicely’
does not exist in a vacuum and the outside world of marketing is still an
influence in their fictional lives. One episode features Marilyn
Whirlwind, the stoic spiritual guide and conscience of Dr. Fleischman,
struggling with a mysteriously sore leg. Ed Chigliak, the
budding film-maker and Shaman in training, films her telling her
ancestor’s story. By the end of the story she realizes her problem was
that she’d been working too many hours and neglecting her stories,
putting her desire for a compact disc player before her cultural needs.
While we expect the transplanted Cicelians to struggle with the remnants
of their past, their enculturation, it is always refreshing and powerful
to witness the spiritual center dealing with human frailties. While
Marilyn seems oblivious to the maelstrom of Joel’s antics, she quietly
harbors her own mixed feelings about forgiveness and leniency, casting
doubt into stereotypes. This is a subversion of ethnic metanarratives, our
idea of the Native American. Who is the Native American and what role do
they play in our society? Are they fully assimilated? The characters on Northern
Exposure display an array of answers. While Marilyn rejects the lure
to consume in this episode due to the immediate cultural and health cost,
Ed Chigliak struggles with a similar dilemma in the episode where he
housesits for Maurice. At first he is terribly lonely and uneasy in the
mansion, so he invites friends over to share in Maurice’s wealth. Before
long he has assumed Maurice’s arrogant personality. The house had taken
control of him like the aliens in ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’. I
believe this was intended to be commentary on the consuming nature of
material possessions. This would serve to further support my contention
that Northern Exposure, as a
text, acts as a site for hegemonic struggle. As Marx said, “The
philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point
is to change it”(Storey, 1998). I assert that the moral of the storyline
of Northern Exposure is that we
all have the power to do just that in our own lives everyday, simply by
challenging the norms, by becoming more tolerant of one another and by not
imposing ideology. Individual empowerment can lead to a critical mass of
people who think alike and feel able
to change society. Tolerance leads to community and community can lead to
social action. In this way individual power can support a grassroots
counter hegemonic struggle. One may also read that self-empowerment of the
individual may serve to support the dominant ideology by flattening out
the sense of conflict, but I don’t necessarily agree. Self-empowerment
could make us feel more in control over things than we really are, and
that might be the position of critical theorists from the Frankfurt School
of thought. They believe that the culture industry uses pop culture to
prematurely deliver on the promises of a capitalist success (equality and
justice), thus preventing the demand for true democracy, and flattening
out the distinction between high culture (belonging to the realm of
religion) and popular culture (Storey, 1998). Marshall McLuhan, predicted
that the power and range of television would one day iron out our
differences and turn us into a ‘global village’ (McConnel, 1993). Does
this mean that if Northern Exposure
does represent this bridge between popular culture and religion
(high culture), thus ironing out the differences, that it prevents the
demand for true democracy? It remains to be seen, but I think that
democracy is taking place at the level of the individual consumer,
reflected in their choices and attitudes. Northern
Exposure provides the new “global village” myth that embraces
cultural diversity, community spirit, and individual freedom of expression
while providing a framework for life’s journey (Taylor and Upchurch,
1996). It provides dialogue that includes nearly every point of view, and
most often features liberal stances and humanity victorious. And, in the
last decade of the 20th century, these priorities were
predominant in the media. Does that then mean that liberal alternative
lifestyle was the dominant
ideology? I believe not so. I believe it was a fad and an idea that was
capitalized on by the consumer market of America, and in turn consumed by
Americans perhaps looking for alternatives and a clear conscience
regarding their petitioned role in a world of growing responsibilities. By
challenging its viewers to question their very beliefs about success and
existential meaning, Northern
Exposure asked us to reevaluate our society and its dominant ideology.
I would contend that the writers were somewhat successful in this
challenge by reaching a portion of the audience that was reading the text
as I’ve suggested. I’ve spoken with many people who’ve read the text
(or haven’t read the text) in many different ways. Many who read deeply
into the text come away feeling better, with a sense of satisfaction. In
this way they may view the conflict as already having been resolved. I’m
not purporting that those who’ve become the biggest fans of the show
lead alternative lifestyles and counter dominant ideology in their daily
lives. The fans I met seemed to be, for the most part, very average middle
class Americans with typical occupations. This is just what I surmised; no
survey was conducted. What I would like to propose is that it is difficult
to say how they were subtly affected. Perhaps the experience has affected
the way they make decisions and perceive situations. Having been raised in
this media culture, I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing flashes of
recognition when finding myself in situations that are reminiscent of
television scenarios. In a given situation, most people my age understand
what I mean when I say I’m having a ‘Brady moment’. Television
affects us in ways that carry into our daily lives, ways that are often
unrecognized but are quite readily recalled. It’s even a standard
storyline on the show. Ed Chigliak, the film buff, sees events in his life
as they remind him of movies. His shaman mentor, Leonard, refers to movies
as ‘White Man’s medicine’. He says it is the folklore we carry with
us throughout our lives, our healing stories. In this subtle way we can
play out counter hegemonic ideas and explore different personalities. It
may not be a typical revolution, but it may be a subtle one. The
individual focused ideology of meaning and power, of ‘following your
bliss’, counters dominant ideology because it tells us to do what we
want to do with our lives, instead of what the media tells us we want to
do. Joseph Campbell, has this to say on the subject; “It’s
characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being
effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of
course, the majority is always wrong……the majority’s function in
relation to the spirit is to try to listen and to open up to someone
who’s had an experience beyond that of food, shelter, progeny, and
wealth” (Campbell, 1988). This he says in response to the question of
what has undercut the experience of following your bliss and deeply
communing with ‘God’ in today’s world. ‘Finding your bliss’ is
essentially becoming one with ‘God’, tapping into universal energy and
humanity, through finding true happiness with yourself. And as I’ve
stated and shown, the characters on the show largely favor individual
growth and lack of formal government and law. Campbell says, “The best
part of the Western tradition has included a recognition of and respect
for the individual as a living entity. The function of the society is to
cultivate the individual. It is not the function of the individual to
support society.” Northern
Exposure repeatedly supports this philosophy, exhibited in the two
following examples, one episode featuring Lenin, and another featuring a
more formal government evolving in Cicely. In a period episode early
in the town’s history, Lenin travels to Cicely to meet secretly with the
outcast Anastasia Romano, to see if they might reach an agreement where
she could be reinstated as a token monarch of the people. In a discussion
at her general store, Ruth Ann Miller says she’s been reading about his
Soviet Union and she believes they will always have a problem with it
because of their neglect for individuality. Lenin is enchanted with the
strength and vitality of the Alaskan settlers and returns to the newly
established Soviet Union with a slightly different take on his
interpretation of Marxism in practice. He begins to question the role of
the individual spirit in capitalist versus communist systems.
Perhaps a system that forsakes the individual for the community is
not the ‘right’ answer either. This is clear evidence of the text
moving within a ‘compromise equilibrium’; moving between forces of
incorporation and resistance. Another episode featuring
this hegemonic struggle is one with ambitious Maggie O’Connell as newly
elected mayor. She wants to show Cicelians that government can accomplish
things that are ‘good’ sometimes, so she proposes a number of civic
enhancement and public works projects. Maggie finds that very few people,
except Holling who would personally profit and who was of Canadian
heritage (socialized benefits), favor the precedent of a ‘big’
government machine. They democratically choose to vote ‘no’ on
‘progress’ and ‘red tape’. The majority vote in Cicely is for
individual sovereignty. Campbell
says that “each incarnation has a potentiality…….the mission of life
is to live that potentiality. How do you do it? My answer is, ‘Follow
your bliss’. There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in
the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if
you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you
stay in the center and don’t get any money, you still have your
bliss.” I believe these words are the driving inspiration for the
writers of Northern Exposure. These concepts are featured in many themes
of the show and Campbell is often paraphrased. His ideas are challenging
to the dominant ideology because it places true inner happiness above
financial value. And as much as we all agree to this hierarchal placement
in theory, it is rarely used in daily decision-making. We live in a
society where we are bombarded with images of money buying true happiness.
And therefore, if we want either money or happiness we must realistically
make choices to ensure a sound financial future through a capitalist
system. Northern Exposure, as a
text, tells us that this may not be necessary. I contend that Northern Exposure shows that there are other options in the way we
think, view the world, and react within it. In
these ways I believe Northern
Exposure
was an anthropological analysis of, and an experiment with, the American
culture. I believe it appealed to a wide and fragmented audience through
the array of characters represented. But, I do not contend that it
appealed to everyone or even on the same level. I contend that at least a
portion of the audience who chose to read deeply into the text were those
who, on some level were seeking liberation. Liberation from what?
Liberation from the ‘rat race’ of the capitalist American Dream, from
the gender metanarrative, from the Judeo-Christian concepts of
spirituality, from the fear of political incorrectness and/or from the
fear of exercising true democracy by freely speaking their minds. A Neo-Gramscian
analysis of competing ideologies is just one of many possible ways to
examine this rich cultural text, but it is one with merit as television
‘fiction’ is an ideal media for such dialogue to occur in a
non-threatening atmosphere. In Neo-Gramscian analysis, popular culture is
what people actively make from the products of the culture industry; it is
a social production (Storey, 1998). The concept of hegemony is used to
explain the absence of socialist revolutions in capitalist systems, and
this cultural text is a good example of how those in this society who want
to be heard and be appreciated, can be appeased through dialogue that
highlights their particular ideology. While we may not be left with
concrete answers to the myriad of political and philosophical questions
posed in each episode, we are left with a sense that the intellectual
struggle has been worthwhile. The characters exhibit signs of growth as
they realize that there are many valid perspectives and that the world may
not be as ‘black and white’ as we may like to think.
References
Campbell, J. (1988). The
Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers. Doubleday, New York, NY. Flynn, E. (1994). Diet
7UP contest heads ‘north’. Brandweek. 35, 18. McConnel, F. (1993)
Follow that moose. Commonweal, 120,18-20. Storey, J. (1998). An
Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Georgia:
University of Georgia Press. Taylor, A. M. &
Upchurch, D.(1996). Northern Exposure and Mythology of the Global
Community. Journal of Popular
Culture, 30, 75-89. Will, L. (1999). Northern
Delights. Entertainment Weekly.
493, 88.
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