Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 39

Truth as Disease: Psychosis and
Knowing in The P riso n er and
The X -F iles

L Of truth and paranoia

A problem arises when talking about any popular
phenomenon, in this case television, in terms of a psychoanalytic
approach. How is it possible to avoid speaking of the characters as
real people and keep from analyzing the scripted action as one would
the problem of an analysand seeking to understand her/his symptom
in light of what Lacan teaches of the unconscious? One answer is that
it isn't possible. That is to say, if we insist on considering the
television series as an entity embodying a complex of apparent (and
hidden) meanings that seem to be produced by certain drives (read
ratings), the trap is already sprung. But there may be another way.
If we understand the popularity of some television series as a
response to certain propensities of its audience, if we consider the
show as fantasy, then the series becomes a sort of template for the
desire of the viewer. The focus shifts from show to audience, and to
talk about the episodes says nothing about the writer or producer or
composer or characters, but may suggest the discourse impressed on
the viewing public (and its impact). This essay is not concerned with
The X-Files and The Prisoner as individual products, but rather what
the two tell us about ourselves, our alignment in a field of signifiers
increasing with the growing number of channels.

II. Killer balloons, space aliens, and secret agent men
The X-Files concerns two FBI agents attempting to uncover the
Cause that links a series of unexplained phenomenon such as killer
viruses, crazed postal workers, secret government eugenics programs,
Satanic cults, and the Amish. The main protagonist of the show is
Agent Fox Mulder, a rebellious young agent driven by an unshakable
belief in extraterrestrial manipulation of the American Government
and possibly all human affairs. In Mulder's office there is a poster
clainiing "I Want to Believe," an irony in that he seems to be in most
every sense a true believer. The show's opening credits finish with