Page 155 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Visual Culture 139

the screen, waiting for us to watch. Some commentators believe that visual
media make it “ too easy ” for the viewer to uncritically accept the meanings
given to him by the producers of a visual text. Of particular concern is the
almost indisputable fact that visual media has eclipsed all other social
institutions – including family, religion, and government – as the preemi-
nent source of the dominant narratives that shape social existence.
Dominant narratives are the stories we most frequently tell ourselves and
each other to give meaning to the past, to make sense of the present, and

to predict with some degree of confidence what will happen in the future.
They symbolize an imperfect but relatively coherent cultural consensus,
and lend a sense of logic and causality to the activities we are compelled to
undertake in order to maintain our existence and assume our role in the
social order. We must labor to survive in nature, but the capitalist “ success
myth ” – striving for the “ American dream ” – gives an imaginative purpose
to our toils, and lends credence to a certain hierarchical way of structuring
work and the distribution of resources. The desire for sexual stimulation
and intimacy is common to virtually everyone, but it is the narrative of
heterosexual romance and state - sanctioned marriage that guides what is
widely held to be a “ normal ” life trajectory. We are all forced to confront
the fi nitude of our lives, but the story of eternal life after death makes the
mortal suffering we endure bearable, even noble. These narratives of work,
love, and death don ’ t emerge from a void, untouched by the hands of living
men and women and unmarked by human self - interest (although in order
to maintain their perpetual viability, such stories must refl exively proclaim
their natural, or supernatural, origins). They are constructed by real people
in time and both respond to and create the conditions through which a
particular version of social organization and human experience takes place.
In visual culture, the values that structure dominant narratives are often
circulated through mythical stories that condense the complexities of exist-

ence into simplifi ed conflicts between good and evil. In American hero
myths, for instance, to return society to a state of equilibrium, the hero
simply defeats the villain, who represents the forces which challenge social
stability. Of course, there is no single form of “ evil ” that we as a society are
called upon to combat over and over again, but rather, we perceive and
target different kinds of antagonistic forces at different times. An iconic
American hero may be compelled to take on Nazis in the 1940s, Communists
in the 1950s, domestic social oppression in the 1960s, and domestic social
permissiveness in the 1970s. And while iconic heroes usually fi ght for
some variation of “ truth, justice, and the American way, ” they are also