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A critical and philosophical appraisal of the function of
Intertextuality and Metanarratives in Universal's 'Northern Exposure'.

"It is an illusion to think that the subjective decision
does not really exist - that once the objective truth
has been established, there will be a smooth
transition to subjective acceptance."

Soren Kierkegaard. 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript - 1846.

Postmodernism's existence as an all encompassing framework for the trend engendered by the prevalent collapse between 'low' and 'high' culture in today's media saturated society, dictates that it is not easily defined and that definitions invariably differ from study to study, manipulated by the author's individual aims. As a result, a definition of my approach , and many of the key ideas included within is necessary. Jean Baudrillard's definition of postmodernism as being denoted by the fragmentation and trivialisation of values, symbols and images, offers the most accessible introduction to my application of this troublesome concept. 'Northern Exposure's fragmentary nature is threefold and manifest in the programmes inherent hypothesis, methodology and evaluatory stance.

Firstly, the programme's hypothesis - or initial premise - has its basis in the fragmentation of legitimative devices so that it may restructure metanarratives, which serve, in this writer's opinion, as a replacement for mythology in modernist thought (as will be discussed later). This fragmentation allows the programme to strive for an illusory televisual 'mythopoetic' - the study of myth through myth. Secondly, the methodology of the programme is inherently fragmentary encompassing, through intertextuality, the values, signs, symbols and images to which Baudrillard refers, and becoming 'radically eclectic' . Finally, the evaluation of each episode is fragmented since it's combination of the destruction and subsequent restructuring of metanarratives combined with it's radically eclectic style, means that the programme offers no objective or subjective truth. As Wolfgang Iser suggests, '…a text can only come to life […] through the eyes of the reader' - the viewer is the final arbiter of individual truth in this televisual mythopoetic.

Inevitably, contradictions arise and I feel that these serve better purpose in introductory rather than concluding comments. Firstly, in designating meaning to the prefix 'post', my application of the postmodern framework tends toward suggestions of the denial and / or rejection of modernism. However, this becomes problematic when viewed in light of Gerald Graff's comment that, 'modernism is the critique of bourgeois values' (Allen (ed). Pg.339. 1994), since this can also be seen as an underlying theme of the text at hand. Hence, Simon During's introductory comments to Jean Francois Lyotard's seminal essay 'Defining The Postmodern' offer reasoning for this dichotomy. During states that, 'Modernity had always had it's postmodern moments' (During (ed). Pg.170. 1995) and, similarly, my study of postmodernity will also contain it's 'modern moments'. It is perhaps most simply stated thus: Graff's suggestion, evident in 'Northern Exposure', represents a typically pluralistic approach (and therefore postmodern) to the critique of bourgeois values with classically accepted bourgeois constructs (philosophy, art, literature, cinema) used as the vehicle for this critique.

'Northern Exposure's events unfold in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, and detail the trials and tribulations, primarily, of a native New York doctor, Joel Fleischmann, contractually obliged to serve his first tenure in the Alaskan outback. Of particular importance to this essay is the recognition, based on Raymond Williams' 'Drama in a Dramatised Society', that the characters that inhabit this fictional community are classical dramatic archetypes, centuries old. Based upon all manner of preceding dramatic forms from Ancient Greek Mythology to Aesop's Fables, they manifest themselves in new ways and present, through re-articulation, new messages. Williams' comment that, 'Dramatic time and sequence in a play of Shakespeare, the intricate rhymes and relationships of chorus and three actors in a Greek tragedy : these I believe, become active in new ways' (O'Connor (ed). Pg.3. 1989), in combination with the work of Sarah Rosenbaum on ancient Greek tragic archetypes in 'Northern Exposure' (to be found in appendix I), attains great significance in my overall aim of uncovering whether or not 'Northern Exposure' is the next logical step in the progression which began with modernism and led to it's current 'post' incarnation. Therefore, in the following character outlines I have included Rosenbaum's Greek character designations and brief outlines of traits in parentheses.

'Northern Exposure's central characters are ; Dr. Joel Fleischmann, a quintessential Jewish New York doctor out of his depth in the Alaskan wilderness (Apollo - by-the-rules logician, golden boy), Maggie O'Connell, bush pilot and reluctant town temptress (Artemis - independent, feminist, competitor), Maurice Minnifield, bigoted ex-astronaut, war hero and town benefactor (Zeus - executive, power broker, king), Chris Stevens, ex-convict, local deejay, philosopher and resident artist (Hermes - trickster, thief, poet), Holling Vincouer, local tavern owner descended from French aristocratic stock (Hades - reclusive introvert, withheld emotion), Ed Chigliak, orphaned native American and aspiring film maker (Hephaestus - buffoon, craftsman, abandoned child) and Shelly Tambo, former Miss Northwest Passage and wife of Holling (Aphrodite - total babe y'know [sic]). The interaction of these dramatic archetypes provide the viewer with a door to previous dramatic forms and the intertextual referents, whilst not disregarding popular culture, tend more towards an anthropological approach . As a result, the programme becomes, in this writer's opinion, a postmodern, existential, epistemological and ontological enquiry; postmodernism being the vehicle for an enquiry into the nature of being (Ontology) based upon the philosophical premise that existence precedes essence (Existentialism) and concerned with how knowledge is acquired and subsequently possessed (Epistemology). The fictional 'guinea pig' for this investigation is the central character, Fleischmann, who becomes (as will be examined later) the show's 'metanarrative protagonist'.

An important character that I have so far neglected to mention is the Alaskan backdrop to which all this interaction takes place. Northern Exposure's setting is intrinsic to many of the theories that I will endeavour to address within these pages. As Annette Taylor and David Upchurch suggest, 'Northern Exposure takes on the challenge of developing a modern global mythology in a fictional setting which is, ironically, geographically isolated' (Taylor & Upchurch. Pg.76. 1995), an irony reflected by Cicely. Alaska's postmodern architectural façade which emphasises the local and the particular, with its references to the symbolism and history of American frontier mythology (native Alaskan's refer to the 49th state as 'the last frontier'), despite exterior filming shot on location near Seattle, Washington. Northern Exposure's log cabins and dirt tracks, nevertheless, are the postmodern to American architect Robert Venturi's suggestion of DisneyLand as the symbolic American utopia - the ultimate in modernist universalism.

With the combination and in-depth analyses of these theories which rely, much as the show itself does, on philosophical as well as television discourse, my aim is to ask, "is Northern Exposure postmodern ?" Fredric Jameson's claim that image is more important than content (depthlessness) in postmodernism is refuted by Northern Exposure , and will be evaluated in what follows. Despite the presence of the dramatic archetypes and the architecturally postmodern aesthetic, these are not presented in visual terms, as is postmodernism's want; they are re-articulated in the show - image is replaced by context . With context therefore paramount, the programme transcends the screen and again challenges Jameson's notion of the postmodern spectator as 'hermeneutic vessel'. With it's true content no longer bound to the means of production (in this case the television), the meaning, or message, of the episode being watched can only be subjectively formulated by the viewer as it is never presented objectively.

Northern Exposure is not postmodernism as it came to be derisorily referred to by theorists such as Jameson - culture spoon fed to the masses. Nor is it, as Clive Bell's suggestion of 1914 - a pure modernist aesthetic, in which, to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life.

What, then, is Northern Exposure ?

________________________________________________
Re-articulating the 'already said' :
Intertextuality and its function in Northern Exposure.
________________________________________________

"When the question of truth is raised in terms
of subjectivity the truth is presented as an
object to which the knower is related…
individuals striving to become what they
already are".

Soren Kierkegaard. 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript'. 1846.

One of Northern Exposure's most instantly recognisable postmodern traits is its intertextual element - the suggestion that no text can be free of others whether it be manifest in echo, allusion, acceptance or rejection. Umberto Eco argues that the re-articulation or appropriation of the 'already said' is the most distinguishing feature of postmodernism and with Northern Exposure this suggestion is further enhanced (as will be explored herein), but also expanded beyond the generally accepted postmodern aesthetic. Northern Exposure takes on another feature and as a consequence the viewer can, in some cases, only take from the show what they have already - a direct rejection of Clive Bell's pure modernist aesthetic in which to appreciate a work of art we need take nothing with us from life. In this respect the show transcends the screen. By examining Hegelian dialectic theory this becomes clearer. Whilst the narrative of an individual episode reaches denouement it only does so in physical terms. What we may term the dialectic of television drama (the basic law of reality which governs television drama), reality, according to the likes of Hegel and Sartre, is the manifestation of reason and, in turn, reason is hidden behind the scenes. Hence, in Northern Exposure reality is subjective and the 'reason', or at least the agent of reason, the viewer, is, by extrapolation, behind the scenes. This dialectical approach also relies heavily on thesis, antithesis and synthesis - reflecting the threefold fragmentary nature of the programme to which I refer in my introductory comments.

I make the claim that the viewer can only take from the programme what they have already in light of the massive confluence of texts that coalesce in any given episode of Northern Exposure. Here, however, as suggested above, the author is not the final arbiter of truth. The reader becomes an integral part of the programme's final, although ultimately subjective, truth. With several texts of varying kinds - from films to literature to popular music - cited and rarely explained in any given episode, the writers must rely on the viewer's knowledge of these texts to gain the maximum from the show's prior narrative tract.

The philosopher, Edmund Husserl (himself oft cited within Northern Exposure), suggests that phenomenology is the method by which an analysis of structure and content of consciousness can be made and the phenomenological concepts of 'figure' and 'ground' will form an integral part of the analyses that follow. In phenomenology, 'figure' is the feature of the field of perception on which we focus our attention, and 'ground' the backdrop or foreground to 'figure'. Hence, in Northern Exposure, 'figure' and 'ground' adopt different positions of predominance through the course of watching an episode. During an episode, the visual, and to a certain extent aural, elements become figure. Brief intertextual references can therefore be seen as 'ground'. However, at the episodes close these roles are reversed and the same brief intertextual references, which were 'ground', become 'figure' as the viewer is invited to ponder the meaning of these references in the search for the overall meaning of the episode. In this sense, Northern Exposure can be seen as 'radically eclectic' : the confluence of texts, their authors, their readers and the cultural and historical contexts in which written or read become a, '…combination of signs from different periods, styles and institutions […] that represent the discontinuity of the messages that surround us, but also their simultaneity' (Collins (ed). pg.330. 1994). In this instance, Northern Exposure's radically eclectic style is complimented by a phenomenological approach to reading the programme: the discontinuity is 'figurative' but the 'ground' provides simultaneity.

Northern Exposure's cited texts usually (although not exclusively) emanate from one of two sources - Ed Chigliak, the town's resident film expert, or Chris Stevens, Cicely's ex-convict deejay and impromptu priest. These texts usually (although, again, not wholly) take the form of film or literature and demonstrate, at various turns, intertextuality in its purest form, hyperconsciousness and the need for the text to have an 'essential meaning' (Vigil and Wright. pg.2.1995), and range from the canonised, accepted classics to examples of a more homogenised, popular culture ; Dante's 'Divine Comedy' (episode : 'Things Become Extinct') and Pirsig's 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' ('Northwest Passages'), to, Danielle Steel's 'Letters from 'Nam' ('Altered Egos') and Nancy Drew's 'Nancy's Mysterious Letter' ('Cup of Joe'); 'The Bicycle Thief' ('It Happened in Juneau') and 'Wild Strawberries' ('Duets'), to, 'Three Men and a Baby' ('My Mother / My Sister') and 'Hudson Hawk' ('Animals r' Us') - reflecting the collapse of the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture indicative of the postmodern society.

Northern Exposure's appropriation and re-articulation of texts is evident in every episode and can be easily demonstrated. The episode 'Northern Lights' is set during the Winter Solstice, a time in Alaska when, for a period of several weeks, sunlight is limited to as little as an hour a day, culminating in a period of twenty four hours of total darkness (another example of the importance of the show's 'exposed' setting). Chris sets about his usual annual creation, a successor to his wrapping of an entire acre of spruce in tin foil, by building a sculpture, "…twisting, turning, rising out of the corporeal, struggling for the divine…". Commandeering virtually every available source of light within the small town, he stands before his sculpture quoting Dylan Thomas, "do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light". Chris turns on the electricity and the citizens of Cicely are bathed in a new light. Here the programme appropriates Thomas' poem but re-articulates according to the episodes own ends. Thomas' 'night' and 'dying light' are symbols of death but for Chris Stevens and his fellow town-folk, they are symbols of life. The intertextual reference is, 'thematised by the programme itself ' (Collins (ed). pg.330. 1994). Interestingly, Christopher's literal meaning as 'bringer of light' could be seen as another interestingly conceived dramatic device - adding to Northern Exposure's mythological roots and intentions.

Another of Chris Stevens' works of art provides both another example of intertextuality whilst also allowing the characters to discuss the problems inherent in the already said; hence demonstrating a hyperconscious element to the show. The episode in question, 'Burning the House Down', has, as is customary in the show itself, several intertwining storylines running through the narrative which will later be brought together under a more all encompassing theme at the denouement. One such storyline deals with Chris' building of a giant catapult with the intention of 'flinging' a live cow - bestowing upon himself the task of creating "tomorrow's memories". For much of the episode Chris agonises over the 'right' cow to fling, but upon finding it he is despondent to learn from Ed that it has already been done in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. Stating "repetition is the death of art" Chris recognises, as does the show itself, that real art should create more than a moment, it should create myth.

This is not the end of the function of this individual intertextual reference, the appropriation of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' does not simply serve to emphasise the failure of Chris' 'original' artistic vision. On the contrary, this brief, six word film title prompts this viewer to draw further conclusions about the nature of the reference and the episode's all encompassing theme. In order to demonstrate this fact it is first necessary to briefly outline the other storylines unfolding within this episode; Maggie's mother visits to tell her daughter of her and her father's impending divorce and proceeds to burn down Maggie's house; Joel harasses the local chimney sweep, believing him to be ex-pro golfer, Larry Coe, who disappeared after missing an easy putt for the US Masters Championship. The overriding theme of this episode, manifest in each storyline, is that of creation and destruction - themes important to storytelling, religious and mythological, since the dawn of time. Each storyline emphasises a different aspect of this overarching theme. As Taylor and Upchurch note, '…this episode, like many others, can reach diverse viewers, each of whom 'reads' the story according to his or her own life experience and situation' (Taylor & Upchurch. pg.81. 1996). This serves to emphasise the claim that the viewer can take from the episode only what they possess already. The different approaches in each storyline emphasise in 'life experience' and 'situation' in the global community which Taylor and Upchurch are concerned with. This is the nature of myth, stories that are open to interpretation from many different standpoints.

According to Taylor and Upchurch, the episode with its theme of resurrection, also draws heavily on religious imagery, both Christian, Hindi and Buddhist. Religion, itself a mythology in many respects, becomes another intertextual reference. Taylor and Upchurch identify Chris' walk through town with a telegraph pole on his shoulder as a direct reference to Christ's walk to Calvary with the cross on his back, and the fact that he works alone in his shed building his trebuchet, just as Jesus worked as a carpenter. From the Hindi religion, they identify the sacred cow and from Buddhism, Buddha's Bo Tree, the tree of life and death which the episodes themes emphasise, and a tree on which, for Chris, inspiration does grow.

Back, then, to the 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' reference. The overarching themes of the episode, emphasise death and resurrection - with Chris cast as town saviour. Ed's brief reference to 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' emphasises the spiritual quest and the religious symbol that Chris is endeavouring to create. This, in a phenomenological appraisal of the reading of the text , is a good example of 'ground' which had at first appeared to the viewer as simply 'figure'.

Northern Exposure is also not without ironic intertextuality, and this episode is no exception. Strolling around the ruins of Maggie's house, Chris remarks that "there's no place like home", and Maggie discovers that the only thing to survive the fire is a pair of red slippers belonging to her mother - 'The Wizard of Oz' is incorporated here through 'ground' rather than 'figure'. 'Casablanca' is similarly subtly insinuated into the 'grounding' of themes when Chris plays 'As Time Goes By' on the charred remains of Maggie's piano, emphasising, both through the theme of the film with which this song is most readily associated, and the nature of the song itself, the thematic concerns of the episode; life, love, loss, destruction and creation.

Northern Exposure's cited philosophical texts reflect the programmes rejection of modernism, leaning more towards the existential and rejecting those which modernism tends to favour - materialism and determinism. The existentialist novelist, Albert Camus, is also heavily referenced. His books emphasise what Cody (1995) refers to as 'outsider culture', a culture prevalent in Northern Exposure which can be seen in the disparate, divorced- from-their-roots characters who, paradoxically, represent community.

Northern Exposure's reliance on literary (or, more simply, written word) intertextual references ensure that it becomes the antithesis of Jacques Derrida's logocentrism : the privileging of writing over speech, rather than vice versa as many theorists would argue for in postmodernism. However, the text does not simply reference the text itself, often it also appropriates the author, or its characters into the narrative, often taking the form of a dream which breaks down modernism's penchant for realism. For example, Carl Jung appears driving a truck in a dream shared by Chris and his brother Bernard, to emphasise the collective unconscious with which Jung is most readily associated. In another episode, 'Cicely' (which will be utilised in greater depth later), the essentially modernist writer Franz Kafka joins the community in Alaska. The episode details how the town itself was transformed at the turn of the century from a lawless town into an artistic utopia. Kafka visits the town in the hope that he will overcome his writer's block and the resulting novel, 'Metamorphosis', reflects the themes of the episode.

In appropriating mythological characters Northern Exposure presents them within the diegesis but their purpose or relevance is never objectively presented. The myth, novel or film from which they come is simply another point of reference which the viewer either recognises or does not. Sisyphus, a character from Greek mythology appears in a dream to Fleischmann - the point of which, I discovered with further investigation, was that according to the Myth of Sisyphus he was condemned to forever push a boulder up a mountain and that it would always roll back down to the bottom when he reached the top - serving to emphasise Joel's feelings of incarceration and being trapped against his will in Cicely.

In the light of these brief analyses I would question the concluding comments made by Vigil and Wright that, '…information we receive as an audience has already been processed, and our task is simply to identify the theme which the writers have suggested' (Vigil and Wright. pg.1. 1995). I would suggest that it has not been wholly processed, merely synthesised and further fragmented. Northern Exposure in this instance reveals itself as elitist an approach to intertextuality as modernism. Despite the accepted collapse between the 'high' and 'low' culture within postmodern society, the text clearly favours the 'high' above the 'low' (did you know who Sisyphus was?).

How does intertextuality function in Northern Exposure then ? The references which I have discussed within these pages suggest more than a simple glance toward the 'already said', leaning more toward a complete synthesis of which provides the root of many an episode. Whilst some references epitomise the rejection / denial of modernism Graff's comments on the nature of bourgeois constructs and their relationship to modernism are interesting to note. The prefix 'post' can also, as Rorty (in Mautner (ed). 1994) suggests, refer to a 'looking back' to modernism. I would conclude however, that the intertextual appropriation rife in Northern Exposure is not merely the ornamentation of postmodernity. Rather, they point towards a more 'emergent form of cultural analysis' which Collins points to as the resultant aesthetic and dialectic of the postmodern, whilst also having their basis in modernist approaches to certain aspects of culture.

Problems and Paradoxes :
History and the Metanarrative in Northern Exposure.

"Individuals cannot be in two places at the same
time ; they cannot be both subjective and objective
simultaneously. People may be subjectively
passionate about something they believe to be
objectively true ; but passion is momentary, and
is the highest expression of subjectivity".

Soren Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. 1846.

The inherently problematic term 'truth' is key to this study, and indeed, to theories of postmodernism in general. In the previous analyses I detailed how the 'truth' of an individual episode is entirely subjective and reliant upon the viewers themselves. Here I want to look again at subjective truths but this time concentrating on those which manifest themselves within the diegesis of Northern Exposure, and how they question established objective truths and metanarratives.

The metanarrative (a term first used by Jean Francois Lyotard) is a story that underpins the legitimacy of a commitment or activity. Often referred to as 'grand narratives', metanarratives originally emerged during the enlightenment, a time from which modernism takes many of its key ideals and assumptions. Hence, Northern Exposure, in typically postmodern style, takes a more pluralistic approach to these grand narratives, and as a result, towards history itself. This approach suggests that human affairs are far more fragmented and less neatly structured than such metanarratives allow - much like the show itself. As Michael Riffaterre suggests, 'Recollected events in the world, history, are mysteries because they are ultimately unknowable in any complete sense' (Riffaterre. pg.IX. 1990). Accepted histories and metanarratives are constantly questioned in Northern Exposure because of their subjective nature, but are replaced with little else than further subjective accounts. Differing from existing models of postmodernism, particularly those of Fredric Jameson, intertextuality is not the only referent to the past and history is dealt with.

In an episode entitled 'Cicely', a history is created for the diegetic world of Northern Exposure without dispelling other accepted histories. It is a fictional history which reflects, as Taylor and Upchurch note, '…the old myths redesigned to become more suitable for the twentieth century. In Northern Exposure's mythic village of Cicely, Alaska, we see elements of the mythic early America, co-operatives in the church centred villages of New England, the independence of the prairies and the rugged individualism of the mythic west' (Taylor & Upchurch. pg.76. 1996), reflecting the programmes re-creation of mythology through mythology : the mythopoetic.

However, in episodes entitled 'The Body in Question' and 'Realpolitik', the paradox of truth in fiction and the importance of the quest for a universal truth are directly addressed when the show re-creates history and, in doing so, questions metanarrative accounts of human experience. But, as was the suggestion when dealing with the importance of intertextuality, and as Michael Riffaterre suggests, '…symbolic narrative may invent scenarios at will for the purpose of conveying truths that transcend specific situations', (Riffaterre. pg.X. 1990) - the postmodern television text appropriates and secondarises it's sources according to the present or existing context at that time.

Whilst it is possible to accept Robert Allen's stance on the relationship between postmodernism and history, that '…the past is not just accessed, it is hijacked…' (Collins (ed). pg.339. 1994), I would suggest that this playful attitude and general ambivalence toward accepted history moves beyond Jameson's suggestion of history presented as hyperreality, as would be the accepted conceptual case with postmodernism. In Cicely, Alaska, history is viewed from philosophical and literary perspectives such as Immanuel Kant and the Marquis de Condorcet - as a vehicle for human emancipation. This can be further explained through an appraisal of metaphysics and an analysis of the afore-mentioned episode, 'The Body in Question'.

During the episode 'The Body in Question', Chris Stevens divulges his theories on the metaphysical to the inhabitants of Cicely. The key concerns of metaphysics are these; reality, existence, substance and causality, reflecting the shows overall existentialist trajectory - the philosophy of the authentic existence . This authentic existence is of key importance to Northern Exposure, it's major themes and concerns, and to metaphysics, whereby, '…an enquiry would lead to an understanding of the ultimate reality which lies beyond that which we confront in sensory experience. This understanding itself, is not based upon sensory experience, but on rational analysis or insight' (Mautner (ed). pg.351. 1997). This philosophical premise forms the basis for the episode to be analysed here, in which, whilst out ice fishing, Chris discovers the body of a man dressed in period costume frozen in ice. Conveniently, the body's diary is also washed up and the town-folk learn that the body is that of Pierre Le Moulin, a soldier in Napoleon Bonaparte's army. Dr. Fleischmann immediately questions this fact - Napoleon's army should have been at Waterloo, and besides, a body could not survive for close to two hundred years without some degree of putrefication. Lyotard's term, the metanarrative, is intrinsic here to an understanding of the shows narrative trajectory (which, as with intertextuality, extends beyond the episode, prompting further debate). Fleischmann, this writer would argue, is Northern Exposure's 'metanarrative protagonist'. I say this based upon Lyotard's definition of the term : the legitimation for Fleischmann's activity (medicine) comes from science, a belief in determinism as opposed to the existential outlook of the native Alaskan's - an inherently 'modern' outlook in comparison to the pluralistic 'postmodern' approach. Fleischmann's role as the metanarrative protagonist is almost immediately confirmed when he criticises Maggie for believing the medical mythologies perpetuated by PBS - the good doctor, in his opinion, is the pursuer of tangible truth with science as his tool - he should be perpetuating medical myth, not popular culture. Fleischmann then proceeds to question Maurice's reluctance to report the discovery to the authorities when Maurice claims firstly, that he was under the impression that after one hundred years "carrion becomes memorabilia" and, secondly, that "history is the future" - an important and somewhat revelatory statement which I will return to later.

Whilst the translation of Pierre's diary becomes the town's favourite soap opera (itself an interesting hyperconscious element), our metanarrative protagonist, Fleischmann, carries out what he considers to be rational scientific tests on the body in an attempt to see, "whose version of history holds up". Even upon the discovery that the mysterious Pierre is indeed as old as his diary claims, the doctor refuses to abandon his metanarrative quest; his obligation, through medical science, to impart his 'superior' knowledge and wisdom to the 'unenlightened'. Pierre might well be as old as his costume and diary suggest so the doctor first claims that, "he's a nut", then that "his diary is the manifestation of a highly disturbed personality" induced by "a possible missing frontal lobe" - for Fleischmann to abandon his own personal metanarrative - science - would be to remove the legitimacy of his life's work.

Up until this point in the episode it is Fleischmann's quest that has taken precedence, now the quest for the universal truth, the existential authentic existence, becomes a global concern. Maurice's capitalist dreams for Cicely are brought to the fore when he unveils his plans for a theme park with the historic French cadaver as it's centrepiece, renaming Main Street, Napoleon Square in the process. This provides two interesting and vastly contrasting points which I wish to make regarding this episode. Firstly, Maurice's proposed theme park echoes Washington D.C's Holocaust Museum which Appagnanesi and Garrat describe as being the ultimate in hyperreal postmodernism - a direct counterpoint to the modernist utopia of Robert Venturi's appraisal of DisneyLand. The Holocaust Museum claims to offer the visitor a realistic experience of the Holocaust via screenings of 'Einzattsgruppen' and interactive computer screens - a truly postmodern experience. Appagnanesi and Garratt's comment upon this example of hyperral postmodernism, that, 'The opposite of knowledge is not ignorance but deceit and fraud' (Appagnanesi and Garratt (eds). pg.126. 1996), echoes the reaction of the town-folk upon hearing Maurice's plans for their town.

This leads to the second point which this episode raises. In a heated debate, Fleischmann and Chris exchange verbal counterpunches. Chris offers the existentialist viewpoint, neither modern or postmodern, of the artistic paradox, "Truth is beauty, beauty - truth". Whilst Joel claims that facts are subject to change, it is the truth that remains constant ("Facts can be changed to accommodate the truth" he claims). Chris reacts with the claim that unleashing the 'truth' that Pierre has yielded to their community, to the entire world would "cause untold devastation to the global collective unconscious" - it would remove the meaning from the bloodshed and devalue the lives lost if Napoleon had not been at Waterloo, opting instead for a spot of ice fishing in Alaska.

History, here, then becomes humanity's legitimation : the true mythological metanarrative (mythological since, as Riffaterre suggest and subjectivity dictates, 'History…is ultimately unknowable in any complete sense' (Riffaterre. pg.X. 1990)). Whereas Fleischmann feels obliged to unleash the 'truth' on the world, motivated by his need to share what science has proven but also by his diminished faith in that same science - his metanarrative crisis. Fleischmann's stance is individual, aimed at maintaining his own personal metanarrative trajectory. Chris' metanarrative emphasises the global pursuit for legitimation. This raises an interesting paradox : Fleischmann, considered up until this point to be the 'modernist' character, emphasises in his appraisal of the situation (the communities obligation and his own personal crisis), the postmodern 'local' and 'particular', as opposed to Chris' appraisal with it's inherently global concern espousing modernist universalism.

Maurice's comment, cited earlier, that "history is the future", despite appearing at first, contradictory, reveals another facet of Northern Exposure's pluralistic, yet not wholly postmodern, nature. Just as my previous analyses of the intertextual element of the text details Northern Exposure's 'looking back' to re-articulate the already said through all manner of referents, as Taylor and Upchurch note, 'Thus, the old myths are re-designed to become more suitable for the twentieth century. It's mythmaking process takes ideas from old myths and juxtaposes them with each other, then synthesises the point of the myth into it's own plot' (Taylor & Upchurch. pg.76.1996)…it is this recreation of myth for the modern age that constitutes the televisual mythopoetic. How, then, does the reference to an objectively accepted (in the sense that it takes the form of written word, written at the time) history, which is similarly re-articulated and synthesised, function in the mythopoetic ? It is possible to suggest that Northern Exposure references, recalls, re-articulates and recalls history so frequently that very little, aside from the visual 'sensory experience' of the metaphysical, distinguishes the show as a product of the modern age.

In Conclusion . . .
What is Northern Exposure ?

'It remains even now, typically the case that to have
'a position' on postmodernism means not just to
offer an analysis of its genesis and contours, but to
let the world know whether you are for it or against
it, and in fairly bold terms'.

Jonathan Arac. 'Critical Genealogies'. 1984.

Am I for or against postmodernism ? In essence this is not of great importance to my overall conclusion. With a text as intricately conceived and formed as Northern Exposure, I just do not feel that postmodernism can provide a viable analytical framework with which to judge this particular text. Let us elaborate…

Northern Exposure does display postmodern traits ; intertextuality, scepticism towards metanarratives, an emphasis on ornamentation, radically eclectic styling and hyperconsciousness. However, as has been demonstrated, they are fraught with paradox and impasse. Take for example two of the characters explored in this study thus far, Maurice Minnifield and Chris Stevens. Maurice's character can be described thus, a modernist capitalist living in a postmodern house - as an astronaut he places his faith in science yet his house is adorned with a radically eclectic array of high technology, Victorian lampshades and antique clocks. Chris, rejecting modernist philosophies of materialism and determinism, espouses existentialist thought to the people of Cicely via the likes of Camus and Kierkegaard (hence, rejecting / denying modernism), yet he appears the epitome of modernism's insistence upon the, 'role of the artist as self exiled hero' (Collins (ed). pg.328. 1994).

The claim that Northern Exposure possibly exists as mythopoeticism, speaks directly against Jameson's claims that postmodernism relies solely on surface and is hindered by depthlessness. By re-articulating the already said of many different styles, forms and institutions, Northern Exposure, by uniting religious, mythological and popular cultural signs and symbols and synthesising them with existing myth - the mythopoetic - and combining them with existing dramatic archetypes, moves towards Joseph Campbell's vision, shortly before his death, that, 'The only mythology that is valid today is the mythology of the planet. We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet' (Campbell. 1984)

With the proposal, in 1984, that a re-thinking of the enlightenment and in particular the grand narrative philosophers, Kant, Hegel and Fukuyama, Michel Foucault opened up another possible conceptual framework for Northern Exposure. With Foucault's suggestion, Appagnanesi and Garratt offer the hypothesis that, '…the only cure for postmodernism is the incurable illness of romanticism' (Appagnanesi & Garratt. pg. 173. 1995). This, in many respects can be seen to go some way to explaining the paradox of the emergent postmodern - modern - mythopoetic evident in Northern Exposure, since romanticism traditionally offers the consumer the past as a way to make sense of the future.

This writer suggests that Northern Exposure be viewed as a combination of postmodernism, modernism and romanticism, existing in deconstructive synthesis, spawning the mythopoetic. 'Deconstruction' is the key word in this definition : a form of textual analysis combined with theoretical revision, '…a second stage of deconstruction in which the conflicting claims to privileged status are resolved by a new concept which can incorporate the two former opposites, somewhat in the manner of Hegelian synthesis' (Mautner (ed). pg.122. 1997). This Hegelian synthesis takes place in Northern Exposure both formally and stylistically. The text itself even includes a lengthy meditation on deconstruction in an episode entitled 'The Graduate'. However, this episode does tend to question the very conclusion that I am attempting to draw here, but nevertheless offers another interesting insight into the nature of Northern Exposure. A character remarks upon Chris' constant re-articulation of intertextualised references, commenting that, "In one fell swoop you have put 1000 years of history into a rhetorical osteriser and ground it into oblivion !". In response to this, Chris, in typical Northern Exposure style, has a dream in which he takes command of the 'Transcendental 45th', a group of artists and writers including Shakespeare, Poe, Van Gogh and Dickens. Shakespeare is shot and fatally wounded, his dying words are those of Dickens. Chris goes to confront the sniper and comes face to face with himself - he is the destroyer of history. What this emphasises is that, with a text as bound to radical eclectism as any other, the attribution, after re-articulation, of the 'already said', becomes a pointless exercise since it has already been removed from it's original source. This is not to say that I agree with Jameson's critique of the depthlessness of postmodernism, on the contrary, the signifier simply attains a new signified, whilst still remaining intrinsically bound to it's original source for those who draw their own subjective conclusion from the narrative. After all, academia is just as sceptical of deconstruction as it is of postmodernism and modernism, as Norris states, 'Deconstruction can be seen in part as a vigilant reaction against [this] tendency in structuralist thought to tame and domesticate it's own best insights' (Norris. pg.2. 1992).

But does this dichotomous, deconstructive consideration create just further problems ? Academia itself with it's constant restructuring of approaches to modernism and postmodernism dictate that it undoubtedly will.

13 Original source - Campbell, Joseph & Moyers, Bill. 'The Power of Myth'. Doubleday. 1984. Quoted in, Taylor & Upchurch. 1996.