The Postmodern Prometheus: Collective experience and the carnivalesque

Abstract

The resistive potential of the marginal collective has framed cultural studies interrogation of popular culture. It has often mobilised an ethic of play and inversion that sits comfortably with cultural studies politics. The capacity for official versions of history to mask these local and fragmented experiences has silenced the range of alternative identities that circulate through the fringes of culture. The X- Files episode The "Postmodern Prometheus" creates a visibility for unofficial and popular versions of the past. This paper tracks the metamorphosis of the carnival moment from official inversionary practice through the deviancy of American B-grade horror and science fiction films to its reanimation via a celebration of radical difference mobilised through the popular media. The X-Files' rewriting ofFrankenstein dislodges social meanings from their original context and articulates a distinctly visual memory of a popular past to rewrite the collective experiences of the present.

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