ABSTRACT
American television has been for some time compressing politics into chunks, ten-second 'bites' and images that seem to freeze into icons as they repeat across millions of screens and newspapers. The decade proceeds with the image of the American medical student kissing American soil after troops have evacuated him from Grenada. The aura of invulnerability bears traces of Star Wars cartoon simulations, depicting hypothetical streaks cleanly knocking off Soviet blips far off in the fastness of electronic space. The decade proceeds with the image of the American medical student kissing American soil after troops have evacuated him from Grenada. The aura of invulnerability bears traces of Star Wars cartoon simulations, depicting hypothetical streaks cleanly knocking off Soviet blips far off in the fastness of electronic space. The blindfolded American, disfigured by anti-Americans, was the contemporary equivalent of the paleface captive of redskins, that American victim-hero whose tradition runs back to the seventeenth century.
