Folklore in a Box

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But in a bizarre way, television's storytelling has become a form of representational democracy -- or symbolic democracy, anyway. Perhaps, as Quayle says, the mythmaking roles are in the hands of a cultural elite that is alien to much of America. Still, being sensitive to the market economy of ideas and entertainment preferences, television naturally represents various American points of view and dilemmas. It churns out a visual rhetoric, an electronic folklore. It is the griot of American transience.

In the struggle of the stories, whose is the authentic American voice? Murphy Brown (played by the daughter of the long-ago-famous puppeteer- ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, and manipulated by activist fortysomething Hillary Democrats) represents a certain constituency. Dan Quayle, having no television surrogate to manipulate, has passed through the looking glass, playing himself, representing another America. He has become a moral symbol and performer himself: statesman and 'toon.

American storytelling is too important to be left so much to television. In American TV, a spirit only modestly gifted -- and sometimes flat stupid -- sits at the wheel of a trillion-dollar vehicle. The machine, being commercial, has that tendency to veer toward the ditch, seeking the least common denominator. The medium's technological prowess -- and its relentless, pervasive presence in the society -- imposes a responsibility that its writers and producers and directors probably should not have to bear. National Bard . . . and banality. Television does its work. But there are better ways to tell a story.