Likewise, the Max Headroom series that eventually aired on ABC in the States dramatized oppressors against the oppressed. Stories of white people confronting Black people or rich people taking advantage of poor people wouldn't fly, so Serling substituted in people versus aliens and the living confronting the dead. Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was very transparent about this, saying the show's morality tales were refashioned as fantastic allegories to get them past CBS brass. Science fiction is often a palatable way of delivering difficult content to a public that might reject it otherwise. How did this character come to capture the zeitgeist in the late '80s, why did he fade from the spotlight so fast, and is there any chance he could make a comeback? This is the untold truth of Max Headroom. Technology has caught up with Max Headroom, and in very tangible ways he lives among us today in the real world. Now people have televisions in their pockets all day long, anyone can upload an opinion piece to a video service, and as Marshall McLuhan once stated, the medium is the message.
The stuttering, quip-dispensing gadfly of the broadcasting world "20 minutes into the future" was created when networks - both in the United States and Great Britain - were fixed institutions and televisions were firmly planted in the living room of the family home.
Max moved from being a satirical commentary on American TV talking heads to become a full-fledged American TV talking head and a completely unironic TV pitchman - and then a nearly forgotten icon of 1980s media.
The arc for the Max Headroom character within pop culture is filled with unexpected left turns.
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