“Think of almost any television commercial: A person gets in terrible trouble, the product gets her out. A girl gets a pimple before the prom. She tries all sorts of things to get rid of it, making matters worse. Just when it looks like all is lost, she finds the miracle cream. It works, boyfriend shows up, happy prom girl. The continuous narrative arc is used to draw the audience into a state of tension. Only the storyteller—the advertiser—has the way out. To be released from tension, we must accept the storyteller’s answer—meaning the advertiser’s product. We may have understood that the people making us anxious were not our friends—that the stuff on television is called 'programming' for a reason. But we were relatively powerless to do anything about it other than not watch at all.”