Midriffs, Mooks, and Myth: Re-imagining Campbell?s Hero in the Post-MTV Era.

Modern myths wield immense social influence and are a powerful arbitrator of reality. At the heart of its power to control behavior and the meaning of our lives lies entertainment, which cloaks its ideology in the dreams and fantasies of the masses. By using the PBS Frontline documentary The Merchants of Cool as the guide for what is ?cool? at this moment in American culture and applying it to Joseph Campbell?s conception of the mythic cycle, it will be shown that the narratives sold to audiences, no matter how insipid, are of mythic proportions and that the ideology of cool is highly revealing in terms of the mythology behind the popular culture of teenagers in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]