This is an art of realism, not mistrust and despair. Rauschenberg attached words, headlines, and household objects so that art could be something rather than represent it. He took images from culture, but not in the way of Lichtenstein, Warhol, or Segal a few years later. He took television as a part of modern life, not the other way around. For that probing realism without cynicism, look at how he confronts another limitation of past art.
Naked women turn up in silkscreen after silkscreen, and always as something for men to see.
Their traces appear in the bright reds saturating the bed. Persimmon reproduces another fine-art image, Rubens's Venus at Her Toilet . She gazes into her mirror, back to the viewer, arranging herself as beautiful object. Meanwhile, her image in the mirror looks out invitingly. The viewer can have his cake and be asked to eat it, too.