Susan Bordo, the Body Text, and Mental Disorder

First, I just want to say I agree with much of what Bordo says in the article. Women, as described by Bordo, are subjected to control over the body based on changing social ideas of femininity constructed by patriarchal society. Using the contemporary ideology of femininity, Bordo sees the excesses of the so-called “feminine” traits as counterproductive for women, with the ultimate result being—using the body as a text—anorexia nervosa. Bordo writes: “The emaciated body of the anorectic, of course, immediately presents itself as a caricature of the contemporary ideal that, despite the game resistance of racial and ethnic difference, has become the norm for women today” (2367). According to Bordo, this “caricature” of the contemporary female figure is the end result of an ideal based mostly on the visual representation of woman in films, television, and magazines. In this manner, the body is a text in which one can “read” various underlying cultural and political statements about gender. Although, as a literature student, I find the idea of the body as a text appealing, this idea ultimately leads to the problems I have with Bordo’s arguments. If one is to read the anorectic body as a text—as I shall now do—one must, at the very least, take into account the actual neurosis with which the text (a human being) was created. I agree that the “thin ideal” culture of America leads to the mass problem of anorexia, but when I read “the text,” I see the result of an unhealthy social control over the body, and not one of unconscious protest. Basically, the problems I have with Bordo are mostly in the section titled “Protests and Retreat in the Same Gesture.” In referring to a claim by Susie Orbach, Bordo writes: “The anorectic is engaged in a ‘hunger strike,’ as Orbach calls it, stressing that this is a political discourse, in which the action of food refusal and dramatic transformation of body size ‘expresses with [the] body what [the anorectic] is unable to tell us with words’—her indictment of a culture that disdains and suppresses female hunger, makes women ashamed of their appetites and needs, and demands that woman constantly work on the transformation of their body” (2370). I don’t see the behavior of the anorectic as indicting a culture with the exception that it is the end result of bad social constructs. The behavior of the anorectic is exemplary of the negative forces put upon women by a patriarchal culture, and the description of anorexia as being a protest, or a “hunger strike,” lessens the severe nature of a true problem and does not adequately tackle the complexities of the issue. (Bordo writes: “The anorectic, of course, is unaware that she is making a political statement.” Perhaps it’s because she’s not making a political statement.) I also took issue with Bordo’s politicizing of agoraphobia, which is a serious debilitating mental issue that often accompanies other anxiety disorders. In describing past political writing on the subject, Bordo writes: “The literature of protest includes functional as well as symbolic approaches. Robert Seidenberg and Karen DeCrow, for example, describe agoraphobia as a ‘strike’ against ‘the renunciations usually demanded of women’ and the expectations of housewifely functions such as shopping, driving the children to school, accompanying their husbands to social events” (2370). And earlier in the article, Bordo writes in the fictional voice of a female agoraphobic: “You want me in this home? You’ll have me in this home—with a vengeance!” (2367). Again, like Bordo’s discussion of anorexia (which I believe is better suited for a discussion of the body as text than agoraphobia), describing a mental disorder as a political act lessens the severity of a real problem, and unfairly simplifies the true nature of a complex issue.

In writing this blog, I’ve come to the conclusion that I may be too literal in my reading of Bordo. (One of the above quotations actually mentions the approach as symbolic.) If I were to read a novel in which an anorexic character was depicted in contemporary, visually based surroundings, depending on the attitude of the character, I might actually describe her behavior as political. Furthermore, if I were to read about an agoraphobic woman in fiction who is depicted in a similar manner in which Bordo presents the agoraphobic female, I would probably describe her agoraphobia as a reaction to patriarchal forces. Basically, I don’t really know what to think of the whole thing, which perhaps cheapens this blog. However, this is my first reaction to reading Bordo, which I’ll share with others, for better or for worse.

The Panopticon and Contemporary American Society

I found Michel Foucault’s example of the panoptic prison system, in which all cells are theoretically watched by a central power, to be of interest in our contemporary society, especially one preoccupied with the fear of a random, foreign terrorist attack. In discussing various penal systems, Foucault gives the example of an omniscient authority of which a person is incapable of avoiding. In discussing the boys disciplinary school at Mettray, Foucault says: “the entire parapenal institution, which is created in order not to be a prison, culminates in the cell, on the walls of which are written in black letters: ‘God sees you’” (1637). This omniscient watcher is central to the panoptic society in which people obey authority with the assumption that someone may see their transgressions, and thus be subject to punishment. (A variation of the ‘God sees you’ is repeated in the U.S., or at the very least in Denver County, in which prisoners are locked in jail with only a blanket and a King James Version of the Bible.) The panoptic society of contemporary times can also be seen in the constant surveillance of public life through cameras. Today there are cameras everywhere, including stores, buses, and most public areas. There is even an industry built on surveillance. Concerned mothers buy “nanny-cams.” A year ago I mistakenly received a catalogue of spy equipment meant for my next-door neighbor, the self-described vice-president of the Martin Acres Neighborhood Association, who had a sign above his garage warning of a camera in use. Needless to say, it was an uncomfortable situation, especially since he talked to me from time to time about my comings and goings. (Warning: he still lives in Martin Acres.) Foucault’s discussion of the panoptic society is especially important today in the current “War on Terror.” Shortly after September 11, the government instituted new methods for preventing a new terrorist attack. Today American citizens are encouraged to look for possible terror suspects, especially when the terror litmus test gains color. Not too long ago I remember a government official encouraging citizens to look for suspicious men taking pictures of American landmarks, which, according to him, was only the groundwork for another planned attack. Of course this does not make sense because most, if not all, tourists take pictures of American landmarks. I suppose any tourist who looked Arab must have had some difficulties that week.

What is most fascinating in Foucault’s article is his illustration of the counter productivity of the panoptic society. Foucault says: “In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offense. Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn” (1642). The United States has the highest prison population of any industrialized nation. The prison system, which is theoretically intended to reform criminals, does not work. Americans are so preoccupied with punishing “criminals” that they fail to realize that the system is actually harming society. Drug laws were reformed under Reagan and, instead of winning the “war on drugs,” the prison populations escalated to astronomical numbers, with drugs readily available in prison! The penal system is not a cure for drug addiction or a solution to the drug problem. However, it is productive in producing more “criminals.” Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox.

Baudelaire, Frida Kahlo, and Martin Scorsese

“Now convalescence is like a return towards childhood. The convalescent, like the child, is possessed in the highest degree of the faculty of keenly interesting himself in things, be they apparently of the most trivial” (Boudelaire, 795).

I enjoyed this week’s readings quite a bit, but I was most fascinated by Boudelaire’s concept of the artist being in a constant state of convalescence, in which the artist has a heightened perception of the world like that of a child’s first impressions. Although I think Boudelaire’s discussion of the artist as convalescent is mostly symbolic, the idea is intriguing when applied to artists who actually began their craft as a result of ill health. The first that comes to mind is Frida Kahlo, a Mexican painter who began painting seriously after being badly injured in a bus accident. (Julie Taymor’s Frida illustrates this moment brilliantly.) Bedridden in recovery, Kahlo began to paint to pass the boredom and, perhaps as a result of heightened senses of convalescence, produced some highly original paintings with bright, vivid colors. Because Kahlo was in ill health for the remainder of her life—several times bedridden during the worst episodes—it is arguable that Kahlo, for the remainder of her life, was in a constant state of convalescence, putting her in touch with the heightened perceptions in which she painted the trivial realities around her like that of a mature, “genius child”. In reaction to the surrealist label put upon her art at her first exhibition in France, Kahlo rejected the idea of surrealism and claimed she painted her own reality. Most of Kahlo’s paintings are highly personal self-portraits, with many images coming from the triviality of everyday life. (The example of Frida Kahlo is also interesting in regards to Virginia Woolf’s idea of the androgynous artist. Kahlo indulged in her androgyny, and even dressed as a male when going out on the town—highly controversial in the 1920s, especially in the Catholic, patriarchal society of Mexico.)

Another artist I think applies to Boudelaire’s idea of the convalescent is Martin Scorsese, who was a severe asthmatic as a child. As a result of ill health, Scorsese spent a good deal of time watching films (both at theaters and on television, where he was first exposed to Italian Neorealism), “drawing” his own films on paper at home. Spending most of his childhood in the safety of mundane activity, Scorsese became an astute observer, taking in the “trivialities” of daily life in New York City. Often convalescent in childhood, Scorsese drew upon these experiences when he became an artist. When Scorsese started directing films, he storyboarded every shot, an act much the same as when he “drew” his own films on paper as a child. Furthermore, daily city life is a common motif in several of his films, with city ambient sounds played on soundtracks, and with much attention devoted to simply filming street life itself. (When Scorsese made Taxi Driver, he shut down production until weather improved so he could film a scene against the backdrop of a window looking out onto the street). Scorsese’s method of filming in New York also leads to a discussion of Boudelaire’s idea of the flaneur, but I need to finish this blog, so I will discuss this later. (There are many parallels between Scorsese’s New York City films and the idea of the man in the crowd.) I was thinking about doing Scorsese and Boudelaire in my final blog, so if you have any thoughts about the subject, it would be appreciated. Thanks.

[ASIDE: Today is Martin Scorsese's 63rd Birthday. Happy Birthday, Marty!]

FIN

Ernest Hemingway: Man-Womanly?

Having just finished reading Virginia Woolf, I thought it was interesting that Ernest Hemingway--alleged macho author pictured above--dressed as a girl the first few years of his life. I wonder how this experience affected his writing, if at all. Any thoughts?

Walter Benjamin and Music in the Age of Digital Reproduction

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin cites the example of music in the benefits and limitations of mechanically reproduced art. Benjamin writes:

"Secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original in situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a phonograph record. The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production, performed in an auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room" (1169).

I find the example of music—which Benjamin does not really expand much more upon—of significant interest in our current era of digital audio. Early in the article, in discussing the loss of “aura,” Benjamin describes the loss of authenticity in reproductions of art as also being a loss of historical testimony. In Benjamin’s example of the choral performance, the phonograph recording, which recreates the performance aurally in a drawing room, is a loss of historic testimony in that the “authenticity” of attending the show—observing the singers, observing the instrumentation of the musicians, and perhaps even observing the temperature of the room—is lost in the reproduction of sound. This is further compounded by the limitations of the recording equipment (especially in the 1930s), which, even today, cannot adequately record the true manner in which a person would listen to a choral performance in an auditorium. To use another example, today we can listen to a Leadbelly (a.k.a. Huddie Ledbetter) performance on compact disc, but we lose the aura of the moment (especially given the archaic recording equipment of the time, and the further loss of audio quality through digital mastering). We can sympathize with the emotions of Leadbelly’s voice and guitar, but we lose the intimacy of listening to his performance live, especially if the recording is one of the numerous made by Alan Lomax who archived some songs while Leadbelly was in a prison chain gang. We, the contemporary listener, can listen to “Midnight Special” in the comfort of our homes, but we cannot experience the significance of the song—composed (not by Leadbelly) about a train that symbolized freedom for prisoners in Sugarland Prison in Texas—as did listeners at the original performance. (This loss of aura in the song can also be seen as the breaking of art from ritual in that the original performances of the song once served a communal purpose for the prisoners. Question: how does Benjamin’s theory work in relation to the recording of the song by Creedence Clearwater Revival?)

Later in the article, using the art of film as an example, Benjamin describes the manipulation of mechanical devices to create the illusionary nature of art. I find this example striking in that audio recordings today are of such perfection that its live replication is nearly impossible. For example, the early Beatles albums were mostly live recordings in a studio, which suited their raucous live style of the time. As the Beatles progressed, however, the recording process involved more overdubbing until the record BECAME the performance (the Beatles stopped touring in 1966). Does Sgt. Pepper’s loss of aura diminish its significance as a brilliant record? I don’t think it does, but I’m sure it pales in comparison to having actually attended a Beatles performance. To use a more contemporary example, what happens when a performer uses prerecorded sounds onstage? When one watches an Ashlee Simpson (or Madonna, or any bad pop star really) performance, is the performance inauthentic because Simpson dances to a live recording of her manipulated vocal track instead of actually singing? I would say it does.

I can ramble on and on about this, so I think I will sum it all up with a discussion of music in the age of ipods and mp3s. What does the abundance of music downloads do to the art of music? To use recording technology as an example, I prefer to listen to records when I am in the house (although cds have a clearer sound, records sound better), but I must be in my room to listen. I could never afford to purchase the music I’ve downloaded from the Internet on vinyl, nor could I even find most of it in record form. Records are nice, but mp3s are much more convenient. Unlike records, mp3s are reproduced by digital means, which is quick, exact, and able to spread rapidly around the world. What will the over saturation of digital audio bring for the future of music? According to Benjamin, the quantity of art leads to more participation by the masses. (Avid readers became writers with the invention of the printing press, for example.) In the mid seventies, avid music fans, using two turn tables and a mixer, repeated the best bits of funk records at block parties, and poof, hip hop was created. What’s next?

Adapting the Written Word For Moving Pictures

Following Walter Benjamin’s theory of the solitary writer and reader of the novel, I thought the following quotation was of some interest.

“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”
-Ernest Hemingway, from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech

And now, with another quotation,.......................the blog!

“Generally film is found to work from perception toward signification, from external facts to interior motivations and consequences, from the givenness of a world to the meaning of a story cut out of that world. Literary fiction works oppositely. It begins with signs (graphemes and words) building to propositions which attempt to develop perception. As a product of human language it naturally treats human motivation and values, seeking to throw them out onto the external world, elaborating a world out of a story” (Andrew 456).

Having been put on the spot this morning as to the relationship of the novel and film, I’ve revisited a film theory article this afternoon (or rather a published excerpt from a book in a film theory textbook) on film adaptation by Dudley Andrew. [I was also going to reread Seymor Chatman’s “What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t,” but I’m much too tired today to read this longer article as well as the one on adaptation.] In discussing the adaptation of prior texts to film, Andrew theorizes three modes in which this has been done: borrowing, intersection, and fidelity of transformation. In borrowing, the “artist employs, more or less extensively, the material, idea, or form of an earlier, generally successful text…Doutbless, in these cases, the adaptation hopes to win an audience ” (454). According to Andrew, the most common “borrowing” films are ones adapted from Bible stories, or Shakespeare. In this way, and much to the dissatisfaction of Francois Truffaut (I couldn’t find a copy of his essay “A Certain Tendency of French Cinema,” in which he discusses his distaste for the “cinema of quality,” which he said depended on the recreation of literary works, so I unfortunately can’t put in a quotation from him on this subject), the director depends on the prestige of a prior text for success with an audience. Another mode of adaptation is “intersecting,” in which “the uniqueness of the original text is preserved to such an extent that it is intentionally left unassimilated in adaptation” (454). In discussing this, Andrew refers to Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)—which I haven’t seen—and the use of Bresson’s featuring of the writing of the diary in the film. Andrew’s third mode of adaptation is the “fidelity of adaptation” in which “the task of adaptation is the reproduction in cinema of something essential about an original text” (455). This is the film in which the director wishes to remain faithful to the source—which sometimes leads to bad films. Andrew suggests the best manner in which to faithfully adapt a text is to reproduce the spirit of the source, and not to strictly reproduce to the literary work. The best example that comes to mind right now is Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996), which is adapted from a novel by Irvine Welsh. The novel is much longer, of course, and is set up as a series of narratives with no real protagonist. For the film, Boyle concentrated on one protagonist, Rent Boy (Ewan McGregor), and created a style that, although not based on Welsh, was in keeping with the spirit of the book. Although several incidences from the novel are in the film, Boyle departs from the source and creates new scenes that would better work in film. In fact, unlike the book, the film is slightly surreal, and includes several distinctly cinematic effects impossible to translate to novel form.

Andrew, Dudley. “From Concepts in Film Theory: Adaptation.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Braudy and Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 452-460.

ASIDE: In class Professor Zemka referenced the French film Jules and Jim (Truffaut, 1961), which was adapted from a novel of the same name by Henri-Pierre Roché. Truffaut loved the book, but decided it was unfilmable until he saw The Naked Dawn (Edgar Ulmer, 1956). The following is an excerpt from his review of The Naked Dawn (Truffaut was a journalist prior to becoming a director), reprinted in the Criterion Dvd booklet:

“One of the most beautiful modern novels I know is Jules and Jim, by Henri-Pierre Roché, which shows how, over a lifetime, two friends and the woman companion they share love one another with tenderness and almost no harshness, thanks to an aesthetic morality constantly reconsidered. The Naked Dawn is the first film that made me think that Jules and Jim could be done as a film.”