Final Blog: What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

First I’m going to say this: I didn’t have the best time in my undergraduate theory class, so I came into the semester a bit skeptical about reading more theory. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy thinking about theoretical concepts; it was that I didn’t enjoy reading the French theorists, which were the writers we mostly focused on in our class. Having nearly finished the semester, I now have a better appreciation for literary theory. What I enjoyed most about the class was the variety of writers we read, including many who were not French! (For the record, I’m not French bashing here. It’s just that some of the French theorists are just plain weird.)

At the beginning of the semester, I was first intrigued by the idea of authority and its relationship to language. My first blog dealt with Levi-Strauss’ essay about literacy and enslavement in “The Writing Lesson.” I’d read Levi-Strauss in my undergraduate course, but I don’t remember reading about the Nambikara Chief and the introduction of writing into the tribe. According to Levi-Strauss, the Chief ignored the concept of writing as a record of speech and instead concentrated on the authoritative role writing plays in society. Levi-Strauss was intrigued by this and actually felt guilty for introducing literacy to the community. I found this interesting when I wrote my first blog, but at the time I didn’t agree with Levi-Strauss’ assertion that writing facilitated slavery, and I wrote about an example that didn’t fit into his theory. The following week we read Derrida in class and, unable to make sense out of his incoherent rambling, I picked up my literary theory for beginners book I’d saved from my undergraduate class. In the book, the author described Derrida’s on Levi-Strauss’ guilt for introducing literacy to the Nambikara tribe. (Reading somebody else writing about Derrida is so much better than reading Derrida!) According to Derrida, the authoritative power of language had always existing in the tribe because speech is a system of signifiers as is writing. Although I don’t think it had anything to do with the week’s reading, I was still intrigued by this idea and returned to the subject on my following blog. After this—and thinking about the idea later in the semester—I reformed my initial opinion and realized that all language is used as a tool for authority. Although it can also be used to subvert authority, language is a form of power—a system that facilitates the subjection of those entering into the system. For the most part, participants of the system are unaware of the relationship of power and language, which further facilitates their subjugation. We dealt with the power of discourse to subject a mass of people in discussing Marx’s theory of ideology, and again returned to the idea this week in discussing Eagleton’s theory of the use of literature to control the lower classes of Britain during the Victorian era.

Although language has been used to subject people to power, there are also devices within language that are rebellious to control. This is seen in Julia Kristeva’s theory of the genotext, and its reactions against the symbolic order. According to Kristeva, prior to the acquisition of language, we are in the semiotic state. Once we become part of the symbolic order—with proper rules of grammar and such—aspects of the semiotic state are still retained in an energy that Kristeva refers to as “the chora.” This chora is represented in seemingly incoherent rambles (my interpretation) and poetic language, throwbacks to those wonderful days when we gooed and gaaed to the amusement of our parents. In this sense, poetry is a rebellious expression against authority. What a wonderful idea this is! I wonder what Eagleton would say about given his theory about the use of literature to control the masses. And I wonder what Bourdieu would say given his theory of cultural capital. (Would Bourdieu see the reading of William Blake as a rebellious act? Perhaps he would prefer the work of Ice Cube.)

Another theorist I enjoyed reading was Walter Benjamin, whose work and theories I’d never read directly until this semester. (In revisiting articles in my film theory book, he’s cited quite often by several writers.) In particular I enjoyed his discussion of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. I’d seen the concept once, and in fact heard a painter use the exact phrase on a show on Bravo about Pop Art (before NBC bought the channel and turned it to complete crap). I find the concept of the auratic fascinating, especially given the alienating effects of the today’s society. Although I wrote my blog about audio recordings, I thought about the concept of an art’s aura in relation to my first experience seeing the work of the European masters up close. For example, I’d only seen the work of Vincent Van Gogh mechanically reproduced in books. My appreciation for his work greatly increased when I saw his actual work up close for the first time. (I particularly remember being fascinated at the how far the paint stuck off the canvas). This is representative of the aura, which cannot be replicated by mechanical means on a mass scale.

I was also fascinated by the readings about the artist. In particular I enjoyed the reading from “The Painter of Modern Life” (even though the excerpt appears to have been butchered in our theory book. I recall that someone wrote about the * * * in a blog). I enjoyed idea that the great artist is in a constant state of convalescence, seeing everything anew like a child. This reminded me of Kristeva’s theory, which I believe was discussed in class. I was also intrigued by Baudelaire’s concept of the flâneur artist, which I will discuss in another blog, linked below.

A Man of the Crowd: The Flâneur and the Modern Artist

Adios and Au revoir!

Terry Eagleton, the Rise of English, the Decline of Civilization, and Television

“Literature, in the meaning of the word we have inherited, is an ideology.”

–Terry Eagleton

“Television is the opiate of the masses.” –Don Knotts

I was intrigued this week by Terry Eagleton’s “chapter” on the rise of English literature. According to Eagleton, the importance of English literature arose with the decline of religion, which once served the authoritative role that maintained the British class system. Eagleton writes: “As religion progressively ceases to provide social ‘cement,’ affective values and basic mythologies by which a socially turbulent class-society can be welded together, “English’ is constructed as a subject to carry this ideological burden from the Victorian period onwards” (2244). Instead of looking to Christian mythologies and Bible narratives for comfort, the lower classes read English literature, which alleviated the degradation of lower class living. Instead of wishing to better him or herself, a working class Brit would read Jane Austen, a sort of wish fulfillment of a better life. Eagleton writes: “instead of working to change such conditions…you can vicariously fulfill someone’s desire for a fuller life by handing them Pride and Prejudice” (2247). I find this idea particularly interesting, especially given today’s times. Although the masses don’t read Jane Austen much these days (they just watch the films), this idea can be seen in television. WARNING: MORE BUSH BAHSING AHEAD Since George W. Bush became President, the gap between the rich and poor has been widening, but it doesn’t appear that anyone seems to care. Television news doesn’t really spend much time on this issue (except for fake news shows anyway), and yet the people seem to be complicit in this growing divide of the classes. Instead of using the mass medium of television to convey important issues to the people, television appears to instill escapist values onto television spectators who can fulfill fantasies of high-priced, high class living on Soap Operas or shows like Sex and the City. Today shows like the O.C., and mostly any show on Mtv, portrays the lives of spoiled rich children and teens that enact fantasies of the good life without work. The Paris Hilton and Nichole Ritchie show portrays this in what is supposedly reality, but from what I gather, there’s not much reality involved. (To quote Jerry Seinfeld on the subject of reality television, “Where’s the reality?”) The “simple” folk—the lower class—watch Paris Hilton’s spoiled behavior and wish to live her lifestyle despite the fact that the show actually insults working class people. I don’t want to appear like I’m picking on the worst shows, so I will also point to the concept’s existence in a show I adore: Seinfeld. Even in a show as brilliant as Seinfeld, Eagleton’s theory of literature’s ideological control can be seen. George lives the good life even though he is a buffoon and can’t really hold down a real job (and if he does, he does a very, very, very bad job), and Kramer, I don’t think, has ever worked (If my memory serves me correctly, he was on strike from a menial job for the bulk of the years). In one episode, Jerry actually tells Kramer that people should pay to participate in a Kramer fantasy camp. Now that would be sweet!

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?