Showing posts with label youtube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youtube. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Learning To Love The Cyborg: paralleling the “Cyborg Manifesto” with “Fahrenheit 451,” “I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK,” and gender identity

"Gender is a copy with no original." - Judith Butler

"Psycho?" "Not a psycho...cyborg." - I'm A Cyborg But That's OK


          She is a cyborg who refuses to succumb to the human condition. He is a fireman who yearns for human interconnectedness instead of technology. Characters within Ray Bradbury's novel "Fahrenheit 451" and Park Chan-wook's film, "I'm A Cyborg But That's OK" prove to have conflicting attitudes towards technological advancement and inherent cyborgism. Both works serve to tell a story revolving around human interaction within various social institutions. In Montag’s world, the cyborg Mechanical Hound is something to be feared; technological means of entertainment prove to be futile and empty at best, as is the case with Seashell thimble radios and parlor screen walls. Conversely, the main character of "I'm A Cyborg But That's OK," Cha Young-goon, is encouraged by a fellow patient, Park Il-sun, to continue down the path of the cyborg no matter what the "white ones" (doctors in white lab coats) say. In an attempt to deconstruct both cyborgs and technologies in said stories, one can parallel the cyborg experience (of hybridity, of encompassing multiples) to the realm of common-day gender identity, which consists of a strict binary guidelines (male vs. female). As the bodies of the Hound and of Cha the cyborg are deconstructed, so are the notions of gender by way of Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, and Judith Halberstam. In contrasting the ideologies of both novel and film—while deconstructing the technological/institutional means of perpetuating said ideologies—one will note the archaic fallacies of the “male vs. female” socially constructed binary of today and, metaphorically of course, come to fully accept the nature of the cyborg over the dichotomous human condition.
          Fundamental ideologies exist within both "Fahrenheit 451" and "I'm A Cyborg But That's OK." By reading into Louis Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatuses, one comes to find the fire station and mental hospital as “distinct and specialized institutions” (Althusser). Montag, the fireman, is part of an institution which normalizes the social reality of the people. The captain, Beatty, explains to Montag that the masses wanted the banning of books and the destruction of intellectual superiority. Beatty informs Montag that once upon a time, the purpose of the firemen were to put fires out. Now, their only purpose is to start fires by burning books: "[Firemen] were given the new job, as custodians of [the people's] peace of mind" (Bradbury, 88). The fire station (and firemen, by way of extension) then becomes an Ideological State Apparatus in which the role of the fireman is changed. Beatty goes on to say that this shift in ideology "didn't come from the government down...no censorship to start with" (Bradbury, 87). A completely literal take on the concept of banning books, Bradbury chose to mirror book burning as a result of the fear and destruction of knowledge, the downfall of intellectualism, the annihilation of human interconnectedness and the lack of significant relationships.
          The mental hospital in "I'm A Cyborg But That's OK" functions in the same way Montag and Beatty's fire station does. In looking to Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish," it is noted that everyone in society must serve a function—this includes the mentally insane, the deviant, and the criminals. Much like in the film, Foucault reminds us that these malfunctioning members of society were forcibly housed in an asylum in order to gain purpose. Cha, the star of the film, is a young woman who believes herself to be a cyborg. Her delusions run so deep that she stops eating food in fear that the gears inside of her may stick and get clogged. She takes to talking to machines, light fixtures, and other electrical appliances including a radio that preaches on how to become a better cyborg. Park, another patient, is a young male who enjoys creating and wearing colorful masks; he was put into the hospital due to his schizophrenic, anti-social behavior. Both Cha and Park actively hold a role as "insane," which enables the "white ones" (or doctors) to study them. Director Park Chan-wook chose to juxtapose the cold reality of a mental institution with the playful decor in set design. This postmodern defamiliarization of what we know to be a "mental institution" serves as an interesting cinematic choice which furthers the main characters' agenda: to rise from suffering and eventually find peace within the padded walls of a nursery-like prison.
          As was the institution of the fire station, the technological elements created for convenience in “Fahrenheit 451” were thrown into people's lives so that their minds would “drink less and less” (Bradbury, 87). Through Montag's eyes, we see the severe emptiness of everyday life when engaged in technology and not human interaction. Mildred, Montag's wife, had become “an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear-thimbles,” in which she would not, even for a moment, engage in conversation with her husband without the “electronic ocean of sound” in her ears (Bradbury, 48). The parlor walls—referred to as the “family”—“said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud”; a metaphorical parallel to their own husband and wife relationship (Bradbury, 74). Even the earpiece which Faber gives him as a means of advancement has its downfalls. Existential decay befalls Montag and soon enough, he cannot tell if he is himself, or if he is Faber: he “would not be Montag anymore” but “Montag-plus-Faber” (Bradbury, 131).
          Unlike the “Fahrenheit 451” universe, the world Cha lives in builds itself upon technological devices which help people—at least from Cha's perspective as a cyborg. She is given shock treatment in the mental institution due to her lack of desire for eating food. In her mind, shock treatment poses as a great thing because she, as more machine than human, can easily be recharged by the process. Park even goes as far as to convince Cha that he has constructed a “rice-megantron,” a tool which converts food into electrical energy to better suit her cyborgian needs.
          There is a cyborg present within “Fahrenheit 451,” as well. The Mechanical Hound is a tool of the firemen. It is able to detect those who are enemies of the state: book readers who are risks to the prevailing ideology of happy, non-thinkers. The Hound, essentially, is a cyborg: it is an organism which is part artificial intelligence and part natural systems. It “slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live” (Bradbury, 54). While it's exterior is entirely mechanic, Montag himself argues that the Hound does not like him, does not take to him kindly—as if it were an actual dog. He experiences a strange feeling as he passes by the Hound, a feeling which Haraway would classify as the “ghost in the machine.”
"Pre-cybernetic machines could be haunted; there was always the spectre of the ghost in the machine. This dualism structured the dialogue between materialism and idealism that was settled by a dialectical progeny, called spirit or history, according to taste. But basically machines were not self-moving, self-designing, autonomous. They could not achieve man's dream, only mock it. They were not man, an author to himself, but only a caricature of that masculinist reproductive dream. To think they were otherwise was paranoid. Now we are not so sure. Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert."
Haraway
          As the line further blurs over which is distinctly human and which is artificial, the nature of the cyborg becomes a question. Taking a look at fiction and pop culture, there exists a diverse assortment of cyborg icons. From Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker is reborn as Darth Vader, a cyborg forced to operate under mechanical limbs and artificial means of survival, least he perish. He is seen by audiences as a force worthy of fearful admiration, due to his artificial voice and mechanical suit. From Toy Story, Buzz Lightyear becomes a cyborg due to his technologically advanced “suit”—there is no distinguishing between the man and the machine. In the classic Anne McCaffery novel, The Ship Who Sang, there exists human bodies which live inside strongholds. From there, these bodies—usually underdeveloped in some way—can mentally connect to the controls of a spacecraft, successfully navigating ships through space. They were known as a “brainship.” Although vastly different, all three of these cyborg examples hold a distinct similarity: cyborgs are made (not born) in the interest of human survival and yet somehow transcend what it means to be “human” for something much more advanced and developed. The machines attached to these beings not only become extensions of themselves, but tap into the infinite number of possibilities for technological advancement.
          In transhumanistic fashion, the present and the future consists of virtual and literal technological extensions of woman and man: while watches were a mechanical extension of ourselves in the past—ie, pointing at one’s wrist to indicate the time—cell phones have taken their place as adaptations of our bodies (specifically, by way of the hand). Haraway states this re-crafting of our bodies through technologies of communication and biology creates better social relations for all people. Bradbury argues this re-craftmenship of the human body in an effort to move towards cyborgism is not, at all, a good thing: the Seashell thimble radios serve to sever the connection between Montag and Mildred, the Hound is a force of destruction, and the parlor walls are inane forms of entertainment which encourage masses to stop thinking critically.
          However, in “I'm A Cyborg But That's OK,” Cha's technological tools serve not only as a better extension of herself, but as services which will, in the end, save the day. The “rice-megatron” Park crafted ended up saving her life, and when she achieved the state of being a cyborg, she was able to kill (through tiny machine guns crafted where her fingertips should be) the “white ones.” In fact, human qualities are looked down upon by Cha. She constructs her own cyborg manifesto in which the seven sins of cyborg-kind are listed: sympathy, thankfulness, hesitation, daydreaming, being sad, restlessness, and feeling guilty are all seven aspects of the human experience. It is not only her body, then, that fuses with machinery to become a cyborg. It is her state of mind as well which looks to go beyond the typical human experience.
          The “human” experience has roots in many systematic classes of identification and domination for Haraway. Among a multitude of others (such as race and sexuality), there is the notion of binary gender identity in which there is male and there is female, and occasionally an “otherness” which does not fit into either or. By looking at both works of fiction, we can see a deconstruction and, inversely, a reconstruction of the “body” belonging to the Mechanical Hound and Cha as a cyborg. Cha specifically, as the owner of a female body, exists in the social construction of “gender” and femaleness. Gender, as a dichotomy of man vs. woman, is an ideology. If we are to move forward, Haraway argues, we must look past constricting binaries and dualisms and take into account a multiplicity of experiences. Woman-ness is not, as common sense dictates, a natural grouping; man-ness is not, as common sense argues, a natural bond. “There is nothing about being female that naturally binds women,” Haraway states in her Cyborg Manifesto. “There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices” (Haraway). Haraway would praise Cha's cyborgian experience because she encompasses the mechanical with the natural. A hybrid. The cyborg sees beyond traditional binaries which continue to serve positions of power while, simultaneously, excluding those outside of the realm of privilege.
          Haraway uses this theory to critique feminism in America. Feminism in the USA has a history of casually forgetting about the other matrixes of domination (race, class, sexual orientation) in lieu of uniting all women. This, the postmodernist Haraway argues, is an example of essentialistic thought regarding the supposed all-encompassing nature of women (regardless of experience or identity). The cyborg, then, complicates the traditional binaries of psychoanalysis and Frued, of nature vs. nurture, of marriage, of motherhood, and of individuality. By complicating these dualisms, it destroys the “practices of domination of women, people of color, nature, workers, [and] animals” (Haraway). To recapitulate:
"Certain dualisms have been persistent in Western traditions...The self is the One who is not dominated, who knows that by the semice of the other, the other is the one who holds the future, who knows that by the experience of domination, which gives the lie to the autonomy of the self. To be One is to be autonomous, to be powerful, to be God; but to be One is to be an illusion, and so to be involved in a dialectic of apocalypse with the other. Yet to be other is to be multiple, without clear boundary, frayed, insubstantial. One is too few, but two are too many. High-tech culture challenges these dualisms in intriguing ways."
Haraway
          Interestingly enough, Judith Butler argues that modern feminist theory has a reputation of not adhering to the traditional notions of “womanhood” being natural and all-encompassing. She claims, in fact, the opposite of Haraway: that feminism has “often been critical of naturalistic explanations of sex and sexuality” (Butler, 901). From the context of Gender Studies, Butler agrees with Haraway in that there is a definite need for the deconstruction of the body. Bodies hold meanings central to society: “phenomenological theory of constitution requires an expansion of the conventional view of acts to mean both that which constitutes meaning and that through which meaning is performed or enacted” (Butler 901). Bodies are not known as “its” but as, above all else, genders; bodies are quickly made to be either “his body or her body,” in which “the body is only known through its gendered appearance” (Butler, 903)—an appearance which is held by the norms of a genderdized society.
          Judith Halberstam goes even further to complicate the norms of binary genders. In her book on female masculinity, she considers the possibilities of gender multiplicity, specifically masculinity, which is independent from both the male and female body: “Masculinity...has little if anything to do with biological maleness” (Halberstam, 937).
          While feminism, gender studies, and queer studies has done a great deal to defamiliarize gender, Halberstam states that it is not enough. Strict attitudes towards gender and what can (or cannot) be feminine or masculine still dominate society. The recent launch of the Dockers ad campaign, “Man-Ifesto,” sparks interesting debate on what is “masculinity” and how that ties (or, like Halberstam argues, does not tie) in with bodies and maleness. The ad reads:
“Once upon a time, men wore the pants and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never had to cross the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to wear the pants.”
- Dockers' Ad Campaign
          This ad reduces the concept of masculinity down to maleness and maleness alone. In typical binary function, A is only A because it is not B; to be a man is to be masculine because it is not feminine, nor is it a woman. Both Halberstam, Butler, and Haraway acknowledge the dangers present in restricting gender identity down to the body. Masculinity in today’s society means power, legitimacy, and privilege; and if masculinity is only limited to a certain type of body, a body of the right sex, race, class, and sexual orientation, what does that mean for the other “bodies” which are restricted from this power? By tying a specific type of masculinity with a specific male body—ie, one which wears the [khaki] pants, one which gets dirty—the Dockers ad embraces a “power” which excludes those outside of the traditional, pant-wearing standards of masculinity.
          Halberstam reminds us that, much like the above Dockers ad, gender still exists as a dichotomy: male and female. To suggest otherwise, to embrace any other “ambiguous” gender eventually is boiled down to “deviance, thirdness, or a blurred version of either” (Halberstam, 948). In popular culture, one can look to icons like Adam Lambert and Lady Gaga—two performers who have been systematically “otherized” by the media, fans, and spectators. For Halberstam, the future holds the potential for the “coming out” of gender (Halberstam, 953). Although a strange concept to grasp due to prevalent perceptions of gender as a natural binary, this is only one of many possibilities which comes with alternative and multiple gender identities.
          This gender domination, consisting of non-intersecting identities—both male and female—is something which the Cyborg Manifesto attempt to complicate. Haraway strives for identities which are conscious of coalition and not nature. She parallels the term “cyborg” to “women of color” as an example. The term “women of color” arose out of a very real need to unite systematically oppressed women from the threat of patriarchal domination. Unlike “women,” “women of color” consciously focuses on the matrix of domination when it comes to feminism and social activism. Like “cyborg,” “women of color” does not affirm natural identification but exists because of a conscious, political kinship.
          Ideology can only go forward. The future according to the Cyborg Manifesto holds a reality in which the death of dichotomy within human experience gives rise to the birth of the cyborg. “Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness” for Haraway, in which a tentatively collective “we” must deconstruct preconceived notions of binaries. One needs, to borrow from Existentialist thought, to experience the consciousness of non-existence so that experiences within life hold more meaning.
          This metaphor of freeing oneself through construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction can be seen in both “I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK” and “Fahrenheit 451.” In the film, Cha faces near-extinction when she refuses to eat human food. Her body becomes literally torn, damaged, and on the eve of death when finally, the “rice-megatron” is implanted inside her. She is, in a sense, reborn as a better functioning cyborg with even more robotic extensions of herself. Cha sates, “I feel like I’ve been born again” during a session with one of the “white ones” in which, at the end of the scene, her toes proceed to light up in similarity to a charging cell phone or battery pack.
          This notion of rebirth through death can be found within the symbolic nature of the phoenix, present in “Fahrenheit 451.” Montag watches a woman burn to death in an act of martyrdom, an act which gives rise to a new paradigm inside of him which consists of learning, reading, knowing. Much like the phoenix which rests upon Beatty’s fireman hat, a new (and very illegal) ideology rises within Montag after the ashes of the past settles. When Montag meets Granger and the rest of the intellectual outcasts, the birth of new meaning for fire comes with the destruction of his old life: the fire the outcasts stood around was strange because “it was not burning, it was warming” (Bradbury, 171), a concept Montag is unfamiliar with.
          The stories of Montag and Cha both hold allegorical possibilities, possibilities which have been deconstructed and reconstructed in this attempt at understanding technology as yet another means of promoting ideology. While the somber tone in which Bradbury writes about mechanical instruments is very different from Haraway’s optimistic future of technology and humanity, both would agree that language—text, books, writing—is indubitably necessary. Bradbury’s dystopian future paints a picture in which non-learners, non-knowers, and non-thinkers engage in void, empty means with machinery to substitute human interaction. The lack of reading echoes the burning world of intellectual decay and deficient forms of empathy. For Haraway, cyborg politics consists of “the struggle for language and the struggle against perfect communication” in which one code dictates all. These works argue against dogmatic practices inherent in not only the masses, but the institutions which perpetuate said practices. Beatty’s reasoning of too many voices holding too many different opinions does not stand in this future of cyborgs. Too many experiences, for the cyborg, is a good thing. It is only with the acceptance of hybridity, after all, that Cha is able to survive in a world undergoing such constant, complicated flux. Social constructions such as gender and gender identity will bend to new paradigms, where power is not allotted upon one particular pretense (ie, masculinity, whiteness, straightness) but can reach to complex individuals with many identities and experiences. Vastly different from various science-fiction novels and films, this essay chooses to end on a note which does not fear the monstrosities of the half human, half robot: it is, then, truly time to love the cyborg.




Works Cited


Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1951

Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. NY: Vintage Books, 1995. Pp. 195 – 228. Translated by Alan Sheridan, 1977.

Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York; Routledge, 1991. pp.149-181.

Heberle, Renée. Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno. "Unfreedom, Suffering, and the Culture Industry: What Adorno Can Contribute to a Feminist Ethics" by Jennifer L. Eagan. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2006.

I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay. Dir: Park Chan-wook. Moho Films. 2006.

Keen, Carolyn. Caroyln Keen On Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto." English 571: Keen On Haraway. <*http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/keen2.html*>

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Rabelais and His World" by Mikhail Bakhtin. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" by Judith Butler. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Female Masculinity" by Judith Halberstam. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

Friday, November 27, 2009

"Taking a Risk on Those-At-Risk: Problematic Teenagers as a Means Of Production"


Taking a Risk on Those-At-Risk:
Problematic Teenagers as a Means of Production


an analysis of A Clockwork Orange (film), "Where Did The Future Go?" (essay by Randy Martin), and "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (essay by Althusser)
          Our faithful narrator, Alex of "A Clockwork Orange," is unequivocally a criminal at heart and mind. Engaging in senseless acts of violence, rape, and pillaging, he and his loyal droogs wander the night as serious threats to society. As an "at-risk" teenager capable of not only destruction but non-production, Alex is forced to go through the State Apparatus as well as Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses. Alex becomes an investment for various ideologies which all target him as a possible means of production; the possible erasure of his criminal mind (by means of scientific measures) means that Alex, as an "at-risk teenager," is a huge investment. He becomes financialized by numerous domestic wars as well as people with a varied set of ideologies behind them.
          To understand the monetary gain on Alex's troubled head as presented in "A Clockwork Orange," one must first consider Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses. Marxist thought argues that there is a State Apparatus which functions to repress proletarians and support the bourgeoisie. There is only one State Apparatus, and that consists of several repressive (ie, physical/violent) systems: the military, the government, the police, etc. Althusser states that this State Apparatus "enables the ruling classes...to ensure their domination over the working class." He also separates this Repressive State Apparatus with his concept, the Ideological State Apparatuses by claiming these, instead, are "distinct and specialized institutions" such as the Church and Education. Interestingly enough, he does not label any sciences as an Ideological State Apparatus. There are those who would argue that science, although compromised of facts, is still its' own ideology. For the purposes of this essay, we will not dwell on this argument but instead present privatized science--those requiring funding from the State, especially--as a Ideological State Apparatus. In "A Clockwork Orange," Alex is taken to a privatized science center in which he undergoes various chemical, psychological, and neurological experiments in order to correct his criminal mind. Althusser himself states that "all ideology hails or interpolates concrete individuals as concrete subjects"--therefore, the sciences Alex undergoes is, essentially, an ideology.
          With this understanding of ideology, we can look into Martin's argument of different ideologies playing a role in the financialization of the future--particularly, in this essay, the future of the youth. He argues that our society now functions capitalistically by playing into risk: "the prospect of a return in excess of expectation." Investors, able to take monetary risks, are now capable of running their own lives as well as the lives of others. Everyone who could not take these risks would be considered "at risk"; Martin argues it is these "at risk" people who are the "targets of all manners of domestic wars (on drugs, crime, kids and culture)." We now focus our future as monetary gains, through means of "pensions, kids educations, dept disbursement, home mortgages," etc. This ideology maintains that taking a chance on current risks will mean financial security (and, ultimately, financial gain) in the future.
          Knowing all of this, we can parallel Alex's predicament with a myriad of Ideological State Apparatuses, the State Apparatus itself, and how he ties in with these "investor's" future financial gains. The social worker's system is the first institution which Alex goes through. His social worker constantly checks up on him in the beginning, making sure he is staying out of trouble, going to school, etc. Eventually, this system fails him and he ends up in prison. Under the repression of the prison system--members are labeled with numbers instead of names--Alex is stripped of his individuality, choice, and freedom as a form of punishment. The problem of criminal violence is, in theory, supposed to be solved by isolation from society and rehabilitation. Interestingly enough, the prison system fails Alex in this regard and has no "cure" for any type of criminal. The State Apparatus, then, is proven to be not a solution for workers, but as a means of supporting the dominant sector of society..
          Alex then takes into the arms of the religious institution in the form of the prison's priest. The priest argues for salvation of Alex's soul through the eternal glory of god. This ideology, under the form of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus, is vastly different from past religious ideology. Alex is not pre-determined to be a sinner, as it was considered in the past. Rather, he has the opportunity, the free will, to choose his destiny. Ideological State Apparatuses, then, are in flux dependent upon time and convenience. The priest is, of course, vehemently against the scientific treatment which aims to "cure" Alex. Salvation, he argues, goes hand in hand with choice. Does Alex, being robbed of his "choice" to be good or bad, still have a shot at redemption if he cannot choose?
          Now outside of the State Apparatus of the prison system, and away from the bounds of religious ideology, Alex enters into the radical scientific treatment program. These scientists, as backed by the government, argue that the prison system simply spurs hypocrisy. It teaches all criminals to "fake smile" and "rub elbows" until their release. There is no true change under this State Apparatus hellbent on force and violence.
          After just two years, Alex is released back into the world and is proclaimed by the science's ideological backers and investors to be "cured." As fate often has it, Alex ends up back in the writer's home; the writer who he brutally beat and who's wife he viciously raped. The writer's home is in agreement with his sentiment: he is surrounded by books, representing literacy, education, and intellect. Incidentally, education is one of the various Ideological State Apparatuses presented to us by Althusser. As such, even the writer's honorable intentions in the beginning are still backed by an ideology; the writer had taken pity on Alex, believing the treatment to be a despicable device used to hurt the common man. Interestingly, the writer takes Alex under his wing and attempts to take Alex in as an investment of sorts. The writer, and several of his intellectual friends, want to make Alex into a product by showing his scars to the world, convincing the rest of society that their ideology is right.

          Martin goes into some depth over this financialization of the future in terms of "domestic wars." As mentioned in the beginning, domestic wars include the war on drugs, on low SAT scores, on gangs, on culture (ie, obscene art), and on crime. All of these domestic wars, Martin argues, paved the way for "surveillance, property seizure, and prosecution" in order to fight the most recent war: the war on terror. Using Martin's words, "anew regime of discipline and punish" is evident in all of the Ideological State Apparatuses Alex undergoes. For instance, the film itself starts off with an interesting juxtaposition of classical music and violence. During Alex's treatment, we witness the same thing: classical music is juxtaposed to the violence presented on screen. This means that Alex with forevermore associate violence with physical sickness...as well as classical music, his one and only love, with physical sickness. One scientist even leans over to another and mutters something about this being Alex's proper punishment.
          The one thing which tied all of these ideologies together was the promise to Alex that everything he went through was "for his own good." The State Apparatus claimed that prison was needed in order to better Alex; it was "for his own good." So was the religious ideology presented by the priest, as was the scientific ideology presented by the scientists, and also the educational ideology as argued by the intellect. At the end of the film, the government steps in and insists that they are doing this all for Alex's "protection." Even the future becomes a much needed gamble in order to financialize and invest and take risks on those things which need to be invested in; all done, it can be argued, for your own benefit.


* this is a rewrite of an older piece, entitled "The State Cures."

Works Cited

“A Clockwork Orange.” Dir: Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers Pictures. 1971.

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." La Pensée, 1970. Translated from the French by Ben Brewster. Transcribed by Andy Blunden. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

Martin, Randy. "Where Did The Future Go?" LogosOnline. 2006. http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/martin.htm

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

"I Didn't Know You, But I Want You To Die Knowing That You Were Loved."

a comparative analysis of social imaginaries
between Fahrenheit 451 (novel) and Me And You And Everyone We Know (film)







"Because you don't have to burn books, do you, if the world starts to fill up with nonreaders, nonlearners, nonknowers?"
                                                                                              - Ray Bradbury


          Although two seemingly different worlds, there is an inherent poetry within the lines of Fahrenheit 451 and the film Me And You And Everyone We Know. Both center around the connections--and disconnections--in human interactions, including public sphere as well as the intimate spaces found within society. Both works acknowledge the range of human emotions and intellect; Ray Bradbury chooses to examine the effects of a limited range and point of view, and how detrimental it is to a decaying, "burning" society. Miranda July uses the film to glimpse at the possibilities of human connection, despite the awkwardness due to the vast range of emotion and intellect. Present as the primary foundation of Fahrenheit 451 is the firemen--burning of books and homes--which functions as an interesting spectacle. The rise of this notion (as attributed to Bakhtin) attributes to the society's public sphere and the affects it has on human interconnectedness. By using this goldfish scene from the film Me And You And Everyone We Know, we can contrast the social imaginaries as presented by director Miranda July in opposition to the social imaginaries which Montag, our hero fireman, is used to--used to, until the symbolic reference of the phoenix makes its appearance and shows him what it really means to burn.
          Charles Taylor, author of the philosophical and historical work, Modern Social Imaginaries, focuses on the existence we as ordinary people live out from day to day. He argues within the first pages that "human beings are rational, sociable agents who are meant to collaborate in peace to their mutual benefit" (Taylor, 3). The society which Montag lives in, ironical, does just this: it was determined that the best way to "collaborate in peace to [everyone's] mutual benefit" was to limit the intellectual intake and lessen the range of human emotions. Beatty, Montag's Captain, even explains that the role of the fireman changed from putting out fires to starting: "[Firemen] were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors" (Bradbury, 88). Beatty's sentiment echoes Taylor's concept of society. The world presented in Fahrenheit 451 is, indeed, a "functioning" society in which a minority of individuals disagree with. In fact, Montag at the beginning of the novel found an extreme level of enjoyment and simplicity with burning books. Beatty informs us that the people wanted to stay happy by banning books, intellectual superiority, etc.: "It didn't come from the government down...no censorship to start with, no!" (Bradbury, 87). Taylor reminds us that while "traditional law is a precondition of any common action," it is also true that the public sphere is "a locus in which rational views are elaborated [and] should guide government" (Taylor, 89). Technology was one of the factors in which people began to let their minds "drink less and less" (Bradbury, 87). This was to insure happiness; Beatty further explains that to keep the society happy, one must "cram them full of noncombustible data...they'll feel they're thinking...And they'll be happy" (Bradbury, 90 - 91). The world, indeed, begins to fill up with "non-learners" and "non-knowers," as Bradbury states in his introduction. Yet, as Beatty claims, all of the "non-knowers" of the world owe it not to the government, or to censorship, but to the theory which originally stated that knowing, and learning, was bad. Theory penetrates and transforms societies; "people take up, improvise, or are inducted into new practices" (Taylor, 29).
          Of course, it turns out that the means for happiness present in Fahrenheit 451 are just lies which mask a disturbing social imaginary. In order to understand the society Montag lives in, we must first understand what a social imaginary is. When using the term "social imaginaries," Taylor is an encompassing the following:
“...something much broader and deeper than the intellectual schemes...when [you] think about social reality in a disengaged mode. I am thinking, rather, of the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations."
(Taylor, 23)
As such, the history which Beatty described to Montag in the earlier paragraph is, essentially, a social imaginary. It is not a purely theoretical term due to the fact that "ordinary people 'imagine' their social surroundings" in a highly engaged--and less clinical--way (Taylor, 23). Knowing this, it becomes easy to analyze the social imaginary within Fahrenheit 451. Emptiness is prevalent within the society; when Montag enters his bedroom and finds his wife "asleep," he describes the room as "indeed empty." Mildred had been listening to the little radio Seashells--"an electronic ocean of sound"--as she slept (Bradbury, 42). When the seemingly janitorial men come in to revive Mildred from her attempted suicide, the machine they use "made her still more empty" (Bradbury, 43). The streets, avenues, boulevards, and even houses are "empty" (Bradbury, 42, 61, 99, 127, 130, 142, 146, 147, 152, 160). This repetitive description of setting serves as a beautiful metaphor of how void the world is when it comes to relationships. Mildred and Montag cannot even recall how they met, even though they have been married for ten years. Montag reflects on how empty their relationship really is by paralleling it to their parlor: there had always been a wall between the two of them, and "not just one wall, but, so far, three!" (Bradbury, 74). With the decrease of intelligence comes the decrease of technological content. The parlor walls--often referred to as the "family"--"said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud" (Bradbury, 74). The parlor walls infiltrated what Taylor calls the intimate sphere; it has become, quite literally, the locus of family life. Throughout this whole parlor scene, nothing substantial happens within the "family" and Mildred can't explain nor knows what is going on; there is simply a parade of sensations, colors, music and a lack of meaningful dialog between said "family." Later on in the novel, Montag returns to the family as he questions Mildred about love: " 'Millie? Does the White Clown love you?' No answer. 'Millie, does...your 'family' love you, love you very much, love you with with all their heart and soul, Millie?' " (Bradbury, 105). It is also noticed that Mildred was "an expert at lip-reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear-thimbles" (Bradbury, 48), emphasizing the lack of communication between the married couple. Unfortunately, these "arts"--the radio Seashells, the parlor walls--no longer serve "as objects of aesthetic enjoyment, enriching the intimate sphere" (Taylor, 105). They instead increase the separation between people in this society, forcing them inside themselves in an act which isn't even the least bit introspective, but severely isolationist.
          In extreme contrast to Fahrenheit 451, this scene in Me And You And Everyone We Know explores a different social reality. Clarisse, an outsider in Fahrenheit 451, would have fit in quite nicely with the social imaginaries displayed in this film. The cars are slower. There is time to reflect. People talk in moving vehicles. People talk to other people in moving vehicles by simply lowering the window. There is a collective community present in which everyone--including a goldfish--is a part of. And although this ideology does not stop the inevitable sadness, or death, it seems as though it would be a more preferable alternative for Clarisse, and later on, Montag. The two characters in the car, Michael and Christine, even hold a discussion on consumerism. Christine comments on the shoes she just bought: how she doesn't need them, how she can't believe she bought them, and how Michael bought into everything the shoe salesman said. These characters present a side very different from the characters in Fahrenheit 451; they critique their own actions, examine their realities, and question each others' thoughts. While it certainly doesn't reach the depths of being a deep, intellectual, wise conversation, Michael & Christine's conversation at least hits the tip of something deeper than what's on the television. Paralleling it to the novel, those capable of questioning their realities--Clarisse and her uncle, Montag, Beatty, Faber, Granger and the other intellectual outcasts--all are forced to live a different social reality than those with "normal" sensibilities. Through the eyes of Montag, we learn that Beatty actually wanted to die. Faber never goes outside, due to his intellectual status. Granger and the other professors are forced to live the life of outcasts. Clarisse, we can assume, meets the tragic end of getting hit by a speeding car. And Montag lives out the remainder of his life on the run, simply for choosing to question his own reality and looking outside of himself--and into the lives of books--for answers.
          During the goldfish scene, a transformation occurs. At first, each individual driver and passenger are isolated from one another, caught in their own metallic hunk of a bubble. Soon, Michael notices the goldfish, and the highway becomes a topical common space ("[where] people are assembled for some purpose," Taylor, 86) in which "we're all together on this." Even though isolated by transportation, the characters in this scene "come to a common mind, without the...political sphere, in a discourse of reason outside power" (Taylor, 91). The motivation for all of the characters to attempt to save the goldfish predate a political logic. It becomes something done out of empathy; an action in which a group of people all collectively come to the same consensus due to experiencing a similar emotional and logical response. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag reflects back on a moment in his life where the potential for this type of human interconnectedness was possible:
"One time, as a child, in a power failure, his mother had fond and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again too soon..."
(Bradbury, 37)
This memory shows that the potential for a deeper sense of human interaction can exist; and possibly still does, somewhere in the world. Clarisse further explores this experience alien to Montag by reflecting on front porches. She tells him her uncle thinks that people stopped building front porches because "they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think." (Bradbury, 93). It is the same argument used for increasing the speed limit. If the characters in Me And You And Everyone We Know had been speeding, the goldfish wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. There would be no reflection on Christine's part, no notice of the outside world on Micheal's part, and perhaps that little girl and her father would have never even remembered purchasing a goldfish in the first place.
          Just as the characters of Me And You And Everyone We Know watched the demise of the goldfish, so did the neighbors watch houses burn in Fahrenheit 451. Unlike the goldfish scene, however, the flaming books and buildings give rise to the concept of a spectacle. Mikhail Bakhtin argues that unlike a carnival, a spectacle is a serious and uncreative event in which people are re-imprisoned within the existing world order. These spectacles "sanctioned the existing pattern of things and reinforced it" (Bakhtin, 686). The role of the firemen, then, was to aid in the spectacle of book burning. As Montag reflects, it is "always at night [when] the alarm comes. Never by day! Is it because fire is prettier by night? More spectacle, a better show?" (Bradbury, 69). This burning of books, this spectacle, served one purpose as a show for the neighbors: to assert "all that was stable, unchanging...it was a triumph of a truth already established, the predominant truth that was put forward as eternal and indisputable" (Bakhtin, 686). These spectacles strengthen the common perception within the public sphere of Fahrenheit 451's society: that books are bad, too much thought is dangerous, and that happiness lies within simple pleasures like parlors and speeding through town.
          There are various, subtle turning points throughout the novel which build up and ultimately force Montag into the world of books. From meeting Clarisse, to Mildred's clinical revival--"Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life!" (Bradbury, 46). He watches a woman burn to death, a woman who finds something so fascinating about learning, knowing, reading that she is willing to become a martyr over it. Montag ends up having to burn down his own house due to his criminal activity of reading. Much like the phoenix upon Beatty's hat, these moments of recognition cause Montag to examine the decay around him while simultaneously give birth to some greater feeling within Montag. The realization that Beatty had wanted to die, to escape from this society is born shortly after Montag is forced to burn him alive. The need to understand a book's impact rises out of the ashes of the martyr's burnt home and body. When Montag meets with Granger and the rest of the professors, the birth of a new meaning for fire comes: the fire the outcasts were standing around was strange because "it was not burning, it was warming" (Bradbury, 171).
          When the goldfish falls, each character takes a moment to reflect on his or her own sadness in Me And You And Everyone We Know. Mrs. Phelps, the woman who cries during Montag's reading of "Dover Beach," isn't even allowed her moment of sadness before Mildred and her friends rush her out of the house. This lack of human relations, of expression and knowledge and experience within Fahrenheit 451, is mirrored in the social imaginaries of said world. The public sphere Montag belongs to is vastly foreign to Christine and Michael's common space within the film. The notion of public spectacles, of book burning and putting flames to houses, furthers the common consensus of Montag's society of "non-learners" and "non-knowers." In both works, the death of one causes a birth of consciousness in another; whether literal (as the goldfish) or metaphorical (like the phoenix), characters like Montag, Clarisse, Christine, and Michael are able to transcend the public sphere of apparent isolation and tap into an experience where they might die knowing that they were loved.
Works Cited

Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Duke University Press, 2005.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Inc. 1951.

Me And You And Everyone We Know. Dir: Miranda July. IFC Films. 2005.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Rabelais and His World" by Mikhail Bakhtin. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Final: "Cartoon Musicals and Cultural Hegemony"

Cartoon Musicals and Cultural Hegemony:

A Post-Colonial Look At Jack's "Obsession" and Disney Film's History of Imperialism


The Nightmare Before Christmas, a film produced by Touchstone Pictures (which resides under Disney), tells the story of Jack Skellington and the rest of Halloween Town through animation and song. Many Disney classics follow this method of storytelling; Mulan, Cinderella, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast are all animated musicals. Music and film play an undeniable role in self-identity (Harris, 173), which is why examining our society’s “classics” can prove fruitful in understanding our own development. One musical number in particular from The Nightmare Before Christmas, “Jack’s Obsession,” shows Jack’s determination to dissect, understand, and capture the joys of this mysterious Christmas Town. By reassessing this through a post-colonial lens, we can learn more about the realities of cultural imperialism and hegemony in regards to various Disney film classics.

In the universe Jack Skellington lives in, holiday
is culture. Your cultural identity is dependent upon which holiday you reside in. Gloria Anzaldua argues in her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza, that “culture forms our beliefs” (1018). Jack’s ethnic and cultural identity stems from Halloween Town—a stark contrast from Christmas Town. After he, the Pumpkin King, inadvertently discovers a new holiday/culture, Jack returns to his homeland and spreads an imperialist mindset throughout Halloween Town. The residents go so far as to kidnap foreign leaders, terrorize other societies, and blindly follow their delusional leader in order to “capture” the joys of this new object known as Christmas.

Jack Skellington becomes the “intellectual authority” of Christmas Town. Edward Said, author of
Orientalism, coins this term in discussing the Western scholars justification for “examining” the Orient. Said draws from Foucault’s concepts of knowledge/power and how they are tied together. He brings this knowledge/power relation into post-colonialist thought and exposes how the Orient was what the West said it was. There is, however, a strange truism which exists with said scholars: “if the Orient could represent itself, it would; since it cannot, the representation does the job, for the West, and for the poor Orient” (3).

Disney has essentially become the “intellectual authority” over matters of children stories. Disney films are infamous for their status quo interpretations of children’s literature. Stories have been told from the perspective of a white, middle-class, patriarchal society (Henke, Umble, and Smith, 335). There is, however, a sense of evolution due to shifting paradigms—we have grown from Cinderella to Mulan, from Belle to the new Black Disney princess, Tiana.

With that in mind, we still encounter cultural hegemonism within Disney classics in which these diverse voices are “otherized” in contrast to the “norm.” Said explores the concept of the Orient/West binaries briefly. The Orient (or the “other”) was seen as childlike, irrational, and different while the West (or the “norm”) was depicted mature, rational, and normal (8).

Here is where it gets tricky: because of this Western knowledge of the Orient, the Orient is then created. The Orient exists only as the West determines it exists. Christmas Town, then, exists only as Jack Skellington and the residents of Halloween Town
say it exists. In the Nightmare Before Christmas case, Christmas Town is "contained and represented by dominating frameworks" (8).

This parallels Jack Skellington’s attitude in regards to Christmas Town (as seen in songs like “Jack’s Obsession"). Jack asks himself over and over again throughout the song, "what does it mean?" Further examples of Jack's imperialist mindset can be seen in these lines:

You know, I think this Christmas thing
It's not as tricky as it seems
And why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone

Not anyone, in fact, but me
Why, I could make a Christmas tree
And there's no reason I can find
I couldn't handle Christmas time

The problem with Jack’s (and Disney’s) intellectual authority position is precisely what post-colonialist thought is trying to explore. Anwar Abdel Malek, author of “Orientalism in Crisis,” argues that this intellectual authority of Western scholars made Orientals “an ‘object’ of study, stamped with otherness” (107). Christmas Town becomes Jack’s object of study; the culture of Christmas becomes Jack’s obsession.

This "otherization" is not unfamiliar to Disney children films. The BBC reported in 2001 that much of “the Arab world was upset by what was said to be a one-dimensional portrayal” in the movie Aladdin (BBC, “Spotlight on Disney’s Cultural Legacy”). On a similar note, the irony present in Disney’s portrayal of Mulan can be seen in the Discovery Channel report on the legend and speculation of the “real” Mulan: in both the legend and the speculation, Mulan was a woman who lead an army against imperial rule (“Warrior Women”).

Disney is a name that is unfamiliar to very, very few. Richard Jackson Harris reminds us in his book,
A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication that film studios, television networks, etc. are "among the largest and richest private corporations" (3). The large Disney franchise(s) are due, in a huge part, the ridiculous audience Disney has gathered for not only its films, but its television shows, children's books, novelty toys, theme parks, and more.

It is imperative, then, that we as a society reinforce higher levels of media literacy. Harris provides the definition of media literacy as the "ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and process media" (355). Media literacy, post-colonial thought, feminist theory and more can be attributed to the evolution of Disney's paradigms which I briefly mentioned in the beginning of this essay. There have been many attempts in the recent years to actively engage students (specifically, the younger generations) in critical analysis of television shows and movies along side canon literature and essays (Harris, 356). Unfortunately, these curriculums have often been cut down—much like the fates of art and music programs—due to a movement to go “back to the basics” of education.

Besides media content and the lack of investigative analysis on Disney children films, another thing to consider is the mass production of Disney films as they are integrated around the world. Home-grown, US American culture is consistently being spoon-fed to audiences around the world. Post-Colonial theorist would argue that this is, in a sense, a form of imperialism. The opposite side of that argument is simple: how can one be conquering when the culture wants to
buy it?

Regardless of if it is morally wrong or right, the focus should continue to stay on the post-colonial idea between colony and colonizers. Drawing from the concept of the Hegel's master/slave relation, the colony is not the only affected part in the relationship. Colonizing a culture can have (and has had) profound effects upon the colonizers. In
Decolonising the Mind, Ngui wa Thiong'o reminds us that members of colonies—specifically, Africans—only experienced the world "as defined and reflected in the European experience of history" (1142).

While it is true that Disney children classics are not the only sources of knowledge we have, it is still important to examine the effect is has on us as children, as well as on future generations of children. Kids are known to absorb more information from something with a visual component (ie, films, television shows, etc.) rather than the verbal component (Harris, 47). And what of the songs present in these films? As "Jack's Obsession" shows, they are not always what they seem. Music has always a powerful way to memorize information, and as such, has become huge in its mass production. Harris reminds us that "anything powerful can be very threatening" (174). While song has often challenged the status quo of society, how many times has it reinforced said status quo?

Many Disney songs continue the cycle of sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and more. In
Mulan, we are taught how to "be a man." The song teaches us that men are brave, strong, and mysterious. We are taught through various other songs in Mulan that a good wife is one who knows how to cook and can cater to a man. "Jack's Obsession" teaches us about motivation at its core. Jack becomes determined through intellectual curiosity and a need for power to overtake Christmas as his own. The list of classic children Disney film songs which reinforce the status quo and the "norm" (while otherizing the "other") goes on and on.

Is
The Nightmare Before Christmas a pro-colonialism film? Is Disney really trying to spread “Americanism” to every corner of the world? Perhaps instead of worrying about these questions, we can turn our focus to alternative voices and ways to make diverse opinions heard. We can note that The Nightmare Before Christmas ends on an optimistic note, in which Christmas and Halloween begins to peacefully coexist and Jack learns his lesson about taking over other holidays.

A movement within classrooms and/or homes in regards to examining media aimed at students and children may be the best way to meet Disney film classics head on. However, with the ever-evolving Disney film paradigm, perhaps there will be little need for a post-colonial, or feminist, or queer studies look at media. I wouldn't hold my breath, however, seeing as there is no queer princesses (or princes), yet.



* * *


Works Cited

Image by Banksy.

Harris, Richard Jackson. A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. 5th ed. New York: Routledge. 2009.

Henke, Jill Birnie, Diane Zimmerman Umble, and Nancy J. Smith. “Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine.” Lardner and Lundberg 334-347.

Malek, Anwar Abdel. “Orientalism in Crisis.” Diogenes, 44 (Winter 1963), 107 – 8.

The Nightmare Before Christmas. 1993.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Borderlands/La Frontera" by Gloria Anzaldua. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Decolonising the Mind" by Ngui wa Thiong'o. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Said, Edward. "Orientalism." Class Handout.

“Spotlight on Disney’s Cultural Legacy.”
. BBC. 5 December, 2001.

“Warrior Women.”
The Discovery Channel.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Analysis #3: "Handlebars & Marxism"

How Riding With No Handlebars Can Lead To Corruption
a Marxist Analysis on the Flobots' "Handlebars" Music Video

Before engaging in this essay, take time to watch the video and understand the lyrics in their entirety. Here is a link to the lyrics along with user comments.

* * *

Marx argues in his essay, "The German Ideology," that humans are distinct from animals due to the fact that we are able to produce material items--whether that be an automobile, a purse, a computer, or a bicycle. In the music video "Handlebars" (by the band, the Flobots), we are taken from one "human" ability (human once again relating back to the fact that we produce material items) to another. The song starts off simple ("I can ride my bike with no handlebars"), travels into capitalistic thought ("I can make money, open up a thrift store"), technology ("I can make new antibiotics"), power ("I see the strings that control the system"), corruption ("I can do anything with no permission"), and inevitably the end of civilization ("I can end the planet in a holocaust").


The opening scene of the music video immediately establishes conflict: in the foreground, two friends on a hill surrounded by trees, grass, fields, flowers, etc. In the background there are skyscrapers, a huge city, urban life, and more. These opposites emphasize the metaphor of peace and corruption, a theme which is present throughout the entire video. Immediately, we learn the ideologies of the friends when they stop riding their bikes (with no handlebars) and approach a fork in the road. One sign shows a dove--symbolic for peace, freedom, equality, love, hope, dreams. The other sign shows the letter "c" in an octagon--synonymous with structure and all the bad "c" words (corporations, companies, capitalism, consumerism, conglomerates). I will identify both characters based on their decision on which path to travel: there is the Proletariat, or the one who goes the route of the dove, and there is the Bourgeoisie, the one who goes the route of the "C".

The Dove Path leads to an extremely community-oriented neighborhood. People are dancing, kids are playing hopscotch, and everyone seems to know each other (evident in the Proletariat's wave to the man on the balcony). There are birds flying, open spaces, and sidewalk chalk drawings. These scenes of the neighborhood further emphasize the lyrics in the song which are nostalgic, innocent, and playful ("do-si-do," "tie a knot in a cherry stem," "comic book").

We make the transition from this innocent ideology to one which is more technologically inclined when the song makes a shift from the verse to the bridge: "...And I can see your face on the telephone." The music video transitions to the Bourgeoisie's journey through the city. We see a single black bird in the sky--counterpart to the initial dove of the Proletariat. With the introduction of technology, the Bourgeoisie views life vastly different from that of his Proletariat friend. The lyrics echo this as the narrator can "design an engine 64 miles to the gallon," "make new antibiotics," "run a business." The character of the Bourgeoisie is heavily seen in these lyrics: "And I can make you wanna buy a product / Movers, shakers, and producers." There is a return of the "C" when the Bourgeoisie shakes hands with a CEO and receives a stack of money. We can assume, by the montage, that the Bourgeoisie begins to work his way up the corporate ladder--the American Dream at its finest. It should be noted that perhaps, at one point, the Bourgeoisie character was a proletariat like his friend...but with capitalist greed and the drive to stay "alive and on top," he became bourgeois.


There is a transition from capitalist thought and technological ability to power and even greater technological ability. The Bourgeoisie switches from talking on the television (evident of the little "C" in the corner) with a "C" logo in the background, to the American flags as the backdrop of his speech. He becomes the leader of the nation and, as the song progresses, continues through a pattern of corruption.

The dove motif returns to us in the next scene: it is flying in the air, only to be grabbed by a black bird and presumably killed...a strategic foreshadowing of the Proletariat's fall. Bentham and Foucault's panopticon emerge with the development of surveillance cameras in the music video. The Bourgeoisie's power grows more oppressive with Big Brother techniques. A wall with the dove spray painted on it is bulldozed down; a billboard of the "C" is erected.

From this point, the Bourgeoisie character demonstrates the concept of interpolation; he represents the government when he speaks on television, operates from his erect tower, etc. He is hailing (a concept Althusser expresses in his essay, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses") the world--specifically the Proletariat friend--and they are responding. The Proletariat character believes he is free...this is evident in the way he shakes his head at the television broadcast of the Bourgeoisie friend before walking away. Incidentally, he as a subject does not agree to be controlled.


A soapbox revolution stirs. The Proletariat persuades people to rebel against the Bourgeoisie character (and by extension, the government). A man masked in a bandanna spray paints an "X" and the word "liar" over the Bourgeoisie before joining the movement. We can return to Marx's "Communist Manifesto" to predict the outcome: "...war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat."

Bourgeoisie's corruptive power is emphasized through the lyrics. "My reach is global / My tower secure / My cause is noble / My power is pure." In the music video, there is a return to the panopticon--more technologically advanced, this structure operates using multiple floating cameras to observe the active subjects. There is no escape for our Proletariat from this structure.

With the new level of human consciousness achieved by the rebels, a protest begins. The Proletariat and his crowd of dissidents face the police (like the Bourgeoisie friend, the police are one of the many faces of the government) in a climatic ending of violence and death--very appropriate considering the tone of the song during this point. Technology advances even more (a progression seen by the comic book, the engine, the antibiotics, and now, the missiles) as power breeds corruption, and we are left with a narrator screaming about how he can "hit a target through a telescope," and "end the planet in a holocaust."


Our Proletariat meets an unfortunate end. The Bourgeoisie friend shows surprise and sadness, creating the assumption that he still has some kind of humanity in him. There is a return to the "good ol' days" of riding a bike without handlebars before we cut to black.

The Flobots' "Handlebars" examines the correlation between technology and corruption, between capitalistic ideology and the ultimate downfall of civilization. The linear progression of simplicity to basic technology, of advanced machinery to the ultimately technological "god"-like invasions is examined through the music video itself. It is important for us as a society to take into account criticisms like this one. Even if the music video and the Flobots aren't 100% critiquing Capitalism (and they certainly aren't advocating Marxism), one can still see the parallels between this "Handlebars" story and that of Marx's bourgeoisie and proletariat predictions. It is also important, then, to re-examine our history so that we can equip ourselves for the future...as Marx does in his "German Ideology" essay (a retelling of history through a Marxist lens), so we must do with important occurrences and events.

* * *

Works Cited

"The Communist Manifesto." Republished by The Australian National University. 28 April 2008. 4 August 2009. http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" by Louis Althusser. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology. "The German Ideology" by Karl Marx. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004.

Wexler, Steven. Lecture Series. California State University, Northridge. Northridge, CA. July - August 2009.

* * *

I thought this screen capture was interesting. It's a nice subliminal message; only stays on the screen for about a second or two. Perhaps the Flobots' & the music video creators wanted to speak on this:



-b

Saturday, January 1, 2000

"The State Cures."

* The newer version of this response paper can be found here, entitled "Taking a Risk on Those-At-Risk: Problematic Teenagers as a Means Of Production."


The State Cures:

an analysis of A Clockwork Orange (film), "Where Did The Future Go?" (essay by Randy Martin), and "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (essay by Althusser)
          One of the various ideologies presented in the film adaptation of “A Clockwork Orange” is the concept of changing a criminal. Different characters represent different state apparatuses—the government, the prison system, religion, and even education/literacy. They all take a moral/ideological stand on the new treatment which our faithful narrator, Alex, goes through.
          The Priest is against the treatment once he sees what has become of Alex. He argues for freedom of choice and individuality. This position is vastly different from the religious ideology which was present in the past: pre-determinism reigned, and no matter what you chose, your salvation was destined to be (or not to be) long before you existed. Now, salvation goes hand and hand with choice. Does Alex, being robbed of his “choice” to be good or be bad, have a shot at redemption as one who cannot choose?
          In agreement with this sentiment is the character who is surrounded by books, representing literacy and education and intellect. He does not recognize Alex as the man who brutally rapped and murdered his wife several years ago—at least, not at first. Instead, the man takes pity on Alex and believes the treatment is a despicable device being used to hurt the common man.
          The Prison System labels its members with numbers instead of names. Individuality, choice, and freedom are stripped as a means of punishment to criminals. The problem of criminal violence is (hopefully) solved by rehabilitation and isolation from society. Unfortunately, the prison system (as portrayed in “A Clockwork Orange”) does not cure anyone.
          The scientists, backed by the government, argue instead for a new treatment. Unlike the prison system, this treatment is supposed to “cure” all criminal violence. In a presentation, one of the scientists state that the prison system simply spurs hypocrisy; it teaches criminals to “fake smile” and “rub elbows” until their release. There is no true change, and thus society is still a victim. Alex is the first person to be rehabilitated by this treatment and freed in just two years.
          Randy Martin reminds us in his article, “Where Did The Future Go?” about the war. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on low test scores, the war on violence. There is always a war on something, he proclaims, and if we look to “A Clockwork Orange” we can see what war Alex plays a part in. Using Martin’s words, “a new regime of discipline and punish” is the new treatment which Alex undergoes. Ironically—or, fatally…as in thanks to the fates—the film starts off with the interesting juxtaposition of classical music and violence. During Alex’s treatment, we witness the same thing: classical music juxtaposed to the violence presented by the films. One scientist even leans over to the other and mutters something about punishment before responding there is nothing they can do about Alex getting sick during the music.
          “Protection” plays an interesting role in this film. The police are there to serve and protect, and yet, as soon as Alex is freed, he is beaten by a gang of cops who happen to be his old droogs. At the end of the film, the character representing the government argues that he is doing things “for his protection, for your protection.” Everything, in can be argued, is done “for your protection.”


Works Cited

“A Clockwork Orange.” Dir: Stanley Kubrick. Warner Brothers Pictures. 1971.

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." La Pensée, 1970. Translated from the French by Ben Brewster. Transcribed by Andy Blunden. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm

Martin, Randy. "Where Did The Future Go?" LogosOnline. 2006. http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/martin.htm