Have you noticed those "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" billboards that have been flowering through Utah Valley the past couple of months? I sure have. And it…really is weird to me. But, since I'm not a single, vivacious, unique, starry-eyed blonde Mormon woman (I am, according to my latest calculations, not even half of those things), I didn't put too much thought into it save, in true LDS-fashion, a quick "What the fetch?" as I was continuing my commute. Now that we're in the last throes of June, the deadline for the millionaire's matchmaking dreams has come and passed, the ending of which I still don't know. The blessing of Twitter, however, has given me a much needed (and wonderfully snarky) update to the story. You should read this before you finish mine, if only because the professional writer does such a great job, plus it fills you in on some of what I'm talking about. And, as a heads up, I'm not interested in simply ridiculing those involved (Meg Walter does it well enough). Everyone finds those who matter in different ways, so perhaps this millionaire finds happiness through this process. In fact, it's less the people and more the process that I want to look at here. From where I sit (in my Tudor-esque office, overlooking a neighborhood street with wind-rippled trees undulating prettily) and from my essential non-experience*, I feel like much of what is constructed in Mormon-culture (or, as I use the term, Mormonism, which, I would argue, is quite different from the culture endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much as the doctrine of the Church and the history of Mormonism are not necessarily the same, either) with regards to dating, courtship, and marriage, is massive spectacle. Consider Guy Debord, in The Society of the Spectacle: The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (1) There's a highly performative aspect to Mormonism on many (perhaps all) fronts: Clothing, verbiage, political point of view, daily behaviors, and much, much more. The interiority of conversion is encouraged, via monthly testimony meetings (Open Mic Sundays, as I like to think of them), to be brought out publicly for communal commodification and inspiration. Tears are not uncommon accompanists to the spiritual retellings of private moments**. The society of Mormonism is a fascinating amalgamation of traditional accumulations and nonce incorporations. Ossification happens, as does innovation. In many ways, the "modern conditions of [spiritual] production" truly do prevail within Mormonism and the Church proper. (A quick example: The Church has fully embraced the power of social media--to the point that a process of "selling God" is so prevalent that, though I don't have any Mormon-related views of videos on YouTube, I still get Church-sponsored ads on that website.)
One of the things, interestingly, that the Church has now given up on, is the spectacle par excellence of the "Mormon Miracle Pageant" in Manti, Utah, a sanitized version of Church history, performed with all the spectacle that a pageant ought to have, on the extreme slopes of the Manti Temple. (I went once. I was not a fan.) Despite that, there's still plenty of spectacle that's part and parcel of the Mormon experience, though it is often a spectacle that is done with an eye toward symbolism and spiritual depth: Baptism is one, complete with attendant witnesses and audience; marriage (as it is throughout non-Mormon society) is also highly spectacle driven, even if the ceremony itself is often privately attended inside the temples. Performative worship, while nothing compared to, say, the whirling dervishes, is also part of the Mormon experience. So it's little wonder that there's also performative spectacle when it comes to Mormon cultural expectations. Which leads back to the LDS Millionaire Matchmaker Challenge (it's not really a challenge, which is sad, because it would have been great to see a played-straight Iron Chef segment where the ladies had to incorporate something bizarre into their Jell-O dishes, ranging from carrots to marshmallows) and the experience as shown in the video and described by Meg Walter (again, follow the link). What happened at the actual event is, for me at least, an awkward afternoon that has a serious assumption underpinning what was thought of, by some of the contestants, as a joke, and that has to do with prosperity theology. This is not a uniquely Evangelical (though you could make an interesting argument about how Evangelical-like (-lite) Mormonism is), and though it isn't an official Church doctrine, it is absolutely part of how many Mormons view wealth. Particularly here in Utah, it is much more unusual and uncommon to see a teacher, a librarian, or any number of countless lower-middle class workers become involved in Church leadership than those who are of a more wealthy class. Since the Church is a lay religion, the bishops and stake presidents all come from the wards in which these leaders live. They don't attend seminary or any sort of rigorous, full-time training to do their service. It's all on the Church leader--say, the stake president--to do both money-making and Church-leading activities. Again, it's not the rule, but it is the trend to see those who are financially more well off--upper management, software CEOs, retired-before-50 types--in the leadership roles. Implicit, then, is the idea that wealth = righteousness, with the idea of additional wealth an indicator of even greater righteousness. I can't cite numbers, as this is more my intuition than anything, but I think it's fair to say that members who struggle financially, despite doing all of the things prescribed by the Church, have moments of wondering if they simply aren't righteous enough--aren't obeying the manifold rules well enough--to be given the blessing of wealth. One other thing to add to the mix: Mormonism's highly conservative tendencies mingle in disastrous (in my view) ways when it comes to self-reliance (an actively taught principle in the Church; it's a part of the doctrine, which is probably why part of me likes Milton's Puritanism to a certain degree) and what happens when a family requires Church assistance. There's a stigma to taking welfare of any type in the Church (but not, interestingly, in giving it…provided it's with the Church's name slapped on the side of the truck, rather than a governmental agency), and, from what I can tell, that is only made worse by the assumption on the part of some members that the reason a person is failing financially is because he's*** also failing spiritually. So the words "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" sound, superficially, as though that's all there is: A millionaire who happens to be LDS is looking for a relationship. As I mentioned before, there are manifold ways of finding a worthwhile partner. Why not advertise it, if you have the means? But those words imply an additional level of piety that may not be visible to the uninitiated. This nameless, sheet-drenched millionaire (who couldn't afford to just, I don't know, take all the ladies on dates?) isn't simply saying that he's financially well off (I don't want to say "stable" because millionaires don't necessarily make good financial decisions all of the time--another assumption about wealth that, I personally think, plays into the trust that members put in their (rich) leaders: He's wealthy, so he must know how to make the right decisions!). No, those three words mean--to me, at least--that there's someone who is available and is, in essence, flaunting his righteousness by asserting his wealth status. Like a peacock whose feathers are made out of dollar bills, there's the outward spectacle that's meant to catch everyone's eyes; but the peahens are also aware of what those feathers are really saying. --- * Many of you know that my courtship with my wife involved meeting her as a junior in high school, dating her exclusively (so exclusively that we've never had any other serious relationship; we've only ever held hands with each other; neither of us has so much as kissed any other person romantically), and marrying her when we were both 21. I do not speak with personal experience at all when it comes to courtship and marriage. ** Please note, I am not disparaging those whose emotional response to important things is through crying. If anything, we need to have more times where it's socially acceptable (though not expected or required) to shed tears. *** And I mean he in many of the cases. The idea of a working Mormon woman as being someone without condemnation is a recent phenomenon and it doesn't have a lot of widespread application. That's a whole other subset to this: Single women are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of marriage; poor men are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of wealth. Consumption is the way of life; consumerism is something else altogether.
As a teacher, the wherewithal to buy a lot of consumer goods is…limited. No, this isn't a post about how little teachers are paid (I have a take on that, but I haven't written it, yet). After all, compared to many other people the world over, my life--and bank account--is beyond enviable. I mean, I'm typing this on a computer that I own (finally: I bought it on credit from Best Buy right around the time we moved into New Place and I finished paying it off last month) in a warm house with plenty of space and electricity practically oozing out of the walls, anxious to be used to fire up even more gadgets. It's pretty great, honestly. But the problem isn't recognizing what I have; it's tamping down on what I want. And nothing explodes one's sense of self-control quite like the cupidity of the Christmas season. I know that one of the large parts of my antipathy toward the month of December is the incongruity of worshiping a Man who lived his life in abject poverty, despite being a king, and the cultural disapprobation for not splurging to excess--even financial duress--under the same banner of Christ's Mass*. The thing is, I know it's better to be content with what I have. And I struggle--I really do--to keep that as my default. I don't buy books nearly as often as I have the impulse to. I have yet to get new shelves in my office, despite needing them for my ever-growing collection. With a couple of notable exceptions, I don't buy new video games when they come out, preferring to wait--sometimes for years--to buy them at a used price instead. These are luxuries, of course, though there's something to be said for extracting some measure of pleasure out of the dark world in which we live. And that's what gets me: I have plenty and to spare, so why do I allow myself to foster avarice? Here's an example: I have a black desk mat on my office desk. It matches the décor and helps keep the desk from getting scratched. It makes the room feel more professional (until you look at all of the action figures all around me) and I appreciate the way it helps me write, as the edge of my desk gouges into my forearms if I don't use the mat to protect them. And guess what? I really want one of these $60 mats from Angelarium.net. All of the artwork on the website is fantastic--a major inspiration for how I conceived of the sundry goddess and gods in my NaNoWriMo book, Theomancy--and I think it would be so great if I could replace my desk mat with one from the website, preferably the one pictured at the top of the post (which is also the link). There's no practical reason why I should trade up. The mat's dimensions make it so that the expensive, artsy version would cover less of my desk and work less efficiently than my boring-old-black one does now. In other words, the wanting to have it is, in some ways, more appealing than actually having it. What frustrates me, I think, is that I clearly understand the issue. I don't need it. Even if I needed a replacement, I don't need a $60 one. That's madness. But I want it. Like, really badly. I'm considering picking it up with some Christmas money that tends to come my way each year, rather than doling out the dollars at the bookstore as my dysthymia mandates, which is my usual practice. Again: Madness. Why am I like that? I know I'm not alone. Cultural conditioning, social pressures, and psychological impulses all dictate a lot of what's going on inside of everyone's head. And with the annual permissiveness that "It only comes once a year" provides, there's an explicit expectation to splurge, indulge, and allow that greed to winnow its way into the zeitgeist. I'm hardly immune to that sort of thinking and behavior. Every year I read Les Miserables during this time. And every year I'm reminded of what it really means to want, to be unable to know where my next meal is coming from. I have a good life, where much more than I could reasonably expect is part of my day-to-day living. That's not nothing. And every year, I mumble something to my wife about something or other that I would like for Christmas (although I'm actually pretty easy to shop for: I like gift cards to Barnes and Noble, since that's basically where I buy almost everything I want for myself, or something related to Shakespeare or Milton), and then I try hard not to expect to get anything that I would want. It's a strange tension inside of me, one that I can't seem to shake. I resist the avarice throughout so much of the year, the easing up comes unnaturally, yet if I don't resist it and embrace the excess, then I feel guilty for not being a part of the festive spirit. It's all…strange. Life's strange. So, I guess that makes sense, doesn't it? --- * Also, I'm not even Catholic, so why would I worry about different Masses? But if I grinch the season, I'm the Scrooge somehow? Bah. Humbug. An article from The New York Times came out ("Should Art Be A Social Battleground?") in which the author, Wesley Morris, makes an argument/observation about the Morality Wars--the next step in the Culture Wars of the past two or three decades. Morris gave me some things to think about--stuff I agree with and others that I don't--which I wanted to jot down here. I'm not going to give a lot of context to his arguments, as I recommend you use one of your free articles to read on the Times' website to read what he has to say. He begins with his argument that "culture is being evaluated for its moral correctness more than for its quality," but I don't get the sense that he sets down any parameters for what "quality" may mean. This is not an unfamiliar experience for me: At my school, we're a liberal arts, classical school in a lot of ways. We talk about (much more often than we read) the Classics (capital C) and as I teach World Civilizations from the High Middle Ages to current affairs, that focus on the classics is something that I have to wrestle with all of the time. As an unabashed Bardolator and Miltonite, I am perfectly comfortable claiming those two dead, white, British males as the dead center of the English canon. Part of it is the undeniable quality of their writing--which, as a native English speaker, I can appreciate in a more fundamental and satisfying way than I can anything in translation (sorry, Homer and Dante)--that continues to keep it firmly planted. The universality of some of the thoughts, feelings, and problems (not in the superficial way that "Shakespeare in the Bush" would make you think, but in important, fundamental ways) of this aspect of the canon make them indispensable. At the outset, I have to recognize that bias inside of me. I don't think it's a subjective-only claim, and I'm not talking about popularity, either (most people don't know anything about Milton or Paradise Lost, though they've used the word pandemonium, a word that Milton coined). Provided one is willing to invest the time and can understand the language these men are speaking, there is something for everyone inside of this part of the canon. If you want to talk about quality, then that's where we land. Moving out from there, however, things rapidly become murky and additional criteria are necessary. In part because of the continuing growth of art, we gain more and more potential voices. Which ought to be selected? Which studied? Which embraced? Which ignored? Which reconsidered? I bump against this problem in choosing my curricula, which focus on the European side of history more than any other section (though I have been criticized by a student for not teaching more American history in my World History class). This is where the question of quality begins to be begged, I feel. There is no equivalent to Shakespeare. There's nothing like Bach. They are, so far as we can see, unique to their time and place, rare instances of fortunately-timed preservation of genius. There are other beauties of the world from every culture. Many--perhaps most--will be forever forgotten and unknown, preserved (or not) in a way that prevents us from knowing about them. The idea, however, that quality is exclusively found within the Western Canon is the problem area: The story of a creation myth from Igboland isn't comparable to Paradise Lost in terms of its raw, poetic power--but it also isn't supposed to be. Judging a piece of art for areas of deficiency is not the best way to criticize that art. Or, to repurpose Neal A. Maxwell, it would be like faulting a phonebook for lack of a plot. The Igbo version of creation isn't supposed to compete with Paradise Lost (or the Bible, for that matter); it's part of the same genre and that's about it. The purpose, delivery, and quality of it are contextualized in ways that don't apply to Western cosmogonies. My thinking is that there is a lot of art out there that is of excellent quality and part of the process of living is to find, learn from, and enjoy it. So when Morris makes that opening claim, it immediately makes me question. Now, I can easily take a "for the sake of argument, let's operate on an intuitive level" approach to Morris' paper, and that is for the better, as it allows me to get into some of the other things that he brings up. For instance, he brings up this idea that societal pressures are increasing on not what is said, but who gets to say it. Morris says, "We're talking less about whether a work is good art but simply whether it's good--good for us, good for the culture, good for the world." He says that in a way--as I took it, anyway--that bemoans that loss of addressing the quality of the art, focusing instead on the way that the art's effects are felt. On one hand, I get that: Is Wonder Woman a good movie? For the most part, yes, though it fails to stick the landing with a rickety third act and a couple of other strange choices throughout. That can be debated, by the way, and there have been some people who have put forth some worthwhile critiques of the film whose points are solid, even if I disagree that the flaws disqualify the movie from being "good". However, part of what made Wonder Woman so popular and important is the way in which it operates in the broader cultural milieu. Without a reliable rubric for what makes a film good to base any other judgments on, the greater contribution to the conversation of superhero movies, female representation, and acknowledgment of previously unheard voices means that Wonder Woman has more purpose to it than whether or not the cinematography is well done or the editing competent. Though what I just described is Morris' point--we're no longer appreciating art in a vacuum--I have another hand I want to gesture with. Removed from that cultural moment, Wonder Woman absolutely loses power. In terms of raw filmmaking, it is well done. I'd say that the editing and color palate are more dynamic and intriguing than, say, Batman Begins, but it can't compete with the filmmaking mastery that Nolan demonstrated in The Dark Knight. In that sense, Wonder Woman isn't as good of a movie as TDK. So is that a satisfying analysis? Do we strip out the context of the world--with everything that has happened to America in the past two years--and allow the caliber of moviemaking dictate the worth of the film? I'm sure some people would say yes, thinking that a reliance on a supposedly objective rubric can demonstrate the quality of a piece, as if criticism is algorithmic. To a certain extent, that is worthwhile, but I don't think that extent goes to the extent that Morris is implying in his text. One of the things that Morris mentions that I agree with fully is the consequence of the type of criticism we have at our disposal. "The goal," he writes, "is to protect and condemn work, not for its quality, per se, but for its values." Morris believes that this makes sense and he celebrates those who were once marginalized now have a voice, though he acknowledges that such stretching does "start to take a toll". Morris pushes this idea further (after a quick recap of social history from the past three decades that is quite interesting. Here's a taste: "The culture wars back then [in the previous 30 years] always seemed to be about keeping culture from kids. Now the moral panic appears to flow in the opposite direction. The moralizers are young people, not their parents. And the fit is no longer over what we once called family values. It's for representation…") when he gets into his final quarter of the essay. Morris explains his difficulty with The Cosby Show in light of the decades of abuse that Bill Cosby has been convicted of. After exploring the impact of having Cosby's true nature come to light, Morris notes that the corporations erased "it from all platforms", a kind of cancellation of the art that a (monstrous) man made. But, Morris argues, "the show is innocent of Cosby's crimes". Yes…and no… Morris' claims about the quality--something he never gives us as a rubric, so we're again running on the intuitive feeling of what that means here--is what he's after. The show was well done. The man who made it was a monster. They aren't the same thing and ought to be judged separately--that, at least, is what I got out of Morris' argument. The twist is that Morris argued against that position earlier when he asks "Why not keep those things [historical context, the history of the author, cultural norms of the time] in mind as you consume it?" Like me, Morris was trained in a Barthesian approach to textual analysis: The death of the author. That is, he was trained to rely on textual evidences for interpretation, rather than for diving into the past of the writer/artist in order to extrapolate (or, sometimes, infer) the meaning of a text. Since college, I've eased up on the absolute use of this technique, but I think it's a mistake to turn every interpretive exercise into a biographical research (even if it is just a quick look up on Wikipedia). Sometimes, it can be helpful: I was better able to understand 10 Books that Screwed Up The World when I learned the author was a Roman Catholic apologist. "Methough I Saw My Late Espoused Saint" by John Milton gains exponential value when you learn about his rough marriage and the fact that he was blind. I think the danger of relying too heavily on the biography is that it can "botch the words up fit to their own thoughts", as the Gentleman warns Gertrude in Hamlet 4.5. It's from trying to read biography into Shakespeare, after all, that we get the nonsense from antistratfordian "scholarship". With modern art, however, the risk is lower: In some cases, we can simply ask an artist what she meant by a piece. (Whether or not she answers is up to her, of course, and provides its own type of interpretation.) Maybe it's the fact that there is an attempt at monopolizing meaning that such reliance on authorial intent engenders that has me pushing against some of Morris' piece. I think particularly of the (and this is a subjective judgment on my part) laughably bad artwork of Jon McNaughton. I first learned about him during the Obama years during which time he painted "The Forgotten Man" (and, yeah, the Forgotten Man is a white guy, so there I go, justifying exactly what Morris was describing in his paper). What makes this piece particularly egregious, I would argue, is the copious amount of writing that McNaughton does to explain his artwork. I think it's elsewhere on his site where a person can mouse over any part of the picture and have McNaughton explain that section of the painting to you. That, to me, smacks of 1) a failure to trust in the artistic ability to communicate within its own medium, and 2) a desire to dictate what's received. Both of those possibilities--and there are more--strike me as a "have my cake and eat it, too" mentality that, frankly, isn't possible. Interpretation is a personal act, and being told what to think or what a thing means by virtue of appealing to the author(ity) is unconvincing. If "correct" interpretations were simply a matter of an artist's explanation, then we wouldn't need the art in the first place. Let McNaughton write an essay about how he hates Obama's policies--why bother with his "fine art" at all? I think there's something about art that is different, and perhaps it's that democratization of meaning that I find so crucial. I don't think McNaughton is the sole arbiter of meaning of his piece, and the fact that he interprets it is fine. But there's so much more going on with the art than what's on the canvas. And that's the tension: Sometimes we want to strip things of context (e.g. Wonder Woman as a "bad" movie), but not others. Morris is guilty of this paradox, as am I: I want to add in McNaughton's comments, his politics, his other artwork to better understand "The Forgotten Man", but I don't think it's fitting to squeeze Edward DeVere into Shakespeare's plays simply because Oxford stabbed someone behind a curtain. I had this issue a few years back when people were bagging on Cars 2. It's not a particularly memorable film, but the issue was that we were judging it by the other work that Pixar has done. In comparison to the entire Pixar catalogue up to that point, Cars 2 was a bit of a wreck (lol, pun). Should Cars 2 be judged simply on its merit? That was the argument I was trying to make. But its merit isn't found in just that film alone; it's packaged up as a single part of a much greater whole. And that leads back to the Cosby connection. I've been struggling with this concept for some time--not the Cosby side, as I didn't watch his show and he wasn't much of a presence in my mind as an entertainer--because I don't know how to parse the problem. Back when I was a kid, my dad got really upset at my brother because my bro had bought a Nu-Metal album with a parental advisory sticker. Dad was mad because the purchase of the album showed the support of what was on the disc, regardless of whether or not my brother listened to the songs with bad words in them or not. That has stuck with me for a long time, as has this Mormonad* from many years back. Since I write some things that might be considered objectionable (my characters are violent and swear, among other things), I've often wondered if that ad is accurate. If there's something bad inside, doesn't that affect the whole?
When it comes to art, I'm sad about the misogyny that's easy to find in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost. It's hard to really venerate the Founding Fathers when some of my brothers and sisters of the human family were viewed by them as subhuman (three-fifths human, as a matter of fact) and enslaved. The failure of the Catholic Church (specifically, though others can be put in) to stop clerical abuses likewise shatters conceptions about the holiness of an institution. So do I stop enjoying or appreciating the contributions of those entities? I know that we're all human and we all have foibles. The issues here are deeper than just "We all make mistakes," though. What Cosby did wasn't a "mistake", it was calculated and abusive. Same with the Founding Fathers. They didn't accidentally import humans. And Shakespeare's progressiveness is all a comparative thing anyway: He says some pretty horrible things about women in his plays and that wasn't by accident. Ah, but the times change, yes? So that's why! We can excuse the past for being more benighted because it was more benighted. Except…the culture accepting the horrible things has changed, but the horrible things are still horrible. Sometimes, moral relativism will try to insert itself as meaning that everyone feels differently, so therefore there's nothing to worry about. I disagree: I think that morals are the same, but our willingness--societal and personal--to allow their breakage shifts. Women have been saying for centuries that the way men treat women is inappropriate and illogical. The stories brought up in the #MeToo movement aren't a sudden uprising--they're long-embedded realities from generations of our past. They weren't talked about, maybe, but they were still wrong "back then". Societally, we've started to say, "It's wrong now, too." So, does that mean that art's quality is being lost? Well, again, I don't know where Morris was looking for his definition of quality, so I can't answer that. I do know that I don't disagree with much of his stuff. That shows me that I still have more to think about, more to process. I don't know what to do about liking a piece of art whose artist is "problematic". I don't watch Louis C.K. stuff anymore, despite having previously enjoyed many of his routines. I don't know if that's the right choice. One thing is certain, though: Morris definitely gave me a lot to think about. I liked his approach and I wish that I had more answers. Of course, if I did, we'd be able to move past this problem, wouldn't we? --- * For those not in the know, a Mormonad is a pithy piece of advertising that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would put into its monthly youth magazine. They were popular when I was growing up, though I don't know if their popularity has remained these days. I guess I could ask someone. Maybe I will. What are we afraid of? A few years ago, right around the time The Walking Dead hit the zeitgeist between its decaying eyes, zombies were everywhere. There were college courses taught about zombies. Books on philosophy, but through the lens of the undead, were written. Zombie modes were introduced into video games where they had no purpose. Much like having dragons on the front cover of fantasy novels, it seemed like the undead were the easiest way to part brain-dead consumers from their money. And that was all a part of it: Zombies represented--in a not-so-subtle way--the fears of our society, up to and including consumerism and the deep, often unspoken fear of our own voracity turned upon ourselves. Fears about loss of individuality, less potent now than during the Cold War, perhaps, but still a viable reflex in the American psyche, coupled with paranoia about germs, disease, and the potential of bio-warfare all combined in the perfect monster for the late-Bush, early-Obama years. But what about now? What are we afraid of now? In other words (and to take the idea from someone on Twitter whom I can't find to credit), what will the next monster be? When I think of traditional monsters who have stuck around, it's clear that they resonate with something deep and primal within a culture. Because we're a fearful species, there are a lot of things that we're afraid of. You'd think it'd be easy to consider and/or predict this, right? From my poor powers of invention, however, I find this taxing. Think, for example, of why vampires in the buttoned-up, sexually repressed and distressed Victorian Era would be so spooky--and so alluring. Dracula, in particular, has a great many aspects of the culture twisted and perverted within him. During the century in which both Frankenstein* and Dracula were born, there was a rush toward industrialization and modernity (though they didn't think of that term the way we do now), an abandoning of the past and its mores. For Frankenstein's monster, the boundary of scientific potential and where it bumps against the domain of God is a good example. For Dracula, it's the feudal lord reasserting his power and dominion into the "modern" world. Not only that, but Dracula's power set is predicated on undoing traditional Christian norms: Jesus is supposed to be the only Being who is immortal and lives forever, yet look at what the Count can do. Jesus gives His blood to us for a promise of eternal life; Dracula takes our blood for himself to gain that immortality. His hidden nature is bestial, where he can take the form of different creatures (depending on your story). The values of the society are what the monster threatens and embodies. And, though we've changed much from Victorian times, there are enough vestiges of these expectations and mores that vampires still resonate with us. Hence my question. What do we value that the monsters could corrupt? In a world where insults, innuendo, and ineptitude can win the highest office of the land, or a time where we'll mess of pottage our privacy for the convenience of a glowing screen, it's hard to see what we hold sacred enough, as a society, to be afraid of losing. I suppose the concept of individuality might be one area. Zombies challenge it very well, but we're looking for something new. The Borg would be a better fit, though I can't help but feel that's more of a cop-out, perhaps because they're too blatant. Or, rather, they're still too tightly bound up in Cold War dichotomies. We could maybe resurrect the ideas from Heinlein's The Puppet Masters. Body-theft/hijacking could fit in well with our current fears of terrorism and, well, hijacking. So maybe loss of identity? That certainly would fit. We've seen these iterations before, though, and I'm not currently seeing a lot of people on that band-wagon. What about gender? There's a lot of transphobia** in the air: What if the monster causes the person to change into the Other (whatever that may be), hijacking the identity and replacing it with something that is hated, feared, or despised? The problem I see with that is it isn't widespread enough to be considered a zeitgeist-level fear…to say nothing of the problematic undertones that sort of story/monster might engender. "Economic anxiety" is the sublimation of what happened in the fall of 2016. How could that be exploited by monsters? Bitcoin turns into Bitecoin? Nah, that's stupid. Monsterfying (not a word) economy is tricky. I think the shorthand for that is the dystopian future, particularly the post-apocalyptic type. The comforts that neoliberal capitalism provides are lost, and that's unnerving. I can't consider that as a monster, though, as that's a world-wide setting. We have a love/hate relationship with social media and technology, and while plenty of monsters utilize tech, I don't know if I'm personally sold on the idea that a monster is going to get me through a device that I can turn off or accidentally leave on a park bench. Maybe this is why Slenderman is so interesting to me: The first entirely digital boogeyman, Slenderman has his own creepypasta origins, giving him a cachet with native digital denizens. And though Slenderman has been around for a while, along with thousands of iterations in lots of media, he hasn't really hit the silver screen or entered mainstream consciousness. In fact, some of you may have to do a search to see who I'm talking about, which kind of underscores my point. Golden Age monsters had a way of promulgating. Dracula's bite could transform you into a vampire. Zombies, same thing. Werewolves are contagious. Even Frankenstein's monster wanted a wife to, as it were, "people this island with Calibans". Proliferation might be a key to this monster, and I think it would have to have a ubiquity to it. Something that people would see everywhere, to have easy imitators and a flexibility that would allow it to continue to permutate in a way that allowed for possibilities to cash in on it. Wait! I got it! A Silicon Valley startup guy. Yeah. That's the ticket.
Joking aside, I've been trying to get this idea out for a long time, and I'm still unsure. Maybe we're jaded enough, glum enough, depressed enough that there isn't anything that we fear. Dread? Maybe. Hope won't come to pass? Absolutely. But fear? I don't know. And that's worrisome. It would mean that we defeated the only thing we have to fear, and we did that through apathy. That's ending, not with a bang, but a whimper. An uninterested, bored whimper. Spooky. --- * I'm speaking of Victor here, by the way, in case you're trying to be pedantic. ** I feel like this doesn't need explaining, but just to be clear: when it comes to bigotry and prejudice, the suffix -phobia needn't mean a literal fear of the thing. It's an ending that indicates the prejudice. One can be an Islamophobia and not fear Muslims; the phrase would only show that the person has a preconceived, negative emotion toward Muslims, based upon stereotypes and bad faith arguments. Glad we cleared that up. Happy 89th birthday, Dr. King.
Though a student of history, I have to admit that I don't spend nearly as much energy going through American history as I do other parts of the world (most notably English history wherever it touches Shakespeare or Milton). There's nothing wrong with specialization, and I'm happy that I have a job that needs my kind of knowledge, but I can't help but wish that I were better versed in American history than I am. Now, that isn't to say that I know nothing about the country of origin. I studied enough advanced courses of American history to know more than the average high school class requires, but I don't have any areas of particular expertise. The area in which I am most woefully lacking would have to be the Civil Rights movement and the different currents that were afflicting the country during that time. Like most American school kids, I looked at Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech each January. I remember dim memories that may be fabrication of appreciating the words and seeing the picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. on posters. I also recall being surprised when I learned that he'd been assassinated, and also, later, that he had extramarital affairs. But today is his birthday--the official, actual day of his birth--and it's also the national holiday, a confluence of dates that happens every few years. So it seems appropriate to break down some of my own ignorance and think about what Dr. King stood for, stands for, and how his legacy is interpreted. Yet, with a scope as large as that, I feel a familiar sense of enormousness that makes me fear the attempt. Especially because of my paucity of knowledge, I don't really know what I could contribute here. His whitewashed reception and near universal approbation now, even in the voices and minds of racists and bigots and fearmongers of all stripes, makes the entire thing problematic. As I've tried to become more aware of cultural appropriation, revising history, and challenging systemic abuses of power, it gets harder and harder to appreciate Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way I once did, and it becomes more and more imperative that I perceive him as the peaceful radical that he was. But beyond that is the day itself. We call it a holiday, which is a contraction of "holy" and "day", and I have to admit, I didn't feel any particular impulses toward the holy today. Part of that was because my wife and I had to go car shopping, which took over six and a half hours--essentially, the whole day--and, no, we weren't looking for any "MLK Day sales!" Which isn't to say that I didn't hear them. I think it was Spotify that was running an ad about some pointless piece of consumerism, throwing in the good doctor's name as the impetus for the sale. While I don't know any man's mind, I'm willing to bet that, if one were to ask Dr. King how he wanted to be commemorated, he would not likely have said, "Big, big mattress sales." Even this critique of capitalism isn't what's on my mind. So maybe it's the fact that there are two states in our Union that commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert E. Lee today. Mississippi and Alabama. Considering the vestigial (if I'm being generous) tendencies toward racism that are well documented, it's hard not to view this irony as, at best, an intellectual- and moral dissonance. If you're being a bit more blunt, it's flat out hypocritical. How can you honor a man who killed fellow countrymen in order to keep Blacks enslaved while at the same time paying tribute to a Black man who strove to help our country see all people of color as humans worthy of love, respect, and protection? Not being from either state, I can't really weigh in on the cultural contexts for such a decision, but it's not something that's localized to some of the South. Here in Utah, we have our own troubled history with slavery and racism, though some of it manifests itself more subtly. For the first part, a quick anecdote: I was teaching a class and, somehow, the topic of Utah history came up. I pointed out that slaves arrived with the Mormon pioneers, as well as the fact that the Utah Territory was a slave territory in the antebellum dynamics of the United States. I had a parent send me an email that demanded sources for what I had claimed (because, being able to send an email does not immediately include, apparently, the ability to search Google for information), so I sent a response with a link to the state's official history. The parent didn't have any follow up comments after that. This is always a telling experience to me. I, too, wish the past to be a happier, more straightforward place, one onto which my morality can be easily mapped. But it never really seems to fit that way. Mormonism has its own issues with racism that go back generations, but the idea that the original settlers were abolitionists or that there wasn't slavery as part of the territory is disingenuous. And that leads to Utah's continued problem with racism. It's not simply that approximately 91% of Utahns are White. We have a woman of color as a Representative (who represents me, as a matter of fact), and that is remarkable and praiseworthy. However, the state has very little when it comes to diversity. While the Hispanic and Filipino communities provide some variety, the homogeneity of my home state is remarkable. The result is a comfort and tolerance with whiteness that allows casual racism to remain fixed. Example: We finally found a car that was to our liking and could probably fit into our budget. As the papers were being filled out, the finance guy threw out a casual comment about how "Volkswagens are Mexican cars, with all that means," or something along those lines. Now, we had spent the whole day driving different cars, and two of the salesmen that we worked with were from out of country. One, if I had to guess, was from India, while the other was from Paraguay. I was encouraged by this, as it helps restore some of the hope I've lost in the American Dream. Anyway, the finance fellow's comment took me off guard. I didn't confront him on that, in part because the statement was just subtle enough to be passed off as a matter of "professional opinion" (the idea of having worked with a lot of different cars over the years and seeing a particular quality coming out of Mexico, for example), and also in part because I didn't even know what to think of it at first. There's a possibility that I'm sensitive to these things, as I try really hard to think of the oppressed first and the oppressors as little as possible, but there's a real chance the guy didn't think the statement was racist. Then again, he said something about one of the pamphlets he gave us, hoping that it "wasn't a Spanish one". Earlier, one of the employees came in and said there were nine people looking at cars, but none of them spoke English. He said it frustrated, which I totally understand, on one level. Because I'm bilingual (marginally), that isn't a feeling that I have as often. Failure to communicate can be very frustrating. But there was also something else, something latent and potentially unpleasant. I can't say that it was substantial; I could be imagining it. Nevertheless, I got a sense of it. I'd like to say that their behavior was enough for me to walk away, but that isn't really my personality. Not only was I tired of trying to find the right car, but I'm not the kind of person who makes a fuss. If I get the wrong order of food at a restaurant, odds are good I'll shrug and eat it anyway. If a store closes in fifteen minutes, I won't go in unless I'm certain I can find what I need before they close. I have a hard time telling telemarketers and telesurveyers that I'm not interested in helping them out (which is why I screen almost all of my calls). But of all days to see it? To realize the benefits and privileges* I was receiving on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.? I don't know. I feel like I missed a chance to be a better person. Whatever the reality of this interaction, it's given me a clearer light by which to see the inequalities in the world. I can see better (not much, but some) how deeply run the rivers of presumed superiority/inferiority. That's why racism is so pernicious and so perfidious and so seemingly permanent. It's why Dr. King ended up arrested. It's why he had to protest, had to push. And, of all the things that I want to commemorate of Dr. King on his holy day, it is a desire to strive toward greater equality--and recognize that we have far, far to go. --- * This is entirely a supposition on my part, but, due to reasons, the dealership didn't have the temporary license to give us. So, after a moment's consideration, the finance guy--who, I should say, was very polite and, though digressive, worked hard to get everything settled for us--decided that he would give us his dealer license. This essentially allowed us to take the car home even though we didn't have the temp license, which my wife will pick up tomorrow. As he was arranging everything, I thought to myself, If we were a Latino couple with competent but imperfect English, would he have been as generous? What if we were a mixed-race couple? What if we were Black? I cannot honestly say that I think the same offer would have been extended to any of those hypotheticals. That's what I mean when I say privileges: Slack cut just because. There was no reason for him to come up with this solution. We could have picked up the car tomorrow with little additional effort. And maybe he wanted to create a positive feeling in some buyers so that we'd come back to his company at a later date. I don't know. There's no way for me to know. And that's part of what has me so…uncertain. I can't say for certain what the guy would have done had we been other than who we are. He likely doesn't think of himself as racist. And maybe he isn't…but I was picking up on some undertones that could belie the assertion. I am aware of the internet's tendency to amplify the voices of dissidents and cultural malcontents. Not only do I have a Twitter account--ground zero for a lot of that vitriol--and see this kind of behavior in real time, but I also follow people who, because they're more visible, get a lot more attention for their opinions. Some of that's warranted--they're critics, so their job is to consume some media and give a review of what they thought about the property--but most of the time it's some serious hatred because the person liked (or didn't) a movie or game that the poster didn't (or did).
I'm hardly the first one to note that it's a stupid thing for people to do. I'm also not the first to point out that people blitzing Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb in order to drag down the rating of the film--it's usually films where I see this happening--because of their personal disillusionment about a piece of entertainment. To anyone with semi-functioning logic, it would be apparent that if you don't like a film, then, having seen it, you tell anyone who solicits your opinion that you didn't like it. Then you stop. If I have a lousy salad at Zupas, then I don't make it my personal mission to see the closest storefront get so many negative reviews online that it has to close its doors. I had a bad experience. If someone asks, I say what happened. I move on with life. But there are fanboys (and they're overwhelmingly males who do this) who seem to think that films were made for their exclusive consumption and appreciation, that they--as enjoyers of the product--are the owners of the product. That they are the sole purpose for the product's existence. That their opinion on it matters enough to enforce upon people. I can't quite wrap my head around this mode of thinking. In case it wasn't clear, I'm thinking particularly of The Last Jedi, the eighth canonical film in the Star Wars universe and the third film to be released since Disney acquired the franchise's rights. Now, I like Star Wars films just fine. They're fun--most of the time--and have some interesting ways of telling stories. I don't find them worship-worthy, and an objective look at the first two trilogies shows that, out of six films, maybe two of them were pretty good. That isn't a very high batting average. In fact, I already talked about my puzzlement over Star Wars itself, and that confusion has only been increased by the fanbase's response to the perceived political agenda of The Last Jedi. Now, I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't speak to that particular argument. On paper, though, it's clear that there's a greater focus on diversity of the cast, increasing the roles of women in the franchise, and broadening the scope of the galaxy far, far away. All of these goals are worthwhile. If nothing else, it helps underscore the vastness of the galaxy by having so much on-screen diversity. All for the better in my mind. That seems like a good and wholesome direction to go. But there seems to be a lot of conflating of personal taste with more objective measures of a film's worth. I liked Batman v. Superman, as far as it goes. That doesn't change the fact that its version of Superman is boring and its version of Batman is unintelligible, or that the story has needless complications and a climactic battle that doesn't really fit in with everything else the story was trying to accomplish. Batman v. Superman is not a particularly good film, even if I enjoyed it for what it was. And the same argument can be said about Wonder Woman: It is a great film, with plenty of non-critical flaws, that I personally liked a great deal. But me liking it isn't what makes it a great movie. So within this fandom set of Star Wars junkies--which is an enormous canon of films, comics, video games, and cartoons, where people of color abound (sometimes literally: Check out Ahsoka Tano, who is literally orange) in many different ways--there seems to be a set of people whose love of the series marches more in line with the fascism of the Empire or the First Order than with the freedom-loving rebels who provide the moral weight of the overarching plot and are, oh yeah, the heroes of the story. It's a baffling bit of mental gymnastics. For me, it would be like a bunch of fans grousing about the ending of the last Harry Potter film because the Slytherin par excellence (Voldemort) lost. Well, his is the moral philosophy that's dehumanizing (ironic, considering what the guy looks like by the end of the series) and clearly parallels the Third Reich and its horrors (which, by the way, even the word "stormtroopers" invokes Hitler and Nazism, so the idea that the Empire is anything other than Space Nazis is simply wrong). While there's certainly a fair critique in using Nazis as short-hand for "the bad guys", there's a reason that they're used as short-hand for "the bad guys". As I'm writing this, my computer screen is showing me pictures of my trip to Berlin, reminding me of that incredible trip but also returning to mind how bad the Second World War was. And, of all the problems with people hating Star Wars for being anti-fascist (I guess is the baseline critique here), this is the one that matters the most: We have generated a tolerance to the terrors of World War II--and we've completely forgotten the war that was tearing Europe apart one hundred years ago, which is its own failing--so that we want to look at the 1940s as an idyllic time, except for the war, of course, which was terrible. What I mean is, our attempt to recreate the realities of World War II into a comprehensive and clear narrative of good versus evil has done some damage to how we respond to the genuine evil that came out of Germany and Japan in that time. This isn't a history post, so let me say this: No one--not a single country--walked away from World War II without demonstrating to history of their own barbarous monstrosity. None. But that doesn't mean that everything done was of equal moral corruption. When it comes to our popular culture, we have relied on historical short-hand for so long that we have started using the reality of our history that "none of us is perfect" as an excuse for renewed veneration of that which is definitely evil, as if there is moral equivalency between the camps in America and the camps in China. Camps are wrong--experimentation, rape, starvation, forced labor, and execution* are far, far worse than what happened in America. Through some disgusting moral jujitsu, some people have found comfort in on-screen validation of fascism and its attendant ills of racism, sexism, authoritarianism, and white supremacy. What's worse, is they now feel as though their stories deserve equal exposure--but that's wrong on two levels: One, there isn't anything about equality within fascism: It consumes all it can, and that which it can't subsume, it destroys. There isn't parity doctrine with fascism--it's not how it works. The second problem with this idea is that fascism is something that "needs" to be rendered sympathetically. There are things that are wrong and there are plenty of syllogisms that can prove that: Fascism is one of them. We don't need fascism to be sympathetic in our stories--we need it to be shown destroyed, dismissed, and dismantled. Sure, a worthwhile story will give us complexity within the system--the sympathetic character who's tied up in the fascist system--and that's fine. Remembering that "Nazis are people too" is something that can be done well without implying that "Nazism is okay too". But to assume that we need a "both sides" approach to our films is, frankly, stupid. Oh, and I guess there's a third problem about those complaining about the way that Star Wars is now interested in pushing against prevailing prejudices--and, I imagine, this will also be brought up when Black Panther comes out--is that they're interested less in hearing more voices and instead in hearing their own voices echoed at them. There's definitely a sense of zero-sum calculations in some circles, as if a movie that celebrates diversity means that there can no longer be movies about homogeneity. That's the kind of thinking that I dislike--probably because it's within the wheelhouse of things that I do like. Maybe we can all do better trying to understand other points of view--except crap like fascism. That stuff sucks. In case you missed it, Eminem released a freestyle rap battle against the president. As a number of tweets noted, winning a rap battle means that Eminem is now the president, I guess. But it's less the content about the video (which, if you consider the source, has a lot of language in it, so be advised) and more the final thirty seconds or so that has me thinking. And any fan of mine who's a supporter of his I'm drawing in the sand a line: You're either for or against. And if you can't decide who you like more in your split On who you should stand beside, I'll do it for you with this: He then proceeds to flip off the camera and drop an edited expletive and close with a final thought about loving the military, the country, and hating Donald Trump. What Eminem is highlighting in this final part of the video is a longstanding issue that I think everyone has to come to grips with at one point or another, and that's the idea of what financial support equals. When I was a teenager and the Parental Advisory sticker became a part of the musical landscape--and yet another battleground for the culture wars of the 1990s--I took pains to avoid most albums with the sticker. I didn't like a lot of the bands that swore a lot anyway, but part of it comes from a hazy memory I have from a car ride home from...somewhere. My parents had cottoned onto the fact that my brother had recently purchased the debut album of Korn, which, in retrospect, is funny to me. Mostly because the band Korn is one of the more stupidly named bands from the nineties, to say nothing of the fact that I didn't--and still don't--like their music. But it was a flashpoint for the family, so it matters, I guess. Part of the reason that I remember this conversation so much is that it was one of the rare times in my childhood that I can remember my father getting angry enough to raise his voice. Unlike me, he didn't lose his temper often, and when he did, it was over something that really meant a lot to him. As a musician, my father took especial umbrage to this, I think. I remember him "shouting" (which is quotation marks because even at his most upset, "shouting" levels, it was never a full-scale lung-expulsion that one had to deal with) about how he didn't want such offensive language in his house. "I don't listen to the bad songs," my brother contended (probably half-heartedly, knowing that all of the songs were "bad" in one way or another). "I skip them." "That isn't the point," my dad said as he drove our faux-wood paneled minivan down the street, the sun setting to my right. "The point is, you've paid them to say what they're saying. You buy their albums, they think you like what they say, they say more of it. They don't know that you're skipping the bad songs." End memory. Back to Eminem.
He tells his fans that he's not interested in their money if they also support Donald Trump. That has a lot of interesting layers, in part because Eminem has been the de facto voice of white rage since Korn was making creepy album covers, and the idea that a man whose lyrics glorify a lot of the rhetoric that attaches to Trump (bigotry, homophobia, misogyny) smacks of hypocrisy. But it isn't the politics that interests me here (though I am curious about Mathers' politics now). Instead, it's the question of how to support people with whom you disagree. I pointed out before that there's nothing that isn't tainted by negativity in some way or another. So on that simplified level, it's easy to say, "I don't support Eminem's view on the president, but I will still buy his album," and by saying it's easy to say, I would imagine that a person who likes both the rapper and the president wouldn't have a hard time saying those two things. I don't really fancy myself as that kind of person (though I'd rather hear a freestyle, obscenity-laced State of the Union than whatever Agent Orange gasses about next year), but, yeah, I guess it would be pretty easy for anyone to keep that cognitive dissonance at bay. I mean, we do it all of the time. I know that many video game companies are some of the worst businesses in America who treat their workers like cogs in the wheels, demanding more and more of them as projects continue. Yet I buy video games. I'm fully aware that sweatshops are part of the dynamic for how clothing is made, shipped, and marketed, yet I buy cheap clothes all the time, grateful that I have more money in the pockets of these inexpensive jeans I purchased. I recognize that the film industry is filled with sexual predators, disreputable people, exploitative behaviors, drugs, booze, and everything else that I find morally repulsive. But I love going to movies. I love watching cinema. I don't abstain from seeing Dr. Strange because Marvel put a talking tree in a movie before they gave us a female-lead and -directed superhero film. So what does it mean to be a consumer? Aside from the tawdry implications of the whole thing, can one participate in the market without tacitly endorsing everything that allowed that product to arrive? If so, we're all complicit with a lot of things. And, perhaps, for that reason, that feels like it's not the right answer. Having each person be responsible for their actions makes a lot more sense, but the injustices that are becoming evermore apparent point to the idea that many times those who are responsible for some pretty despicable behaviors either get away with it or receive so much adoration, praise, and attention that though things are going badly for them now, they've spent most of their lives in safety. I'm thinking particularly of Bill Cosby at this point, but there are countless others that can be involved. If you're a Trumpkin and an Eminem fan, what do you do? Politics over art? All art is political, even if that political stance is enabled by the political status quo, so it isn't a matter of grousing that "they get politics out of my rap and my sports". This isn't a conservatives-only question, either. Do you support Hobby Lobby and its attempts to control its employees healthcare? If you shop there, are you implicitly saying that Hobby Lobby is right in their behaviors? If you shop there, are you also complicit in funding ISIS, as Hobby Lobby is allegedly guilty of? If I buy another Goodkind novel, am I supporting objectivism and the libertarian nonsense his fantasy novels embrace? Is buying Mein Kampf supporting white supremacy? Is reading The Communist Manifesto an implicit assertion of communism's principles? I'm thinking out loud here, but it seems that the concepts of freedom are maybe more self-styled than we're really comfortable with. And what that means, I can't comment on. I will say: The fact that Eminem dissing on the president as the fodder for this essay is, strange to say, not the weirdest thing that 2017 has delivered. |
AuthorWould you like to support my writings? Feel free to buy me a coffee (which I don't drink, but I do drink hot chocolate) at my Ko-Fi page. Thanks! Archives
July 2022
Categories
All
|