| Because
Hollywood film is a commercial enterprise it does not wish
to offend mainstream audiences with radical perceptions
and thus attempts to contain its representations of class,
gender, race and society within established boundaries.
Nevertheless, films and other forms of media culture should
be analyzed as ideological texts contextually and relationally.
According
to Douglas Kellner in Media Culture (1995), A contextualist
cultural studies reads cultural texts in terms of actual
struggles within contemporary culture and society, situating
ideological analysis within existing socio-political debates
and conflicts. Examples include:
- Top
Gun and Iron Eagle present a utopia of military life,
while more realist war films like Platoon, Full Metal
Jacket, or Casualties of War show the actual consequences
of military life when actual war breaks out.
- Heartbreak
Ridge presents a generally positive view of military life;
however, it shows the dangers and anxieties involved in
even a minor military excursion like Grenada.
- Examination
of Hollywood film from 1967 to the present reveals that
U.S. society and culture were torn apart by a series of
debates 1) over the heritage of the 1960s, 2) over gender
and sexuality, 3) over war, militarism, and interventionism,
and 4) over a great variety of other issues.
- Rambo,
Red Dawn, Missing in Action, Invasion U.S.A., Top Gun
and the like represent aggressively right-wing positions
on war, militarism, and communism that served as a soft-
and hard-core propaganda for Reaganism and a distinctly
right-wing interventionist and militarist agenda.
On
the other hand,
- Missing,Under
Fire, Salvador, Latino and other left or liberal films
sharply contested the rightist vision of Central America
and U.S. interventionism in that area by representing
the U.S. and ruling bourgeois cliques as "bad guys"
in generic scenarios that are primarily sympathetic to
rebels and those struggling against U.S. imperialism.
- Against
Rambo and other return-to-Vietnam films, Platoon, Full
Metal Jacket, and Casualties of War subvert the right-wing
version of Vietnam, as films like M.A.S.H., Catch-22,
Soldier Blue and others previously attacked right-wing
versions of militarism and U.S. foreign policy in earlier
debates over Vietnam.
In
the domain of sexual politics:
- Antifeminist
films like Ordinary People, Kramer versus Kramer, An Officer
and a Gentleman, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, The
Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Shiver, The Temp, and Body
Evidence can be contrasted with more feminist films like
Girlfriends, Desperately Seeking Susan, Working Girls,
and Desert Hearts, which present women struggling for
independence and equality.
U.S.
society has been deeply divided in the realm of sexual politics
and various artifacts of media culture take opposing positions
in the culture wars of the present age and thus should be
analyzed in terms of their positions and effects within
existing social struggles.
The
Classic Monomyth
Perhaps
the most important cultural phenomenon of our society is
the American monomyth. Unlike the archetypal plot for heroic
action in traditional classical mythologies where "A
hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a
region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there
encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes
back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow
boons on his fellow man" (Campbell, 1956), American
monomyths utilize a different archetypal plot formula.
The
following archetypal plot may be seen in thousands of popular-culture
artifacts:
"A
community in a harmonious paradise is threatened by evil;
normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a
selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptation and carry
out the redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory
restores the community to its paradisiacal condition; the
superhero then recedes into obscurity." (Lawrence &
Jewett, 2002)
Whereas
the classical monomyth seems to reflect rites of initiation,
the American monomyth derives from tales of redemption.
As the United States approached the year 2000, waves of
anxiety and hope peaked. The technology informed had worries
that decades of short-sighted computer programming would
allow the Y2K bug to deliver lethal bites, inflicting random
damage on our economy and essential services. Citizens had
few hopes that government would provide wise policies, suspecting
instead that its own aged, behemoth systems would collapse.
Believers who viewed the calendar through a millennial lens
thought that the Rapture might finally be at hand. Titles
such as Revelation 2000: Your Guide to Biblical Prophecy
for the New Millennium and Spiritual Survival During the
Y2K Crisis appeared in bookstores alongside Pat Robertson's
End of the Age and Paul Meyer's The Third Millennium. The
popular Rapture-based fantasies, launched in 1995 by Tim
LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's
Last Days, dominated the religious best-seller lists and
brought forth a series of successors. By mid-2001, the number
of Left Behind end-time products sold-including millennial
materials for children-reached 39 million. There seemed
to be widespread solace in the idea that we were not writing-could
not write-the script of our national destiny and that a
divine hand would wipe clean the social slate, saving a
righteous few who would no longer bear historical responsibility.
At
this moment of despair came a stylish film that combined
the themes of computer Dystopia and messianic deliverance-in
effect, a Rapture away from America's computer-designed
hell. The Matrix, released in mid-1999, gives us a vision
of a planet as redesigned to serve the tyranny of machines
directed by malevolent artificial intelligences.
The
Matrix quickly became a cult film. It ran for months in
theaters, then quickly migrated to VCR and DVD formats.
A Matrix-themed video game and film sequels were on the
drawing boards within a few months of its initial triumph.
The story became the locus for numerous fan commentaries
and discussions that enthusiastically worked out parallels
between the Bible's language and events and those of the
film.
WHEN
AN ARTIFACT ENTERS THE ARENA OF POPULAR CULTURE AND ASSUMES
ITS OWN EXISTENCE IN THE IMAGINATION OF FANS, A POWERFUL
THOUGH ELUSIVE PROCESS BEGINS. AN INTERESTING
INTERPLAY BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY BEGINS TO OBLITERATE
ANY CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN MERE ENTERTAINMENT AND SERIOUSLY
CONTEMPLATED LIFE PURPOSES.
Once
a popular artifact captures the imaginations of people,
a wide variety of imitations and or personal identifications
with the heroes results. This paradoxical result is sometimes
referred to as the Werther effect. (Derived from the title
of a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1774,
The Sorrows of Young Werther. It is a story of a sensitive
young man who, thwarted in his passion for a young woman,
commits suicide.) In the Werther effect an audience member:
- experiences
a work of fantasy within a secular context that
-
helps reshape the reader/viewer's sense of what is real
and desirable, in such a way that the reader/viewer takes
actions consistent with the vision inspired by the interaction
between his own fantasy and that popular entertainment.
Some
Wherther-like imitative behaviors can be associated with
popular artifacts such as the Star Trek television series,
the Death Wish and Rambo films, some recent video games,
and The Turner Diaries.
Characteristics
of the American Monomyth
The
action of the American monomyth always begins with a threat
arising against Eden-like calm. In Star Trek's original
series, challenges arise from interplanetary baddies such
as the Romulans, Klingons, or aggressive gods. Harmony is
disturbed by the supershark in Jaws, Superman and Spiderman
contend against criminals and spies just as the Lone Ranger
puts down threats by greedy frontier gangs. Thus, paradise
is depicted as repeatedly under siege, its citizens pressed
down by alien forces too powerful for democratic institutions
to quell. Eden becomes a wilderness in which only a superhero
can redeem the captives. Other examples of the American
monomyth can be found in:
Independence Day, Air Force One, Touched by an Angel, Unforgiven,
the beastly dynasties of Disney films, video games, the
Unabomber's crusade for the "Freedom Club," Star
Wars, Dead Man Walking and many many more.
Characteristics
of the Monomythic Superhero
In
almost all instances, the American monomythic superhero
is distinguished by:
1) disguised origins,
2) pure motivations,
3) a redemptive task, and
4) extraordinary powers;
5) originates outside the community he is called to save,
and in those exceptional instances when he resides therein,
the superhero plays the role of the idealistic loner;
6) secret identity, either by virtue of his unknown origins
or his alter ego;
7) motivation is a selfless zeal for justice.
8) By elaborate conventions of restraint, his desire for
revenge is purified.
9) Patient in the face of provocations, he seeks nothing
for himself and withstands all temptations.
10) He renounces sexual fulfillment for the duration of
the mission, and the purity of his motivations ensures his
moral infallibility in judging persons and situations.
11) When he is threatened by violent adversaries, he finds
an answer in vigilantism, restoring justice and thus lifting
the siege of paradise.
12) In order to accomplish this mission without incurring
blame or causing undue injury to others, he requires superhuman
powers.
13) The superhero's aim is unerring, his fists irresistible,
and his body incapable of suffering fatal injury.
14) In most dangerous trials he remains utterly cool and
thus divinely competent.
15) When confronted by insoluble personality conflicts within
the community, he-or more often she-uses nonviolent manipulation.
16) With wisdom and coolness equal to the vigilante counterpart,
the female heroes bring happiness to Eden.
Resonant
Images
Analyzing
certain resonant images is another way to ferret out media
effects. Certain images resonate to our experiences and
stick in the mind, moving us to later thought and action
. Sometimes pop figures like a Rambo, the Simpsons, a Madonna,
a Beavis and Butt-Head or a Britney Spears become highly
resonant, mobilizing thought and behavior, so that one wants
to be a Britney, imitating her style of dress and image
moves; one wants to be a Rambo, imitating his macho behavior;
one emulates Beavis and Butt-Head, replicating their laughs,
their ways of speaking, and perhaps even their asocial behavior.
Freud
found that certain scenic images, such as a child being
beaten for masturbation, or discovering his parents having
sex, have a profound impact on subsequent behavior. The
images of these scenes remain as paleosymbols that control
behavior.
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