whoever that is

2. Culture is not neutral: whom does it serve?

Discuss with reference to the construction of celebrity.

“Culture” is a big place. A single word encapsulates a range of artistic pursuits, literary endeavours, Macchiavellian political games and the human social foundation upon which all of these accomplishments are grounded. As society has moved to become structured across the globe in market-based economies, the drive of industry has commodified artwork, music, film and even people. In a global world, where economic and corporate expansion have exceeded military and state-based expansion, culture then fits into the mass-market in a commodified form. Instead of existing outside of consumer society, culture, as Bob Dylan would say, has gotta serve somebody. This post will explore the notion of culture as self-expanding, accomodating a variety of attitudes into the larger logic of market capitalism. By understanding culture in this way, we can see that, capable of incorporating all the responses it generates, culture ultimately supports a machinic market which allows it to expand without losing stability.

Culture expands and maintains its stability through subjectivity production by commodities. Key to consumer society involves ‘large numbers of people staking a real portion of their personal identities and their quest for meaning … on the search for and acquisition of goods’ (Stearns 1997, 105). And in consumer society, such commodities’ value are defined not by their use-value, but as ’social things whose qualities … have absolutely no connexion with their physical properties’ (Marx 1867, 43). Celebrities play an essential role today, through the cultural obsession with stars and their personal lives, in defining the social value of commodities. I will first provide a brief background of consumerism, and then explore the way celebrity commodifies lifestyle through Entourage (Ellin 2005). With the creation of new media outlets, it is important to examine whether or not websites such as YouTube and MySpace, with their ability to create instant celebrities, undermine the capitalist nature of commodifying the celebrity. I hope to show that, if we understand culture as ever-expanding and ever-incorporating, all cultural pursuits serve the machine which allows it to grow, which in our post-industrial world is that of consumer-capitalism.

Consumer Culture

Consumer culture has arisen from a myriad of changes within the social landscape of post-industrial societies, with the first originating by 1800, when for the first time ‘so great a segment of the population [had] been so involved in the “convulsion of getting and spending”’ (Martin 1993, 148). As Martin goes on to show, the growth of consumerism in America was a gradual process throughout the 18th century, typically filtered through the affluent to the poor, as colonists accumulated holdings through land, livestock, and labour. During the 19th century, the changing roles of labour and the family, the growth of mass production and the commodification of services were three of the myriad changes that led to the development of consumer culture. As Braverman states, individuals were by the dawn of the 20th century trapped ‘in a web made up of commodity goods and commodity services from which there is little possibility of escape’ (1974, cited in Langer 2002, 60).

Arnold Schwarzenegger Goes to Tokyo

With this rise in consumer culture, industries naturally developed to maximise potential profits from what has become known as the culture industry. The industry which includes magazines, films, radio, television and the internet is fundamentally concerned with the profitability of art and the creation of material which is marketable and which in no way ‘differs from [executive authorities'] own rules, their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves’ (Adorno and Horkheimer 1993, 30). While Adorno and Horkheimer omit the “higher” forms of art (the visual arts, sculpture, and classical music), I believe we can include all forms of cultural representation within the all-encompassing industry, because all forms of art, whatever the purpose of their creation, serve as signifiers in the greater social landscape. Television, radio and magazines rely upon advertising to fund their projects. Film financiers often utilise product placement to raise budgets, while the stars of their films do advertisements overseas (McCaughan 2007, 34).

Celebrity Coffee Ads

The culture industry, then, is not simply an industry aimed at selling shlock entertainment which ‘is so firmly stamped with sameness’ that there prove to be no defining traits (Adorno & Horkheimer 1993, 35). It is a vast and varied industry which earns its expansion by advertising lifestyles, whether of mainstream or sub-cultures. The young person who buys into the hip-hop industry, obsessive over his music and insistent on baggy pants, is no different than the wealthy and educated intellectual who purchases antique furniture and priceless pieces of art. Both are consuming a lifestyle offered to them by the culture industry, and more often than not, by celebrities.

Celebrity Machines

It is important to note from the outset that there are several definitional issues in celebrity and star studies: ‘the term “stardom” was conferred to denote a dialectic between on/off-screen presence … the term celebrity … has long since been structured by discourses of cultural value’ (Holmes 2005, 9). In this discussion, as we are focusing primarily on the star/celebrity’s ability to propagate lifestyle identification and identity formation, the two terms can be considered interchangeable.

The study of celebrities is essentially the study of ourselves. Celebrity, fame and stardom have no meaning without an audience who has an interest in and recognition of these figures. There has been much debate over whether or not fame is truly ‘intertwined with the construction of social and cultural identity’ (Holmes 2005, 13). While Dyer has suggested that the notion of discovering who a given celebrity truly is forms a foundation to support the notion of internal identity on which capitalism relies (1986, 9), critics such as Alan Lovell have argued that notably facetious celebrities ought not be considered as fonts of originality and authenticity (2003, 261). Additionally, stars could also be seen as epitomising a post-modern self, decentered and disdainful of concrete identity (Holmes 2005, 14). However, if we can see stars as engaging in the promotion of lifestyle, their authenticity or identity has no impact on their conveyance of subjectivity. Along these lines, we then discover the celebrity-as-commodity, whose value arises both commercially and machinically through their ability to indoctrinate lifestyle choices to the public.

Fundamentally, celebrity-as-commodity seems to have two values: the commercial value (being the additional monetary value that celebrity can bring to existing commercial structures) and the machinic value (being the ability of the celebrity to propagate the culture industry). While the celebrity’s commercial value is often easily charted by the amount of money they are paid per film-episode-album, or their ability to match themselves to a suitable product (McCaughan 2007, 34), their machinic value is of infinitely more importance as it documents their ability to aid the expansion and stablisation of culture. Within this machinic context, celebrities function as an essential reference point, a ’structuring point in self and social identification’ (Elliot 1998, 837). Guattari notes that “today’s … machines do not merely convey representational contents, but also contribute to the fabrication of new assemblages of enunciation” (1995, 113). The expansion of our ability as consumers to engage with material on a variety of levels has led in kind to an expansion of the means by which the culture industry can communicate, and thus subjugate, individuals as consumers. This agency on behalf of the machine is what Guattari called machinic subjectivity, which we can describe as the ways in which the roles and places in society dictated to us are affected by machinic culture (Guattari 1995, 123). Thus, the machinic value of a celebrity documents their direct ability to influence the subjectivities of their audience.

To argue that celebrities have no influence on our lives would be ludicrous. We cut our hair like them, we dress like them, we feign interest in humanitarian crises because of them. In fact, our relationship with celebrities has been analysed in different camps as a misunderstood epidemic, ‘one of the savviest aspects of my personality (from a Darwinian point of view); the start of a downward spiral into depression, anxiety and addiction … or the quiet workings of some very robust genes’ (Harrison 2007). Ultimately, celebrities play a vital role to our subjectification, assisting us as we navigate the murky waters of consumer society, taste and lifestyle.

Entourage and the Lifestyle You’re Not Living

“I don’t care what anyone else says but this show is like the dream life for me and my “entourage”, we watch it religiously.” - tom71300, Entourage Community Page

Entourage documents the puerile exploits of four young men in Los Angeles. Living on the fame of just-A-lister Vincent Chase, friends Eric, Turtle and brother Johnny Drama live the “dream life,” and while the show has been critically praised as ‘a very funny (and often quite nasty) show that relishes Hollywood’s dark underbelly, if not its scrotum’ (Bart 2007, 4), at the end of the day it is a show which glorifies the mythos of Hollywood life. It is ultimately the ’summertime advertisement for a lifestyle you’re not living’ (Swerdlick 2005). Whether or not the intent of the show is to satirise and demonise the Hollywood lifestyle, it is my argument that, as tom71300 so eloquently states, the show presents a dream life for its target audience, and in so doing, it actively propagates the cultural machine through the commodification of the lifestyle it depicts. I will first talk about the ways in which Entourage actively undermines the cult of celebrity, but also how it relies upon the celebrity as a commodity for its own success. Finally, I will show that it is through the use of celebrity, style and sexuality that Entourage is able to so convincingly sell its lifestyle.

As a depiction of the lives of a young movie-star and his friends, Entourage is from the outset a show about the fantastic life of the famous. Whether he is being given a free Maserati, or sleeping with a young starlets-in-training, Vince is never far from the fun. While the first season dealt in small part with the dangers of fame through a slightly crazy stalker, the plotline eventually resolved itself as these things usually do: Vince had sex with someone else, and despite a good effort Turtle was unable to ‘close the deal.’ In fact, sex and celebrity are frequently refered to in business terms throughout the show, as the popularity of Jeremy Piven’s character, Golden Globe winning agent Ari Gold, indicates.

Adrian Grenier talking about the ‘truth’ of Entourage

Ari, while he stumbles in later seasons particularly dealing with Terrence McQuewick (the senior partner) and James Cameron, is placed within Vince’s entourage as a stabilising force, as is Shona, Vince’s fiery publicist. Both characters are almost parental figures, Shona calls herself Vince’s ‘west coast mother,’ and simultaneously both characters represent the consumptive, commodity arm of entertainment. In episode 6 “Busey and the Beach,” Ari highlights this as he arrives at the scene of a party where young agent Josh Weinstein is trying to steal Vince. He confesses his belief that following the studio picture Head On with an indie is stupid, but agrees to stay out of the way if the next film is a ‘franchise, baby…with a lunchbox, an action figure with a HUGE cock.’ Ari carries through on this desire, with the first episode of season two, ‘The Boys are Back,’ where he sets Vince up to be the next major superhero Aquaman. It becomes clear that, though Vince does not initially want to take the role, Ari’s guess earlier was correct: there are now no offers for major films because of Vince’s dabbling in independent cinema. Shona’s role, alternatively, is the branding and marketing of Vince, with little heed to the artistic merit of his roles. When informed that Vince might be playing a homosexual role, she is irate; ‘Vince is on his way to becoming a major sex symbol, don’t fuck this up! Get him on the screen with someone whose got tits!’ At the end of this episode, Vince and Eric talk next to a giant Absolut vodka sign. In Los Angeles, even the city is branded, endorses products and engages in the promotion of its own mystique.

Whether or not Entourage intends to satirise the glamour around Hollywood and movie stars, as tom71300 demonstrated above there is a very real appeal to the carefree life these celebrities live. And, in fact, the show makes ample, bordering on excessive, use of celebrity cameos to sell the show. The cameos range from well known actors playing parts (such as Martin Landau as Bob Ryan, an old Hollywood veteran who has lost his luster, or the inspired Val Kilmer as a Sherpa). The commodification of celebrity then extends from a thematic issue within the series to a popular trademark for its audience. The show also plays upon the celebrity by their contention that Entourage is a fairly accurate, if exaggerated, depiction of Hollywood life. We cannot know if this is mere marketing campaign or the show is actually a truthful representation of the vicissitudes of Hollywood life, as would seem to be suggested by Bart’s confirmation (2007, 4), but either way the show uses celebrity, through both its mythically accurate depiction of Vince’s life and its extensive use of cameos, to sell a lifestyle which its audience devours greedily.

That lifestyle is one of style and sex: the two concerns of the modern male, as Entourage would have it. While show creator Doug Ellin has often insisted that the show is just about the four boys, and that they could be any number of other professions, the show would only maintain its current style and content if that profession provided them with a near infinite cash flow, unlimited access to events and parties, and did not require any sort of organisation or responsibility save from the key figures they hire to do so (Eric included). The boys use their power, wealth and stature to pursue a an easy lifestyle of sex and fun, whether by using Vince’s image to throw giant parties, as in the season one finale, or using Vince’s cash to purchae $1,200.00 pyjamas for a party at the Playboy mansion. It is a lifestyle which glorifies in the consumptive powers of money, using them to craft a lifestyle which gives them greater cultural standing, for, as Turtle notes, ‘What’s the use of spending 1200 dollars on pjs if nobody knows it?’

By commodifying a Hollywood lifestyle where ‘Maybe You Can Have Everything,’ Entourage is a vital enabling force for the culture industry and thus the machine of market capitalism in general. By presenting a Hollywood lifestyle which, satirised or no, holds great appeal for the modern consumer, the series subjectifies its audience as consumers of a lifestyle to which only the boys have the key. It is a system of exclusivity which, through depicting a lifestyle as fantasy, forever alienates the consumer while seducing them with the promise that these are just four boys from Queens.

The Pseudo-Celeb

The development of websites such as YouTube, MySpace and the blog culture have made it possible, seemingly, for the cult of celebrity to escape from its consumerist confines. With characters such as “Brookers” having a viewcount in the millions, it appears as if some garage-celebrities have a viewer base which rivals network television shows. Entourage plays upon these pseudo-celebrity figures in episode 17, “I Love You Too,” when an all-powerful comic geek viably threatens Vince with blacklisting through his blog - which has over a million readers and can single handedly destroy opening weekends.

Meanwhile, a virtual currency has arisen on YouTube.com, where pseudo-celebrities battle for subscribers with a passion which would put even the most cutthroat network executive to shame. ArshaAsteraki, a burgeoning teenage Persian rap artist, has created videos appropriately named “SUBSCRIBE OR DIE!” and “YOUTUBE CELEBRITY OVERNIGHT!”

SUBSCRIBE OR DIE!

YOUTUBE CELEBRITY OVERNIGHT

He also shows an uncanny awareness of viral marketing techniques, linking his posts to extremely popular videos on YouTube utilising the response mechanic, despite there being no connection or mention of the former post. His guerilla marketing tactics have netted Arsha almost 9,000 subscribers and almost 100,000 channel views, and while this is not unsubstantial, it pales in comparison to the phenomenon known as “Brookers,” who even with over seven million views is no where near the most popular on YouTube. Brooke Brodack, however, has made the leap from YouTube stardom to that other realm of pseudo-celebrity fame, serving as a videojockey (VJ) and in a talent development contract with Carson Daley’s production company (Martin 2006).

Another increasingly common route to stardom is through the swamp of reality television. Shows such as American Idol (Fuller 2002) allow somewhat talented (and sometimes somewhat untalented) performers take a crack at the business, while others such as Big Brother (2000) require little more than debatably interesting individuals willing to expose themselves in front of the cameras. Occasionally these shows produce true talent, but just as frequently they let that talent slip through the cracks, as Jennifer Hudson slipped from Idol before going on to win an Oscar.

For all that they may serve to level the playing field, this different outlets for celebrity do nothing to change the role of the celebrity as regards to lifestyle production. On the rare occasion that a true star is born from such shows, they slip easily into the mold which is defined for them, and even should they not, they then become a poster child for the various subculture categories into which they fall. With a rising media control on entities such as YouTube (owned by Google, the internet search-engine-cum-advertising-giant) and MySpace (owned by News Corp), not only do pseudo-celebrities continue to serve the same purpose, albeit with usually less fanfare, as the stars, but the bodies which produce them are firmly anchored in traditional culture industry corporations, thus negating any possible claims at independence they might attempt.

Ultimately culture serves itself: all human action, from violent revolutionary and secessionist politics to abstract and surreal art to ’status quo’ entertainment and politics ultimately serves to expand culture, by carving out new cultural landscapes without abandoning the old. Each of these movements, no matter how extreme, can be commodified and incorporated into the market machine of post-industrial capitalism. One means by which this is accomplished is the incorporation of commodities into marketable ‘lifestyles’ which are sold through the machinic apparatus of the celebrity.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max. 1993. ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.’ In The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon During. London: Routledge. 29-43.

Bart, Peter. 2007. ‘Into the Underbelly of the H’w'd Beast.’ Variety, 26 March - 1 April. 4.

Elliott, Anthony. 1998. ‘Celebrity and Political Psychology: Remembering Lennon.’ Political Psychology, vol. 19, no. 4. 833-852.

Guattari, Felix. 1995. ‘Regimes, Pathways, Subjects.’ In Soft Subversions, ed. S. Lotringer. New York: Simotext(e). 112-130.

Harrison, Erica. 2006. ‘Divine Trash: the Psychology of Celebrity Obsession.’ Cosmos, no. 7. Visited at 29 April 2008, http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/414/full.

Holmes, Su. 2005. ‘”Starring… Dyer?”: Re-visiting Star Studies and Contemporary Celebrity Culture.’ Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, vol. 2, no. 2. 6-21.

Martin, Denise. 2006. ‘Carson Daly Bonkers for Brookers.’ Variety. Visited at 2 June 2008, http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117945151.html?categoryid=1009&cs=1&query=brookers&display=brookers.

Marx, Karl. 1867. ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and the Secret Thereof’. In Karl Marx Capital: An Abridged Edition, ed. David McLellan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 42-50.

McCaughan, Dave. 2007. ‘The Fine Art of Matching a Celebrity with a Brand.’ Advertising Age, vol. 78, no. 16. 34.

Langer, Beryl. 2002. ‘The Consuming Self.’ In Social Self, Global Culture, ed. Peter Beilharz & Trevor Hogan. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 55-66.

Martin, Ann Smart. 1993. ‘Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism as a Material Culture Framework.’ Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 28, no. 2/3. 141-157.

Stearns, Peter. 1997. ‘Stages of Consumerism: Recent Work on the Issues of Periodization.’ The Journal of Modern History, vol. 69, no. 1. 102-117.

Swerdlick, David. 2005. ‘Typecast.’ Popmatters. Visited at 28 April 2008, http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/e/entourage-040714.shtml.

Filmography

Entourage, Doug Ellin, 2005 - Present.

Hiroshima Mon Amour opening

youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=3scFCXGM05

Gallipoli

Violence Without A Target: Repression in the 1950s

Nicholas Ray is a filmmaker who delves further than most into the tormenting conflict that pervaded through the teen spirit of the 50s. However, in doing so, he expressed an angst and anxiety that was not restricted by youth or sex, but which gave voice to an indiscernible cry. His characters seem unable to restrain the “interior demon of violence” (Bitsch et al 1985, 105), but perhaps the problem is not that they cannot restrain themselves, but that there exists no healthy way for them to truly let go. Characters and individuals are torn between this innate potential for violence and the need to repress it in order to function in society (Andrew 2004, 13). Perhaps restraint is the cause, not the solution, of the delinquent anxiety embodied in Rebel Without a Cause.  I will argue that the 1950s gave birth to a variety of examples where due to the lack of a healthy mode of expression, violence and anxiety became restrained, directionless, causing stress and eventual explosions in both the individual and society.
We will trace the manifestations of this directionless violence in two ways. First, we will look at the society and culture of the 1950s, documenting the effects that new modes of economic organisation and the breakdown of traditional patriarchal hierarchies have had in a negative sense in the 50s. Secondly, we will explore Ray’s obsession with and expression of this interior violence through Rebel Without a Cause, finally questioning the auteur’s beliefs: does salvation exist in a world created by the poet of violence?

Inferno - Societal Hell in 1950s

The 1950s was an era striving to contain the entropic energies brought in the aftermath of the Second World War. As the nuclear family was ruptured from the loss or departure of male soldiers, the roles of all individuals in the post-war United States were altered irrevocably, resulting in a breakdown of the machinery which allows for healthy expressions of conflict and violence, the results of which we can see through a variety of examples in both the social and economic spheres.
One of the largest factors for this lack of modes of healthy expressions of anxiety came in the breakdown of the patriarchal hierarchy which had dominated society prior to World War II. The fall of the patriarchal hierarchy, while definitively a positive moment for equality in the history of the United States, gave rise to a social-familial structure which suffered anxiety over the adaptation to new roles. Rohmer notes that the weakness of the father or patriarchal figurehead within the narrative of Rebel Without a Cause not only explains the delinquent behaviour of the son, it demands it (Bitsch et al 1985, 113). In Grease (Kleiser 1978), a school dance set in the end of the 1950s is characterised by the ineptitude of its institutional heads, reflecting once more the absence of figures of strong patriarchal authority.

Extending this idea, we can argue that the absence or ineptitude of any leader leads to delinquency or anxiety for those ostensibly under his/her leadership, or (I would argue in a more general sense) to the inability to direct such delinquency in a healthy and socially acceptable direction.
A fundamental contributor to this breakdown of the patriarchal hierarchy was the rise of women in the workforce (insert photo here), as we can see through the variety of proto-feminist images documenting and encouraging female participant in the workforce. With the disappearance of the role of patriarchal breadwinner, nuclear families lost, in many senses, the orientation to which they had become accustomed over millenia, becoming a “haven of repression, resentment and misunderstanding” (Andrew 2004, 18).

A repressive society also added to this bottling of anxiety, which having lost its figurehead additionally finds it impossible to exorcise. The educational videos, such as “What to Do on a Date” produced for teens at the time reflect the societal pressure to “conform and knuckle under; with the emphasis [society] places on the importance of respectability, success and material comfort” (Andrew 2004, 14). Additionally, it is noticeable that the films feature a faceless narrator, typically with a serious male voice, as if patriarchal values can be expressed, but their figures are ultimately ineffective and invisible.
The new Fordist work mentality presents a non-gendered, ageless example of these symptoms of a leaderless economy. Henry Ford redefined modes of economic production by implementing a “factory line” mentality, positing each individual worker as a cog in a larger machine (Haslem 2008). Additionally, with the growth of huge conglomerates such as the Ford empire, the link between worker and owner became stretched beyond recognition. This results in a feeling of alienation and isolation of the worker from both the product of their labour, resulting in anxiety and feelings of worthlessness, as well as their leader, resulting in the absence of a feasible or healthy target for the expression of anxiety.

Purgatorio - The Poet of Nightfall

The “first home-grown film-poet of American disillusionment,” Nicholas Ray was a filmmaker who depicted with stark accuracy the effects of “rampant individualism trapped within a culture devoted to conformism and materialism” (Andrew 2004, 9). In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Ray explores the role of the non-conformist teenager Jim, and simultaneously documents the crisis of masculine identity and the resulting tension and instability of society which is “virtually sine qua non of Ray’s work” (Andrew 2004, 13). Andrew further notes that characters are torn between this innate potential for violence and the need to repress it in order to function in society.

Masculinity, in Rebel Without a Cause, is a tortured and instable thing, with little leadership from figures who ought occupy places of responsibility and control. It is important to note, first, that neither Ray nor this essay in anyway advocates a chauvinist or misogynist society: the only salvation presented, albeit a brief respite, comes in the figure of Natalie Wood, indeed it seems that woman alone is possessed of the ability to save man from himself (Bitsch et al 1985, 105). The benefits of increased autonomy and agency for women are distinct from the issues deriving from the collapse of patriarchy, though they may share similar origins.
The figures of patriarchy and leadership in Rebel Without a Cause are predominantly depicted as bumbling, impotent, or simply out of touch. Jim’s father Frank, when called to the police station to pick up Jim, appears torn between trying to be ‘cool’ by remarking that consuming alcohol does not seem a big deal and trying to assert his authority in the face of a shrewish wife.  “Do you have to slam the door in my face?” he asks. “Don’t I buy you everything you want?” Likewise, Judy craves for love from her father which she is denied, while Plato’s father arrives only as a series of numbers on a check.
In face of this absence of connection, the repressive impulse of a dysfunctional family physically affects Jim. As his family arrives he withdraws into himself, wrapping his arms tight about himself and a small token of childhood, framed by himself while his family is framed as a single, malicious entity. Eventually, unable to literally hold himself back, his bottled anxiety explodes as he shouts, “You’re tearing me apart! You say one thing then he says another and then everybody changes back again!” As he opens up emotionally, he does so physically as well, his arms gesturing wildly and accusatively. And yet, as he realises the absence of an avenue to which he can express himself, he collapses into himself again.
Later in the film, Ray demonstrates his awareness of this building of conflict as he instructs James Dean:

“One evening when Jimmy dropped by to see me, I began to discuss the scene [where Jimmy returns to his parents after the traged] with him; I asked him to go into the yard while I played the part of the father in the living-room. I gave Jimmy two contradictory instructions: first to go upstairs without being heard, and then, at the same time, to feel the irresistible need to talk to somebody. I then turned on the television to a channel where the programmes had finished, and pretended to be asleep. So Jimmy comes in and walks past me to go upstairs and it’s then that the contradictory movement gets the better of him: he falls heavily on to the sofa, with a bottle of milk, and waits for me to wake up; at that very moment I exclaimed, ‘Now your mother comes down the stairs!’ And I knew that I’d found the dynamics of my scene” (Bitsch et al 1985, 122).

The forced expressions of such conflicting forces, such as Jim’s in the opening scene, can be harmless or quite devastating. When the internal violence which Ray believed was inherent in all human beings is expressed normally, such as through the juvenile antics of eleven- and twelve-year-old children, the fallout can be minimal: it is the act of repression which often yields the most atrocious violence (Bitsch et al 1985, 122). In Rebel Without a Cause, Plato’s instability, his uncertainty and his inability to express anxiety leads to his death, as he brandishes the weapon (a minor ‘explosion’ of pent-up anxiety), the society of containment guns him down, repressing (and perhaps relieving) his anxiety once and for all.

Paradiso - Salvation in Expression

While Rivette says “salvation is a private affair” (Bitsch et al 1985, 105), Ray seems to set his critique of society with the hope of salvation, if not through society, then through complementary dualisms. While he notes that “the quest for a fulfilled life is…paradoxically, solitary” (Bitsch et al 1985, 105), in Rebel Without a Cause the closest thing to salvation comes in the form of Judy.
Tension in Rebel Without a Cause is caused predominantly through antagonistic dualisms: Jim versus his family, the instinct to violence versus societal repression, the desire for love versus the need for independence (Andrew 2004, 13). Healthy methods of expression, contrarily, are presented through positive (or protagonistic) dualisms: in his relationship with Judy, “our erstwhile hero becomes the little boy that he could not be with his parents, but simultaneously he discovers his responsibility as a man” (Bitsch et al 1985, 114). Despite the fact that these interludes are but brief respites from the cruelness of the world of repression, Ray seems to imply that where there is a positive or healthy means to express the violence inside, there can be salvation.

The 1950s was a time of immense repression, societal pressure and restraint, and it was exactly these forces which, lacking a proper means to express them, leads to they dysfunction of families and the anxiety of youth seen in Rebel Without a Cause. It may not be difficult to see the links between the 1950s as a decade of repression and control and the 1960s as a decade of expression and revolt. With the crumbling of patriarchy, the dissolution of set gender roles, the place of the individual became tenuous, anxious and rife with conflict, and the repression of society ceased to be able to control the tension it accumulated. In hindsight, the decades past have seen the rise of the teenager as well as further expressions of individual control of society in the arena of social networking websites, but are these sustainable, healthy avenues of expression? Or will we still burst from ourselves, and cry “You’re tearing me apart!”

[word count, excluding quotes: 1589]

Today we’ll focus primarily on the changes in depiction from history to drama to film of Henry V.

Key questions:

What changes in the representation of a complex character like the young King Henry across the ages? Particularly, how does the change in time period and cinematic history affect the depiction of the anti/pro-tagonist between the Olivier film (194 and the Brannagh film (1989).

• How does the historical events of the time influence our mode of viewing the character? Think: WWII vs. Vietnam War, what has changed?
• How does the movement from the Classical Age of Hollywood to the post-classical, contemporary Hollywood change the direction that the film can take? Where can morality be a little more grey?

What has changed from the original Shakespeare text, and what has changed in the Shakespeare text from the historical events? Is there a “correct” reading?

How is the morality of war depicted in the various texts? Is there a true victor in war?

What is the role of Pistol in the play, besides comic effect? How does the depiction of Pistol vary with today’s concepts of child soldiers? What does Pistol’s barbaricism say about the impact of war?

What does Olivier’s recitation of the famous St. Crispin’s day speech say about the time in which it was made?

Branagh’s film is certainly shaded more in terms of grey, but is that conveyed in his recitation? How does youth play a factor in his depiction? Does youth affect Olivier’s representation of Henry?

Nicholas Ray is a filmmaker who delves further than most into the tormenting conflict that pervaded through the teen spirit of the 50s. However, in doing so, I believe he expressed an angst and anxiety that was not restricted by youth or sex, but which gave voice to an indiscernible cry. His characters seem unable to restrain the “interior demon” of violence (Cahiers article), but perhaps the problem is not that they cannot restrain themselves, but that their exists no healthy way for them to truly let go. Perhaps restraint is the cause, not the solution, of the delinquent anxiety embodied in Rebel Without a Cause. I’m going to argue that the 50s gave birth to a variety of examples where anxiety and violence ought to have been expressed, but lacked a proper means by which to do so.

There are many instances of angst and violence that seems to be enhanced because there is no justifiable target: In an era where youth rebellion should be [is?] a catharsis for the angst and aggression that builds during teenage years, you also have the role of the patriarchal head under threat as well. For instance:

• Head of families are depicted as bumbling, impotent, or simply out of touch: See for instance the parental figures in Rebel.
  • Frank, as well as Judy and Plato’s father, all seem uncertain of their own role, unable to connect.
• Heads of institutions are equally goofy, often incapable of maintaining order in face of teen spirit (think Grease!)
• The educational films targeted at youths feature another faceless narrator, an imposition of patriarchal power which is both ineffective and invisible.

• Additionally, the new Fordist work mentality places workers like parts in a machine. The head of their enterprise, John Ford, is ultimately only a name to them, a faceless leader.

The lack of an identifiable source or target of angst, anger and violence builds up the 50s as a time of repression and containment.

Nicholas Ray’s instruction to James Dean: “One evening when Jimmy dropped by to see me, I began to discuss the scene [where Jimmy returns to his parents after the traged] with him; I asked him to go into the yard while I played the part of the father in the living-room. I gave Jimmy two contradictory instructions: first to go upstairs without being heard, and then, at the same time, to feel the irresistible need to talk to somebody. I then turned on the television to a channel where the programmes had finished, and pretended to be asleep. So Jimmy comes in and walks past me to go upstairs and it’s then that the contradictory movement gets the better of him: he falls heavily on to the sofa, with a bottle of milk, and waits for me to wake up; at that very moment I exclaimed, ‘Now your mother comes down the stairs!’ And I knew that I’d found the dynamics of my scene” (Bitsch 1958, 122).

What are the primary contrasts between Jim and Frank? Between Jim and his mother Carol?

The film itself seems to embody this brooding foreboding, a sense of violence about to burst. Geoff Andrew notes that “[t]ension - a sense of things being somehow so … unstable … that the whole edifice of a personality, a relationship or a society will fall apart - is virtually sine qua non of Ray’s work” (2004, 13). Is it possible that, like Jimmy himself, Ray finds it difficult to pinpoint a target for the violence which he believes is in all of us? Andrew further notes that characters are torn between this innate potential for violence and the need to repress it in order to function in society. Society, it seems, has little space for the healthy expression of anger, disillusionment, frustration, the components of of Ray’s, Jimmy’s and our own violence.

This tension is manifested in Ray’s films primarily through antagonistic dualisms, think Ray v. Frank/Carol, Carol v. Frank, the instinct for violence v. the need for societal repression, the desire for love v. the need for independence. Even the loneliness of solitude vies with the miserableness of acceptance for Ray’s outsiders. However, there seems to be essentially complementary dualisms, which perhaps provide the hope that there exists a complementary means to the healthy exorcism of violence: see Jim and Judy, Jim and Plato.

Culture, as we know it, is driven by a variety of machines, one of which is the media machine. The media machine perpetuates itself through a process called machinic subjectification, wherein individuals are subjectified, or placed into certain roles, as consumers of machine culture through the manipulation of the celebrity system.That celebrities are, in themselves, commodities should not come as any real surprise. They sell us magazines, movies, hair product; we do not need Veronica Mars to point out that amongst these products there is only one common denominator. The image and idea of the celebrity has become a commodity itself, to be bartered, sold, and even used directly to re-mortgage a house.

But what are they selling? It seems clear that, despite having changed in miniscule ways, celebrity-as-commodity has always sold a dream life, either as an image of what life is like for the rich and famous or more recently as the (deceptive) opportunity to become so. Firstly, I will explain how machinic culture functions, with emphasis on understanding machinic subjectification through celebrity-as-commodity. As a case study we will explore the dream lives of Vince, Eric, Drama and Turtle in the television series Entourage.

Culture: Apparatuses and Machines

What is subjectivity? [from screenmachine: - the roles that are predetermined by our cultural/socio-political sphere and reinforced by culture industries (education, communities).] We can clarify this concept through political philosopher Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). An ISA is very similar to Adorno and Horkheimer’s notion of a culture industry (Adorno and Horkheimer 1993, 30), it is an apparatus which seeks to propagate values and ideologies of the state in which it exists. These values and the position/roles/identity of the subject can be called its subjectivity.
Schools, the family, communities, the media, these are the most obvious ISAs. Althusser makes the distinction that an ISA is always directly linked to a state, because it is from these states that set ideologies, or the socio-political sphere, is derived. These days, however, with the onslaught of global imperialism, I think we can see the culture industries as almost autonomous, re-instigating values and subjectivities that, while perhaps originating from a few key states (the US, France, and China, for example), the culture industries are so global now that they seem to exceed the bounds of nationality.
The goal of any Althusserian State Apparatus, whether Ideological or the single Repressive State Apparatus [the entity which uses force instead of ideology, read: police/military], is the continuation of its state. In this sense, it’s easy to see who they serve. But if a culture industry expands beyond an affiliation to a state, the only values it seeks to propagate are those which continue and validate its own existence.

Guattari and Machines

For Guattari machines include the literal: computers, telephones, cranes, and can also include any non-human entity which magnifies, expands, and speeds up our productive abilities: a machine is little more “than hyperdeveloped and hyperconcentrated forms of certain aspects of human subjectivity” (Guattari 1995, 113). Guattari uses the example of the monastic orders which were precursors to the libraries, databanks, and hard-drives of today: while less a literal machine, these orders expanded our ability to store memories and knowledge in a way that an individual could never achieve.

However, Guattari notes that “today’s … machines do not merely convey representational contents, but also contribute to the fabrication of new assemblages of enunciation” (Guattari 1995, 113). In other words, machines actually redefine the ways in which we think of and represent ourselves, and interact with the global community around us. From the advent of YouTube, which in many ways wrested the reigns of digital representation from the media giants, to technologies of communication such as Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phones and audio and video chat programs, machines have had a fundamental impact in our ability to engage in the world.

From this principle it is easy to understand how the growth of the culture industry, including its entities in television, film and the internet, has led directly to a redefinition of our modes of existing in the global world. The expansion of our ability as consumers to engage with material on a variety of levels has led in kind to an expansion of the means by which the culture industry can communicate, and thus subjugate, individuals as consumers. This agency on behalf of the machine is what Guattari called machinic subjectivity, which we can describe as the ways in which the roles and places in society dictated to us are affected by machinic culture (Guattari 1995, 123). The manipulation of celebrity is one of the most potent means by which the media machine subjectifies individuals, as we can see in the television series Entourage.

The Use(less) Value of Fame

The idea of celebrity as a commodity is an interesting one, as there is no real use-value that can be attached. While Marx (1999, 42) notes that use-value is of little relevance to the “mystical character” of a commodity, it is difficult to attach any form of value to celebrity: to what is essentially an image of an individual. Ultimately, celebrity-as-commodity has two values: the commercial value (being the additional monetary value that celebrity can bring to existing commercial structures) and the machinic value (being the ability of the celebrity to propagate the culture industry). I want to look quickly at how the celebrity’s machinic value has changed in the last fifty years before we talk about Entourage and the mass deception of fame.

Several writers have tackled the idea of fame and celebrity, particularly in the golden Hollywood eras of the 30s, 40s and 50s, but I think Edgar Morin’s discourse on stars as modern mythology is the most relevant. Morin remarks that stars are contemporary society’s gods and goddesses, at once dependant on and transcendant of their contemporary cultures (Morin 1957, 28). They represent a paradise, an idyllic dream life that exists beyond the sphere of reality. Marilyn Monroe is not and never will be Norma Jean Mortensen/Baker.

What is important is that the dream that these celebrities represent is seen as somehow distant from regular life, for better or for worse. Ladies may style their hair like Marilyn, gentleman may feign a Cary Grant accent, but the notion that an everyday consumer could become one of these stars is small, to say the least, and usually the domain of idealistic, aspiring actors. In comparison, the celebrity industry today seems obsessed with increasingly shrinking gap between celebrity and civilian. This process seems largely the result of a single, amorphous media phenomenon: reality television.

While shows such as Candid Camera and, to a lesser degree, Cops, the style of reality television aimed at making celebrities out of “ordinary folk” was born with the MTV series the Real World. The Real World spearheaded the genre of observational reality television, which came to include shows such as Survivor, Big Brother and a variety of inverted celebrity-reality shows, the best of which would have to be the Osbournes. With celebrities and civilians on television in similar sorts of shows, the gap between the two was becoming marginal yet still tangible until the Idol series.

Shows based entirely around creating a pop-star, [Insert-Nation-Here] Idol shows are hugely successful at selling a false hope of fame, a false connection with celebrity, the that-could-be-me syndrome. And yet, at the same time, those winners of Idol do, often enough, become commercial recording artists, some very successfully. But of greatest importance, to both the industry and the viewing audience, is the dream of success: Idol-style shows highlight far more the journey than the destination.

Entourage presents the dream life of a celebrity from an insider’s point of view. David Swerdlick (2005) calls Entourage the “once a week, summertime advertisement for a lifestyle that you’re not living.” Note the log line on the poster: “A lifestyle is a terrible thing to waste.” Interestingly, while Entourage satirizes the Hollywood lifestyle both through the inanity of the characters and the hilarity of the cameos, it doesn’t stop the show from selling the same dream of fame seen anywhere else. Additionally, Entourage is interesting because at the same time as the show’s content is based around the lives of four young men enjoying the vicissitudes of their newly begotten fame, also the show works in a pseudo-reality where famous stars play themselves, or caricatures thereof. Entourage therefore uses its ability to push the boundaries of reality to simultaneously satirize and glorify the Hollywood lifestyle.

Entourage is loosely based upon the life of Mark Wahlberg, the executive producer, but in reality is as much based upon the lives of its actors. Vincent Chase, an actor on the cusp of stardom, mirrors very much the life of Adrien Grenier, who never quite made it past the cusp. Kevin Dillon, playing the Donnie to Vincent Chase’s Mark, is himself the brother of another mid-tier star, Matt Dillon, and has had previous success in his own past career. With these characters, whose lives so closely mirror their characters, the pseudo-reality of Entourage starts.

It continues with one of the most popular aspects of the show, its incredible array of cameos. Individuals as vastly different as Val Kilmer

and Bob Sagat

play roles ranging from a scraggly-haired sherpa to, more frequently, themselves. The cameos (the boys comment on the cameos here) serve in the same way as the actors themselves, to extend the reality of the show to encompass what is ostensibly a potentially real world.

At the end of the day, “Entourage makes fun of Hollywood, but protects and promotes its mystique at the same time” (Swerdlick 2005). Swerdlick compares the show to a rap film, which although a bit close-minded, has a kernel of truth: the show’s content is absurd, sarcastic even, but it “also makes them look cool.” And by making Vince and the boys look cool, Entourage is able to not only sell its dream life, but to make us want, if guiltily, to be those boys. And when a television show, or a film, or any machine, is able to dictate to us the roles we are supposed to play or the preferences we are supposed to have, it embodies the process of machinic subjectivity: the way in which machine can rearticulate our relation to the world. Not too difficult!

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max (1993), “The Culture Industry: enlightenment as mass deception”, The Cultural Studies Reader, Simon During (ed.), London: Routledge, 29-43.

Guattari, Felix (1995), ‘Regimes, Pathways, Subjects’, Soft Subversions, S. Lotringer (ed.), New York: Simotext(e), 112-130.

Marx, Karl (1867), ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and the Secret Thereof’, Karl Marx Capital: An Abridged edition, David McLellan (ed.), London: Oxford University Press, 1999, 42-50.
Morin, Edgar (1972), ‘Gods and Goddesses’, The Stars, Richard Howard (trans.), Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 27-55.

Swerdlick, David (2005), ‘Typecast’, Popmatters, visited at 28 March 2008, http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/e/entourage-040714.shtml.

For an example of celebrity taken not so seriously, turn to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

From the LMS:

Question One (500 words)

i. Select one of the following films for analysis:

Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) or any film directed by Steven Spielberg

Star Wars (Lucas, 1977) or any film directed by George Lucas

Meet Me In St. Louis (Minnelli, 1944) or any film directed by Vincente Minnelli

A Star is Born (Cukor, 1954) or any film directed by George Cukor

The Searchers (Ford, 1956) or any film directed by John Ford

Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) or any film directed by Alfred Hitchcock

All That Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955) or any film directed by Douglas Sirk

ii. Explain the key factors of the narrative construction (plot, story, cause and effect, time, space) of your selected film.

 

Question Two (500 words)

i. Select one of the following films for analysis.

A Bout de Souffle (Godard, 1959) or any film directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962) or any film directed by Francois Truffaut

Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 194 or any film directed by Vittorio De Sica

Rome Open City (Rossellini, 1945) or any film directed by Roberto Rossellini

Belle de Jour (Bunuel, 1967) or any film directed by Luis Bunuel

Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 1957) or any film directed by Akira Kurosawa

Battle Ship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) or any film directed by Sergei Eisenstein

ii. Describe the primary ways in which the narrative construction of your selected film departs from Classical Hollywood narrative principles.

This week we’ll take a look at the Classical Hollywood narrative principles, through the following Key Topics: Plot v. Story, Time, Linearity/cause-and-effect, Diegesis, Space.

What is a narrative? Plot v. Story

Defining a narrative is fairly simple, Allan Rowe simply calls the idea of a narrative “the idea that films have a primary function of telling a story” (Rowe 1996, 115). It’s all the technical mumbo-jumbo that gets in the way. We’re going to go with the Bordwell/Thompson way of understanding how a narrative is constructed in two elements: Plot and Story.

Plot is essentially the content of the film: all the events and content that is depicted in a direct audio/visual manner to the viewer. Do you see it/hear it on the screen? Then it’s part of the plot.

Story, meanwhile, is anything that is in the content of the narrative but is not directly presented to the viewer. The lines can blur a bit, but it is generally safe to assume that if you don’t see an event on the screen, but can infer its happening based upon the plot, then it is part of the story. For instance, in the famous Citizen Kane montage (I can’t seem to find it on YouTube), years pass in a few moments of screen time: the plot contains very little through these seconds, but they fill the story with years of inferred relationship-angst. Cine Y Crispetas has another good example: “we meet the Tenembaum(sic) family when the kids are around the age of 9 and the story ends when they are around 35 each, therefore the story happens in a period of over 20 years” while “the time frame of the plot is perhaps a year from the moment that Royal fakes his illness to the moment when he actually —-” (deleted in case anyone hasn’t seen the film).

From cineycrispetas again: ‘In other words, both story and plot share events that are explicitly presented, however, the story “goes beyond the plot suggesting some diegetic events” that as viewers we never witness (although we might infer them), and the plot “goes beyond the story world presenting nondiegetic images and sounds which may affect our understanding of the story”.’ We’ll come back to this in a bit.

Time

As is evident above, time (and its depiction) play a very important role in how we understand narration. In Classical Hollywood cinema, events may or may not be expressed in chronological order (most often they are, however Citizen Kane (as an example) is one of the hallmark films of the time that warps the depiction of events), however often we, the viewer, are expected to piece them together. Flashbacks are an example of temporal rupture which are so frequently used that we seamlessly integrate them into the story-time of the film. Bordwell and Thompson identify three key forms of temporal duration:

1. Duration of the story
2. Duration of the plot
3. Duration of the film

Can you define each of the above in relation to 2001: A Space Odyssey? Hint:

Linearity/cause-and-effect

Classical Hollywood Narration relies upon causality: a chain of events which produce a linear narrative where each event happens as a result of and which in turn produces another event. Classical thrillers/detective movies rely very heavily on this tradition, as the initial mystery is only solved by following a line of clues. Stanley Kubrick plays on this in the above clip from 2001: what is implied about the causality of human existence?

For those doing Italian Neo-Realism, how does Ladri di Biciclette alter this causal format?

Diegesis

Diegesis is the filmic world: the world of the narrative. It includes any elements of the film that are considered to be “inside the dream.” It is important to recognize what parts of a film are considered diegetic, or inside the diegesis, and non-diegetic, or outside the diegesis.

Diegetic elements include the characters, the setting, the mise-en-scene (more in space), as well as lighting (in most cases), dialogue (in most cases), music (in some cases). If you can trace an origin to the element that is physically inside the filmic world, then the element itself is diegetic.

Non-diegetic elements include any element whose source cannot be traced to within the filmic world. This often includes voice over, music, possibly lighting sources which we recognize as existing outside of the filmic world (though we aren’t supposed to recognize it as such - i.e. penlights).

Is this music diegetic? Anyone writing on New Wave should really look at the second clip, Godard manipulates the diegesis frequently.

Bande A Parte -

Space

Being a visual medium, space and the viewing of space is a fundamental component of cinema. Early cinema was silent, and although rarely seen in silence (Rowe 1996, 113), the narration was presented solely in visual terms. We’ll look at the construction of space briefly through ideas of mise-en-scene, cinematography, and we’ll do editing next week.

Mise-en-scene refers to those components of the film which can be identified within a single shot. These include the following: setting (outdoor, or indoor, studio or location, realistic or fantastic), props (costumes, objects — Rowe refers to props as signifiers, either of genre (think garlic/cross for a vampire flick) or of meaning (the sled in Citizen Kane is a good example)), actors/performance (it is debatable whether performance can really be seen in a single shot, however gesture and expression is certainly viable).

Cinematography refers to both lighting and the camera. I’m lumping them together because that’s the way they are organized in a film production. Lighting helps shape a scene, and draw our attention to what the director intends. Lighting can be broken down into three types of lighting - key lighting, off-key (fill) lighting, and backlighting.

We’ll do more exercises on this later.

The Camera is what makes film from a still art into a moving one. When breaking a scene down, you will talk about the variety of shots - whether from a distance or up close, whether still or tracking, whether straight on or tilted/canted (they mean the same thing), whether the camera itself is still or moving, where the camera is focused…

For the greatest example of cinematography in recent history, check out Children of Men:

The following websites might help a bit:

davidbordwell.net - David Bordwell is one of the reigning gurus, along with his wife Kristin Thompson, for understanding formulas of narration, his website is pretty cool.

Plus he’s not all that bad looking either, in a mountain man kind of way…

As always, wikipedia has some good entries: Classical Hollywood Cinema, Continuity Editing are two good ones.

Associated Content is a site I’m not too familiar with but which seems to have some decent (if unreliable and very basic) articles on a variety of film matters. Take it with a grain of salt though, and use it only as a base of knowledge. If you ever read something that contradicts the site, lean in favor of the opposition.

Cine Y Crispetas seems like another blog for a university course, and this entry is a fairly good breakdown of the Narrative as a Formal System chapter in the Bordwell and Thompson. It is in English, although it seems to be written by a native Spanish speaker, and so there are probably a few typos, etc.

“A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.”

Whom does culture serve? What is machinic subjectification? Why does/can Vinny Chase of Entourage sleep with every female in sight? All this and more!

It’s clear Hollywood commercialises everything it can get its hands on. Jump cuts go from edgy and artistic in Godard to almost mandatory in the post-Bourne/Greengrass action movie world. Hell, if Mel Gibson can use it, trimming frames in order to heighten the impact of a sword, there can’t be much edgy artistic-ness left.

Hollywood commodifies not only artistic techniques, but the pseudo-personal lives of its performers. In fact, whole industries have sprung up in order to cash in on the commodity of celebrity. While in a certain sense, celebrity in the traditional sense had to be earned (either through music, film, television and, to a lesser degree, art), shows like Idol earn their ratings through the mass deception of the consumer, the dream that I too can make an absolute fool out of myself on primetime television. This mass deception is in fact an element of the process of subjectification, the imposition of identity by machine culture. That’s a lot of non-Turtle words, so let’s start by looking at where they come from.

Althusser and ISAs

 

So, what is subjectivity? [from screenmachine: - the roles that are predetermined by our cultural/socio-political sphere and reinforced by culture industries (education, communities).] We can clarify this concept through political philosopher Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). An ISA is essentially a culture industry, it is an apparatus which seeks to propagate values and ideologies of the state in which it exists. These values and the position/roles/identity of the subject can be called its subjectivity.

Schools, the family, communities, the media, these are the most obvious ISAs. Althusser makes the distinction that an ISA is always directly linked to a state, because it is from these states that set ideologies, or the socio-political sphere, is derived. These days, however, with the onslaught of global imperialism, I think we can see the culture industries as almost autonomous, re-instigating values and subjectivities that, while perhaps originating from a few key states (the US, France, and China, for example), the culture industries are so global now that they seem to exceed the bounds of nationality.

The goal of any Althusserian State Apparatus, whether Ideological or the single Repressive State Apparatus [the entity which uses force instead of ideology, read: police/military], is the continuation of its state. In this sense, it’s easy to see who they serve. But if a culture industry expands beyond an affiliation to a state, their masters are perhaps more indistinct?

Guattari and Machines

How do we define a machine, in the Guattarian sense?

Clearly not. Machines include the literal computers, telephones, cranes, and I think can include any non-human entity which magnifies, expands, and speeds up our productive abilities, or in Guattari’s words, a machine is little more “than hyperdeveloped and hyperconcentrated forms of certain aspects of human subjectivity” (Guattari 1995, 113). Guattari uses the example of the monastic orders which were precursors to the libraries, databanks, and harddrives of today as a less literal machine. These orders expanded our ability to store memories and knowledge in a way that an individual subject could never achieve.

Machines = collective apparatuses of subjectification. (That sounds a little similar to Althusser…)

Worth noting is the very dense segment on the role of a machine, he says that “today’s … machines do not merely convey representational contents, but also contribute to the fabrication of new assemblages of enunciation” (Guattari 1995, 113). In otherwords, machines today are not just words on a page, but by the nature of their technology, they actually redefine the ways in which we can represent ourselves, and interact with the global community around us. He could have been writing an ad for YouTube.

And we’re obsessed! We have a machinic addiction, we love the speed of communication the telegraph, telefone and internet have brought, the slightly scary accuracy of Google World, the ease of online banking, the communities springing up all over the internet. The content of our lives and our subjectivities is becoming increasingly reliant upon machines we have created (Guattari 1995, 112).

Machinic Subjectivity and the Use[less] Value of Fame

“Fame means when your computer modem is broken, the repair guy comes out to your house a little faster.”

If machinism is our increasing reliance upon the technology we develop, then what is machinic subjectivity? Subjectivity that is interpellated, to use an Althusserian term, or derived from the machines/apparatuses upon which we rely. In other words, machinic subjectivity describes how the roles and places in society dictated to us are affected by machinic culture.

3 paths/voices: power, knowledge, and self-reference. These paths are the basis for the processes of subjectification under machine culture.

What is the link between machinic subjectivity and the commodification of fame? Maybe: [It is the media machine, the culture industry, that has given such birth to the glamorous commodity of fame and celebrity.] Edgar Morin has some really interesting writings on stars as modern gods, modern mythology. Also see Richard Dyer.

Fame as a Commodity inside and outside the world of Entourage

Fame is at the core of the television series Entourage, loosely based on the life of Mark Wahlberg. It is especially interesting because at the same time as the show’s content is based around the lives of four young men enjoying the vicissitudes of their newly begotten fame, also the show works in a pseudo-reality where famous stars play themselves, or caricatures thereof.

There is a really fantastic review here by David Swerdlick:

Entourage is a once a week, summertime advertisement for a lifestyle that you’re not living. Three guys in their 20s are soaking up the Southern California good life, thanks to the looks and charm of their buddy Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), an up and coming movie star. The show’s pitch to post-college, suburban guys is the equivalent of what hip-hop videos are to urban kids. The entourage has a never-ending supply of free designer gear, a giant bachelor pad, luxury cars, and access to the best parties, weed, and sexy groupies in L.A. The catch is that they must maintain a delicate balance between buddy and flunkie.

Last year’s finale had a key male bonding sequence set on the tarmac of the Van Nuys airport. As Vince, his brother Johnny (Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) prepare to leave for Vince’s next shooting location, Eric (Kevin Connolly) — the semi-responsible member of the group and Vince’s main guy — demands to be elevated to official manager status. Vince plays hard to get, asking, “You’re willing to fuck up our friendship?” before he agrees, “At five percent of me, I’d take that chance, too.”

Season Two starts out with Vince and his crew back in L.A. looking for his next project. His agent, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) wants him to do Aquaman, a big-budget action movie. Vince wants something edgier (as Eric observes, “He doesn’t want to be typecast”). Ari has to convince them that if they want to keep living lavishly, Vince has to do a movie that’s commercial. At the Lakers game, he lays it out for them: “Lookit. There’s the Joker, there’s Batman, there’s Spiderman. They’re all typecast — as rich guys.”

Entourage’s sarcastic bite begins in the casting. Vincent is a B-list actor with one medium-hot studio movie and one independent film under his belt, looking for a breakout hit. Ditto Grenier, who was looking to be big a few years ago, then took a few off-brand parts and never quite made it to superstar status (his credits include Drive Me Crazy and the straight-to-video Harvard Man). Kevin Dillon (real life brother of Matt). The show is loosely based on the experiences of executive producer Mark Wahlberg, whose brother Donnie (New Kids On The Block) was famous first, but flamed out long before Mark was a Calvin Klein billboard icon.

Like a music video, Entourage provides a stylized narrative set to music, without complication. It has all of the good stuff of videos — plush scenery, action, and easily digested themes. In addition, it offers witty banter, and just enough dimension to hold viewers’ attention beyond four minutes. Every episode comes around to the same conclusion in half an hour: being rich and famous rocks. Even when Vince and the guys have problems, they aren’t really problems: Vince is bent because he can’t get decent bagels or pizza in L.A. Johnny won’t go swimming with topless groupies at a beach party because he’s afraid his calves are too skinny. Eric gets dumped by Kristen (Monica Keena), but not before he sleeps with a Perfect 10 model. It would be easy to fault the show for being shallow, but that misses the point. Entourage makes fun of Hollywood, but protects and promotes its mystique at the same time.

The self-congratulatory sensibility the show chronicles should be annoying. But it winds up being irresistible, in the same way videos can be. It’s patently absurd when rappers surround themselves with luxury cars, enough jewelry to blind you, and gyrating dancers all around. But it also makes them look cool, and fans seem content with just being able to watch and emulate.

Only Eric is even remotely self-conscious about the fact that women who are way out of his league want to date him, and that he drives a Maserati that puts Johnny Sac’s to shame. But he obviously doesn’t feel too guilty, because he drives the car, he sleeps with the women, and slowly but surely, he adapts to the “reality” of his best friend being a Hollywood commodity. In their world, it’s always all good, so it becomes pointless to feel guilty or pass on any goodies, regardless of how undeserving they actually are. As Johnny guilelessly observes, “You know, we could all be working for the phone company.”

At the end of a recent episode, Eric returns to an exclusive jewelry store to bring back a gift that he almost gave Kristen, now his ex-girlfriend. The slender blond saleswoman not-so-innocently asks, “So are you an actor too, like Vince?” There’s a moment of existential hesitation as Eric considers just being himself, and the show flirts with the notion of some sort of personal dilemma, before he responds the only way that he can, “Actually, yeah, I’m Vince’s manager.” Her eyes light up, she gives up her phone number, cue Free’s “All Right Now,” roll credits.

It’s no accident that Eric and Ari always have their meetings at an upscale restaurant called Koi. They’re fish in a pond, eating and being seen. It’s also no accident that the show’s soundtrack features Mos Def, Beck, DJ Danger Mouse, and Franz Ferdinand. This is the right theme music for a show about the fantasy of being in the place to be at all times. Vince represents the fantasy lifestyle, and his posse represents the audience — we’re along for the ride. In the series pilot, Jane (Courtney Peldon) sums it up nicely when she tells Turtle, “Look, it’s not like I don’t think you’re cute. But I’m just still hoping I’m gonna be the one that gets to fuck Vince.”

— 14 July 2005

I especially like the idea of Entourage as an advertisement, it is selling a dream of a life that is just beyond your reach, just like Idol, this dreamland COULD BE YOURS if you buy into the deception.

But beyond the mere content of the show, which seems if not criticizing is at the very least satirizing the glamour of Hollywood, the show maintains a pseudo-reality where which in the end maintains the Hollywood mythology. Instead of breaking the fourth wall, as they say in theatre speak, that wall has just been pushed that little bit further, close enough to encompass a few of us. Those few just happen to include Jessica Alba, and they are all adept enough at performing.

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. filiation suzerainty = the inherited or ancestral authority of either a a) nation which controls another nation, but allows it domestic sovereignty; or b) a feudal lord to whom fealty is owed.

I support Obama, but this is too funny not to be here.

It’s awesome. Go see it.

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That could actually have been it, but i suppose that it might warrant some justification. There Will Be Blood is a new film by Paul Thomas Anderson starring the hermit of hollywood, Daniel Day-Lewis, as a megalomaniacal mining man (try that 3 times fast) who walks the line between protagonist and antagonist before firmly smashing both categories right in the face and establishing his dominion over the proverbial sandbox, as megalomaniacs are wont to do.

There is not much to say about Day-Lewis. Refer to the opening two sentences. What starts as a borderline caricature (we’ve all heard the voice) transcends into something far more than even the most insightful character. There are some examples of filmmakers (Malick and Kubrick come to mind) who ascend so far to the top of their medium that symbolism and analogy and even description seem needless: the film itself evokes a visceral and intellectual reaction without the need of mediation. Day-Lewis has accomplished as much with his performance, communicating so effectively the vices and history of not just the past century but all of humanity without strings. He is acting, unplugged.

I don’t think the film accomplishes quite as much as Day-Lewis does, but it is an extremely thought provoking and intelligent look at our global economy’s dirty history. I really enjoy the generic intertwining of the western and mogul movie. I don’t know if you can call mogul movies a genre, but they certainly seem to have a set of codes unique to their conditions. There Will Be Blood is like The Searchers mixed with Wall Street, and it’s a good combination.

I’ve avoided making the obvious Citizen Kane comparisons, but let’s leave it by saying Orson would be happy. Again, it’s awesome. Go see it.