“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.