Art, or Something Like It

“The age demanded an image/ Of its accelerated grimace” Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley", lines 21 & 22

Most scholars agree that industrialization had a major effect on both the production of “art” and “mass culture.” This shift seems to have resulted in a lot of derivative, and some would say inferior, popular art, the kind of “art” which Pound would likely call disposable and reprehensible. The interesting question in all of this analysis is what precisely constitutes “art” in this new culture of consumption and mass production.

This question can productively be applied to the art of social realist Ben Shahn. Shahn was an immigrant and trained in lithography and graphic design. Although he did pursue “modern art” in his earlier career, he later turned to a more realistic style in order to better contribute to social and cultural critique. It is interesting to note that Shahn also worked for the government, painting murals which were intended as supportive propaganda for federal relief programs, a project which allowed federally sanctioned vent for Shahn’s social criticism.

In his painting Farmers, Shahn represents 3 men, farm workers. The misery and hardship of their lives in clear in the men’s grim expressions, but interestingly the piece contains no overt sign of the cause of the men’s discontent. The painting was created in concert with the efforts of the FSA to record the plight of American farm workers.

Shahn’s work is usually in forms which are accessible to the public, either in the form of murals or easily reproduced poster work. Shahn’s art is clearly not avant-garde as Clement Greenberg defines it in his essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch”; the pieces are not art for art’s sake, and are designed for the consumption of the masses, placed as they are in common public venues. They are clearly art with a social purpose, and a very clearly defined subject matter. Further, his art is more easily uinderstood than Picasso’s, in that he is slightly more realistic in his imagery and presentation, so it could be said that Shahn's work “predigests art for the spectator and spares him effort, provides him with a short cut to the pleasure of art that detours what is necessarily difficult in genuine art.” The whys and wherefores are not immediately clear, but the genral discontent of the farmers is obvious, so the viewer need not struggle for the piece's meaning. The content and intent of the piece are immediately clear and accessible, essentially painted in the vernacular: the imagery is familiar, drawn from the lives of the very people it is meant to affect. The image is realistic in its representation and takes as its subject matter the common man and his struggles, a subject which should be immediately clear to his target audience: the working man and those sympathetic to, or at least concerned with, his plight.

Further, because Shahn’s works are drawn in a realistic style which borrows from graphic design, and because they are placed for broad public/social access, they essentially combat and/or address the mass culture product which Theodor Adorno is so wary of. Shahn uses the style of mass media, poster art and graphic design, to address and combat the oppression which Adorno feels is so native to mass culture productions. Adorno describes popular culture as a meal at which “ the diner must be satisfied with the menu. . . . Of course works of art were not sexual exhibitions either. However, by representing deprivation as negative, they retracted, as it were, the prostitution of the impulse and rescued by mediation what was denied.” Popular culture is all empty promises and no substance, a distraction from the very real deprivations of modern life, and Shahn’s work, as art, delivers real substance and critique while clothed in a kind of popular drag.

Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Marxists.org. Web. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm

Greenberg, Clement. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." Sharecom.ca. Web. http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html

Pound, Ezra. "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Wadsworth, 2006. Print.

Shahn, Ben. "Farmers." Painting.

Run Fat Boy, Run: Smutty Jokes and Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud suggests that “throughout the whole range of the psychology of the neuroses, what is sexual includes what is excremental, and is understood in the old, infantile, sense,” and further, that jokes which treat upon these primal sexual fascinations, being tendentious jokes, that is, jokes with larger intent, must be “either a hostile joke (serving the purpose of aggressiveness, satire, or defense) or an obscene joke (serving the purpose of exposure)” (116, 115). Given this framework for understanding puerile humor, I have chosen to examine the comedy of the film “Run Fat Boy, Run,” which is primarily physical and excremental. In the film, stunted man-boy Dennis, having run away from adulthood and commitment, literally fleeing his own wedding, takes on a quest for manhood by signing up to run the London River Run marathon with only a few weeks of preparation. Unfit, slovenly, and a frequent smoker, (clearly suffering from some setbacks during his oral phase of development) Dennis first takes on this challenge in a juvenile attempt to one-up his former fiancée’s new man, but through the course of the film the race, and Dennis’ preparation for it, becomes a very real catalyst for Dennis’ evolution from juvenile lay-about to responsible adult. Most germane to the purposes of this discussion is how obscene, exposing, and sexual humor is used throughout the film to evoke laughter.


This film is riddled with excremental and smutty humor, lousy with fart jokes, sexual innuendo, simulated ejaculation and masturbation, and emasculation by way of a speedy transvestite. In one of the early scenes, Dennis, a security guard for an upscale women’s lingerie boutique, is shown running down a shoplifting transvestite. As if being the guardian of fancy women’s under-things were not sufficiently emasculating, one of the audience’s first experiences of Dennis is watching him being outrun by a giggling, taunting transvestite, who gleefully cavorts and flaunts her frilly stolen knickers in Dennis’ face, just out of reach. Leaving aside any questions of the figuratively castrating effect of being unmanned by a transvestite, the obvious sexual overtones of the scene elevate it to a greater level of arguably both hostile and obscene tendentious humor. In this case, Dennis is the object of the joke, despite Freud’s assertions that a woman is generally the primary object, and the transvestite is exposing both Dennis’ shortcomings as a man and guardian of women’s unmentionables, as well as quite literally exposing a pair of pretty panties (arguably this exposure does frame women as a secondary object of the joke). This exposure makes Dennis both pitiable and laughable, allowing the audience to acquire a kind of release of primal aggressive urges through the safe, culturally sanctioned mockery of Dennis. As Freud writes “the repressive activity of civilization brings it about that primary possibilities of enjoyment, which have now, however, been repudiated by the censorship in us, are lost to us . . . so we find that tendentious jokes provide a means of undoing the renunciation and retrieving what was lost” (120-21). Essentially, hostile, puerile humor allows people to vent the frustrations and inexpressible baser urges which must be suppressed in order to cultivate civilization. Therefore, by causing the audience to laugh at Dennis’ emasculation, his many pratfalls, and the physical suffering and abuse he takes throughout the film, the comedy of “Run Fat Boy, Run” allows people a minor kind of relief from the repression of socially unacceptable urges.


Another excellent, though rather disgusting, example of the base humor of “Run Fat Boy, Run” can be observed in the well-known blister popping scene. The scene is disgusting and childish, as well as cringe inducing. As Freud says, “the technique of such jokes is often quite wretched, but they have immense success in provoking laughter” (Freud 121). This joke employs a handful of smutty themes to create a disgusting, and therefore both hilarious and horrifying, joke. The gag is hostile, in that a large part of the humor comes from Dennis’ pain and his friend’s reaction to that pain, as well as sexual: after the blister has been popped, pus is discharged into the friend’s face, which leads to a premature ejaculation joke, as well as an allusion to seminal fluid in the eye. Further, this sexual joke has a hostile element, because the scene involves two men, and therefore lends the joke a homosexual overtone. Because of this multi-layered gag, this joke allows the audience to laugh not only at Dennis’ real physical pain from the blister and preparation for the race, but also at the implied sexual inadequacy, which satisfies both the infantile fascination with the sexual as well as the suppressed human drive for aggression against one another. The joke exposes Dennis, in several senses. Further, the scene employs a kind of slapstick humor, which is pervasive throughout the film, and echoes the physical humor present in old school Chaplin or Stooges routines, only the pie or seltzer water in the face has been replaced by… well, pus.

(seriously, this scene is gross. Consider yourself warned.)


The primary source of humor in “Run Fat Boy, Run” is the juvenile fascination with sex and pain. Throughout the film, Dennis, the protagonist, is continually exposed and emasculated, an exposure which allows the audience to vent their own suppressed hostility and puerile fascinations. Fortunately, the distinction between humor of this type in film, directed and inspired by the suffering and shortcomings of a fictional character, and the same humor derived in real life from the suffering of real people, is that the hostile, exposing need can be relieved without a living target, and therefore is a kind of victimless “crime”, offering all of the vindictive enjoyment, without any real harm or insult.





Work Cited
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. New York: Norton, 1989. Print.

Seriously, When Are You Going to Give Me Some Grandchildren?

The archetypal Jewish mother and her often contradictory traits (her excessive love, smothering pride, embarrassing cultural rigidity, and withering disappointment) have become a major trope in contemporary entertainment, particularly in the work of Jewish comics. As Martha A. Ravits suggests in the essay “The Jewish Mother: Comedy and Controversy in American Popular Culture,” this stereotypic figure functions both as a kind of in for Jewish artists to mainstream (white) mass culture, as well as a projection of their own unease and cultural/personal insecurities. This larger than life mother figure becomes a kind of scapegoat, onto which the comic can safely project his own unease over his at times almost liminal role in modern culture, his guilt both for assimilating and abandoning older cultural models, as well as for failing to assimilate enough to attain the ideal of American success. The Jewish mother stereotype becomes not only a filter for the Jewish comic’s self-loathing and fears, but also a personification of his ambiguous relationship with popular culture. Therefore, although this portrayal of Jewish mothers, and mothers or women in general, is blatantly misogynistic, it is more important, when examining her role, to question what she represents of her creator’s own shortcomings and insecurities.

It should come as a surprise to no one that Woody Allen has repeatedly used or referenced this behemoth of ethnic parental stereotyping. In Allen’s landmark film, Annie Hall, several scenes center on flashback visitations of protagonist Alvy Singer’s childhood home. In these flashbacks, Alvy’s mother screeches at Alvy, his father, and other family members, demanding that Alvy become a better son, a higher achiever, and a good Jewish boy (in one scene, Alvy’s family is transposed against Annie’s Norman Rockwellian family ham dinner. Alvy’s family declares, when asked, that they fast for holidays, to absolve themselves of sins which they themselves cannot name). Much like Alexander Portnoy’s mother in Portnoy’s Complaint, Alvy’s mother is a major figure in all of Alvy’s recollections of early life. She looms large, much like the roller coaster Alvy’s family home is situated beneath. The roller coaster itself is a very interesting metaphoric expansion of the Jewish mother: it is a howling, ever-changing, rattling monster looming over every moment of young Alvy’s life, a colossal, oppressive and omnipresent mother hen, literally perched above Alvy as he grows up, rattling his nerves and destroying any peace in the household. Not only does Allen’s Alvy have a literal Jewish mother to heckle him and push him into deep neurosis, he also has the mommy-coaster literally shattering his nerves throughout his early life.

Of course, in using the Jewish mother trope, even expanding it into the roller coaster metaphor, Allen, or at least Alvy, is largely projecting his own insecurities and expiating his personal guilt over his own shortcomings and interpersonal failings. Rather than address his own part in the shambles of his life and relationships, Alvy retreats into mother blame, and “Jew” blame; of course he can’t fit in Annie’s family, he’s a Jew, and her Grammy is a “Jew-hater.”

Interestingly, Ravits proposes that the Jewish mother stereotype is a way for Jewish comics to transition into, and connect with, a wider audience. The stereotype functions as a way of distancing the comic from that which his audience may dislike about “Jews,” and renders him acceptable, different. It also creates a sense of camaraderie: “we’re all in this together, laughing at this silly backwards woman.”

Auto-Castration in Portnoy's Complaint and "Play it Again, Sam"

This week, we begin an examination of the “Oedipal Allen”; that is, I will be considering Allen’s films and influences through a Freudian lens. For this week, I’ve been reading Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, and viewed Woody Allen’s 1972 film “Play It Again, Sam”.

As anyone who has passed a high school psychology class, or any class on critical literary theories, can tell you, one of the big bad pillars of Freudian analysis is the Oedipus Complex: Boy is born, Boy and Mom “meet cute,” Mom puts Boy on a pedestal. Boy desires Mom (whether you choose to take this in the literal, pervy sexual sense is entirely between you and your personal god). Boy becomes aware of Dad and envies Dad his unrestricted social and sexual access to Mom. Boy comes to fear Dad, and suffers a niggling fear that Dad will castrate Boy if Dad discovers Boy’s “love” of Mom. Ah, castration anxiety. Boy comes to identify with Dad as both a competitor and gender role model. In order to become a “healthy” and functioning, moral member of society, Boy must address and suppress his attraction to Mom and his drive to kill, or at least replace, Dad. Naturally, this suppression can lead to problems, but it is important to remember that without this suppression, man would never develop a social consciousness, and it would therefore be impossible to cultivate civilization.

But how do we deal with the stress generated by this suppression? Well, at least according to Freud, this is one of the major functions of jokes. “The joke will evade restrictions and open sources of pleasure that have become inaccessible” and give voice to the part of us which "rebels against the demands of morality" (123, 131). Essentially, jokes serve as a release valve for suppressed socially unacceptable urges, and easily can take the form of any or all of Freud's defense/coping mechanisms.

So, how does this concept play out in film and literature, particularly in the work and influences of Woody Allen? Well, the easiest, most obvious answer is that Freud, and his theories, have become as much, if not more, of a cultural phenomenon as a school of psychological or psychoanalytic thought. Freud and the “Freudian” have entered the vernacular, and may be considered a kind of figurehead of contemporary Jewish culture and self-examination within a cultural context.

Let’s consider the case of Alex Portnoy, the protagonist of Phillip Roth’s classic novel Portnoy’s Complaint. The Oedipal overtones of the story are crystal clear, and for the purposes of this blog it is important to note both that Alex is Jewish, in the thrall of a larger than life Jewish Mother (a major stereotypic player in popular culture), and that his narrative style is comic and self-deprecating, much like Woody Allen’s own introspective and self-mocking presentation.

In an interesting twist on Freud’s oedipal model, in Alex’s case his father either refuses to, or is incapable of, threatening Alex’s bond and free access to mom, let alone his masculinity. Alex is clearly aware of this failing of his father to fulfill the paternal role in Alex’s development, and wonders “what preference does Father really have? If there in the living room their grown-up little boy were to tumble all at once onto the rug with his mommy, what would daddy do? Pour a bucket of boiling water on the raging, maddened couple? Would he draw his knife---or would he go off to the other room and watch television until they were finished?” (46). Alex’s father is unable to function as a threat, and most importantly unable to function as a castrating agent. In order to resolve his Oedipal urges, therefore, Portnoy must turn to auto-castration, both semi-literal and figurative.

Most simple among Alex’s castrating methods is his fixation with his father’s “impressive” genitalia. Although Alex’s father and mother are too inconsistent in their modeling of gender roles (both elevate and idolize Alex, and as already discussed, dad does nothing to curb Alex’s sexuality and access to mom), at least in this Alex’s dad is spectacularly male. In fixating on his father’s member, and, more importantly, on his own inferiority to it, Alex is diminishing his own masculinity. It is also worth noting that, theoretically, “penis envy” is an exclusively female phenomenon, and so Alex’s envy of dad’s tackle box feminizes Alex.

By far the most substantial of Alex’s acts of auto-castration is his chronic masturbation. Alex is not only seeking transitory sexual gratification, but also, in his manic excess, a kind of impotence, literally attempting to masturbate until he may “begin to come blood,” to the point at which Alex may no longer be capable of erection or ejaculation (22). Alex continues beyond the point of pain because he is pursuing sexual annihilation, impotency, figurative castration, rather than simple sexual release. Failing this, Alex escalates to masturbating on public transit, subconsciously chasing the shame, guilt and ridicule of being caught in hopes of using it to tamp down his own sexuality. In the absence of a potent external castrating aggressor, Alex takes on the role for and against himself.

This is similar in some ways to Allen’s own act of auto-castration in “Play it Again, Sam,” although it manifests quite differently in the film. In the movie, as Allen prepares for a date, he conjures up Humphrey Bogart as an idol of male sexual potency, an idol against which Allen comes up painfully short. By creating Bogie as a castrating agent, Allen is self-sabotaging. Reminding himself of his own perceived staggering inadequacies in comparison to this ideal, Allen robs himself of sexual agency, and essentially cock blocks himself, if not with his actual mother, at least with a maternal analog. (If we entertain the theory that because man’s desire for mom must be suppressed and rerouted he naturally pursues women like mother in order to achieve a socially sanctioned union with a mother figure, then Allen’s date can be safely categorized a maternal analog.)

Now, this all sounds very serious, and at this point you may be asking yourself just what any of this manly self-hatred and sabotage has to do with jokes. Remember, it was suggested earlier that humor serves as a kind of release valve for inappropriate urges, as well as for the frustration the suppression of these urges engenders. In Portnoy’s and Allen’s cases, their self-deprecating tone allows them to vent their oedipal urges as well as allowing a further avenue for figurative auto-castration. Jokes are thinly veiled acts of aggression against their subject, and as Alex’s and Allen’s subjects are themselves, their jokes are, therefore, acts of aggression against themselves.
 

The Oedipal Allen Part I: Coming Soon!!

(watch up to 1:09)

This is a teaser for the blog to come: an EPIC exploration of castration and the Oedipus complex, the function of smutty jokes (at least from Freud's perspective) and masturbation (certainly not mine or yours. Alex Portnoy's. Get your mind out of the gutter...) I'm working through an outline of all the ideas I have spinning through my head for this entry, and... well, its coming soon!!! Fun with Freud! Yay!! But in the mean time, please enjoy a clip from Clone High, feauturing, naturally, Sigmund Freud.

An Admission of Superficial Prior Exposure

Once upon a time (in 2005) I spent a not inconsiderable amount of money on a ticket to see Match Point. This was the first time I had ever watched a Woody Allen film in its entirety. I wish I could say that this experience stirred in me a deep appreciation of Woody Allen's work and genius, but... well, it didn't. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but it didn't inspire any strong desire to expand my exposure to this neurotic bespectacled New Yorker's oeuvre. As of today, my familiarity with the canon of Allen's work is limited to this one past movie-going experience and some incidental exposure to a handful of televised clips from Annie Hall, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), and Bullets Over Broadway. My experience of Woody Allen has been superficial, to say the least. Further, the deepest impact this experience has had on me thus far has only manifested in a vague sense that Diane Keaton's fashion sense has been somehow either irretrievably damaged or profoundly retarded by her role in Annie Hall. This is all about to change...

The purpose and focus of this blog is the exploration and analysis of the films and influences of Woody Allen. This blog will be devoted to Woody Allen and his body of work. The blogs content will include direct analysis of Allen's films and writing, as well as tangential discussions of art and other films.

And now, to finish up, here's one of my favorite Woody Allen clips, which I am sure everyone and their mother has seen at this point:


What I find particularly interesting about this clip is how pervasive the tendency to anthropomorphize spermatazoa is in American culture, whether it be in the gendered rhetoric used to describe reproductive cells in even some scientific literature, in the vernacular use of terms like "the boys" or"swimmers,"or in popular culture representations, such as the talking sperm and egg in Look Who's Talking. There are also echoes of Allen's own anthro-sperm, as seen in this contemporary condom commercial :


Well, that's all for now. More to come next week on the "Oedipal Allen"

ETA: my Netflix queue is now swollen with Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman films, because I am a completist, and don't want to write about films I haven't seen in their entirety. :)