Musings on Persona, 3 Women, Images, and Mulholland Drive

To understand Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Robert Altman's 3 Women and Images, and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive we have to understand the broader contexts that surrounded and penetrated these films. In the 1950s sociologist and cultural anthropologist wrote a book entitled The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. In that seminal book Goffman, drawing on Shakespeare's notion that all the world is a stage and we (us) are merely players, argued that those of us living in the rich core countries of the north, were actors on the stage of life.

Goffman argued that all of us played multiple roles on the stage of life. In late modernity and early postmodernity we played multiple roles such as student, teacher, salesperson, and friend, for example. At school I might play the role of student. At work i might play the role of cashier. I know how I am supposed to play these roles because I live in a postmodernist era dominated by the service industry and I have learned the cultural scripts for the roles I play via socialisation. I may realise that the roles I play are roles in the play of life. Or I might actually believe the roles I play, an everyday version of method acting.

The roles I play, as Goffman noted, are all socially and culturally constructed with scripts, front stages, back stages, and with the potential for role mistakes leading to possible stigmatisation. One has, I think, to be seen as part and parcel of the cultural understanding that our identities are not only multiple but also mutable. We can change who we think we are and who we want others to think we are. Who we are and who others think we are, are impacted, as Persona and 3 Women, two films that were impacted by the changing notions of identity and the roles we play that were in the cultural air in the 1960s and 1970s, by power relations and notions of prestige or celebrity. Mulholland Drive likewise plays with cultural notions of identity, multiple roles, and the fracturing and segmentation that is a central part of postmodernity. The US is a postmodernist society and many of Lynch's films, in addition to being updates of Bunuelian surrealism, are part and parcel of the fracturing of identity and the fracturing of roles we play that is so central to late modernity and postmodernity.

Meet Republican Dick and Democrat Jane...

Say hello to Dick and Jane. Dick is a Republican. He is a WASP, 58, and has a high school education. He attends the Church of Mammon every Sunday and worships at the altar of the gospel of wealth though he is not wealthy himself. His Granddaddy was a follower of Gerald K Smith and his Daddy was union man who once worked in the steel mills of Birmingham and adored Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Richard J. Daley. He loves the Donald with a religious like fervour believing Donnie to be the vessel of god.

Dick believes, as his church teaches, that the Democrats are the spawn of Satan. He is certain that Satan is a card carrying red, that god gave men guns on the second day of creation, that god made women the helpmeets of men, and that courts should be made up only of "true Americans" like himself. Dick listens to Fox News all day dittoing their message about how America is not what it used to be.

See Dick run up that hill. He knows that if his party doesn't do something they will have a difficult time winning elections given America's demographic realities. He approves of gerrymandering. He approves of the electoral college. He approves of making it difficult for "fake Americans" to vote . He believes that he and his Trumpublicans (aka Dixiecrats) are numbered among the saved and that Democrats are not.

Say hello to Jane. She is Democrat. She is 25 and is from New York City. She majored in history during her undergraduate years and knows that as the Democrats pursued civil rights and less WASPish immigration policies, that the Southern Democrats and their White evangelicals increasingly fled to the Republican Party transforming or dixiefying that party in the process.

Jane realises that Democrats are running up a very high hill mostly of their own making. She understands that her party really doesn't play well in more than 30 American states making it difficult for Democrats to gerrymander. She also knows that Republican control of almost two-thirds of America's states enables poor poor rich peoples movements to pass legislation favourable to their ideological agenda. She realises that electoral college math makes it more difficult for Democrats than Republicans to win elections on the federal level. Jane realises that as Republicans moved from conservatism to Birchism, Democrats too moved right becoming true believing neoliberals or cynics who believe you have to be neoliberal in order to win elections in the process.

See Jane running up that steep and high hill. She is beginning to wonder whether the Republicans will ever play ball with the Democrats again. She wonders whether Democrats will ever be able to stop the right wing lowest common denominator manipulative "magic" of Republicans. How can, she asks herself, they stop Republican attacks on unions, education, and minority voters, all important segments of the Democratic Party? She often hopes, like many in her party, that changing demographics will take care of all of the Democrats' problems allowing Democrats to make America great again.

Dick and Jane's cultural "marriage" is a bad "marriage" though they neither one seems to want to recognise that it is. Wouldn't it be nice if Dick and Jane recognised that their cultural "marriage" is a bad one and divorce as equitably as is possible before America experiences yet another battle in its continuing cold cultural civil war, a cultural civil war that has been around even before there was an America?

The Books of My Life: Hollywood v. Hardcore

If you are looking to read just one book that will help you understand and comprehend post-1948 and post-anti-trust Hollywood, Jon Lewis's Hollywood v. Hardcore: How the Struggle Over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry (New York: New York University Press, 2002) is it. Lewis's book, which is broader than its title and subtitle suggests, provides an excellent economic, political, legal, and cultural history of how the new Hollywood cinema of auteurs and the new new Hollywood cinema of megabuck spectacular and anonymous blockbusters came to be.

In a series of related chapters, Lewis explores the economic, political, cultural, demographic, and geographic history of how the old Hollywood became the new and new new Hollywood. In one narrative thread Lewis explores how Hollywood's collusion with the post WWII anti-communist witch hunt, a witch hunt which had a health dose of anti-Semitism in it, helped the studios solve their union and labour problems. In a second narrative thread Lewis shows how the demise of the collusive 1927 and 1930 Codes, which mandated what was not acceptable on the big screen and by extension what was acceptable, codes which, as Lewis argues, were linked to nativist real Americanism, eventually led to the collusive 1968 rating system with its copyrighted G, PG, R, which needed MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and CARA (Code and Rating Administration) approval, and its non-copyrighted X rating category, which didn't. This new ratings system, Lewis argues, immunised Hollywood from the tangle of local and state censorship regulations, after 1973 and particularly 1975, allowed Hollywood to emerge from its post-World War II economic decline, and essentially closed, with the aid of the Nixon conservative Supreme Court, the marketplace to anything with an X rating, especially an increasingly competitive hardcore porn industry that, in the mid-1970s, was professionalising and moving increasingly toward parodic and satiric narrative genre forms. It also, Lewis notes, made it difficult for independent American films and European art films to find exhibitors since exhibitors too--before the studios bought them back--for the most part, accepted the MPAA rating system and came to believe that X, a category that was for those who films that didn't want an MPAA rating and which eventually thanks, in part to Hollywood, came to be a perceived as a synonym for soft and hard core "pornography", weren't good for business.

Lewis's excellent book should be read by anyone interested in the economic, political, and cultural history of Hollywood and everyone who studies American film. I also recommend it to those who get stuck in the trees of censorship and don't, as a result, see how the forest of censorship serves economic interests. Unlike those who think that everything you ever wanted to know about film can be discovered by looking into a textual ball, Lewis's book contextualises Hollywood into its broader empirical economic, political, cultural, and demographic contexts. And while Lewis's may need a bit of updating, it remains the best book on the new Hollywood and new new Hollywood I have come across.

I want to end this review by giving a shout out to Lewis's contention that when porn became a subject of interest in academia, it was no longer a significant economic player in the film theatre exhibition marketplace (the wide availability of porn on the internet has changed this and problematised the profitability of porn in other ways). I would add that as films, selective films since contemporary film academics focus, ahistorically, on a few select films, have become central to academia and contemporary academic film analysis, they have become increasingly detached from what should be of central importance in film analysis, their broader economic, political, cultural, demographic, and geographic contexts, and the more culturally arcane Film Studies has become. But then like any knowledge bureaucracy, Film Studies has to become more and more arcane in order to protect its organisational and cultural boundaries.

The Books of My Life: thirtysomething

I was a thirtysomething baby boomer when the television show thirtysomething hit the airwaves in 1987 and I was still a thirtysomething boomer when thirtysomething went off the air four seasons later in 1991. As a devoted watcher of "quality" films and, if much less so, of "quality" TV, I watched thirtysomething when it debuted and I watched it, if not religiously,  I was taking a graduate degree after all, until it went off the air.  My sense at the time, was that thirtysomething was a slice of middle class life, a television show about the intimate lives of a group of people, as co-creator of thirtysomething along with Eward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz put it in 2018. To me, someone brought up on European art cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, thirtysomething had a lot of the Ingmar Bergman of the 1970s, particularly the Bergman of Scenes from a Marriage (1973), in it and a bit of The Wonder Years (ABC, 1988-1993) in it. And I suppose for those reasons alone I liked it and probably for those reasons I didn't and still don't give much credence to all the whingers whining about the shows whinging boomers. The whining seemed rather "realistic" to me.

Albert Auster and Leonard Quart explore several aspects of thirtysomething, aspects foregrounded in the subtitle of their monograph, in their thirtysomethng: Television, Women, Men, and Work (Lanham, MD.: Lexington Books, Critical Studies in Television series, 2008). Instead of being dedicated followers of Literary Studies, Film Studies, and Television Studies fashion, Auster and Quart take, as they call it, a "traditional" approach to thirtysomething. They, if perhaps far too briefly, and drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, explore the broader empirical economic, political, cultural, demographic, and geographic contexts of the show and explore the economic, by focusing on thirtysomethings representation of work, political, by pointing up that politics was only limitedly in the background of the show, cultural, by exploring the representation of masculinity and femininity in the show, demographic, by noting the shows focus on slice of middle class boomer life, and geographic, by pointing up the shows setting in Philadelphia, aspects of the show. For Auster and Quart thirtysomething was fundamentally a show about a group of friends, a kind of extended family of blood and choice, that mirrored yuppie boomerdom in late 1980s and early 1990s America.

Auster and Quart point up some of the problems with fashionable textualist readings of thirtysomething and Literary, Film, and Television Studies in general. Where textualist critics whinged about the stereotyped and caricatured portrayal of the female and male characters in the film, Auster and Quart argue that thirtysomething's characters were complex and contradictory and changed across the series, something that has become common in arc driven shows like the groundbreaking Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in what might be called television's third golden or its platinum age.

Auster and Quart are not afraid to criticise the show. They argue that politics was too much in the background of the show and they criticise the show for paying, in its early years, too little attention to work beyond how it impacted the inner and domestic lives of its characters. They do praise the show for exploring the Machiavellian labyrinths and moral dilemmas associated with it of the corporate ad agency Michael and Elliot go to work for after the failure of their own mom and pop advertising firm.

Though I am not enamoured of the this is how a work of literature, a film, or a television show should be written and this is how I would write it or film it if I were doing it school of criticism any more than I find the crystal ball approach to literature, film, and television text centred analysis school of criticism, compelling, Auster's and Quart's somewhat schematic monograph was, for me, an interesting trip down memory lane. thirtysomething truly was a groundbreaking show that brought Bergmanian slice of life intensity to an American television landscape that was changing thanks to the rise of satellite driven cable television. My So-Called Life (ABC, 1994-1995), by the way, created by thirtysomething and The Wonder Years alum Winnie Holtzman, and whose writers included several thirtysomething alums, would do something similar for teensomethings several years later.

As for thirtysomething's slice of life realism mixed with fantasy, flashbacks, and parody, I have to admit that I did see a bit of me in all the characters in thirtysomething and particularly in Gary since I wanted to be, once upon a time, an academic and I wasn't fully comfortable with what was expected of me when I graduated from the bohemian life and exchanged it, at least in theory, for the supposedly grown up bourgeois life. So after a few attempts at being a good bourgeois and trying to do all the things a good bourgeois was supposed to do, I gave up the ghost. Needless to say, I have been a bohemian, for the most part, ever since and I do not regret not "growing up" one whit.

The Books of My Life: Queer as Folk

In his BFI monograph Queer as Folk (London: BFI, BFI TV Classics series, 2007) Glyn Davis explores what he calls the "groundbreaking" TV serial, Queer as Folk. Commissioned by Channel 4, written by Russell T. Davies, and produced by Nicola Shindler's Red production company, this show in which virtually the central characters were gay or lesbian, was broadcast in two series of eight and two episodes respectively, went out over the air in 1999 and 2000.

In his monograph Davis, drawing on secondary research and published interviews, explores the cultural pedigree of Queer as Folk; the economic and cultural contexts of why Channel 4 commissioned the show; the backgrounds of Davies and Shindler; the production of the show, if perhaps too briefly; the collaborative nature of the making of Queer as Folk; the look of the show and how mise-en-scene related to character and broader economic context; the central theme of the show; the narrative structure of the show; and the impact the show had and the political controversies it left in its wake. Along the way, Davis notes that Queer as Folk broke the stereotypes and caricatures of gays and lesbian characters that had been the stock and trade of TV shows in the UK and US over the years; points up the inclusivity at the heart of the show; notes the sexualised gaze of the show which, he assumes, drew viewers to identity with its gay and lesbian characters; points up the centrality of created families to the show; notes the theme of unrequited love at the heart of the first series of Queer as Folk; and explores the common no more than 1 to 2 minute segments the show was divided into, a practise most modern television shows follow.

As with a lot of academic books, and particularly books written on film and television, Davis' archivally anemic book would probably have been better as an article rather than a 100 page plus monograph. Davis' excellent and interesting "Introduction" to Queer as Folk lays out, in microcosm, what he is going to say about the show in the pages that follow. That said, anyone with an interest in British television and queer television and studies in general will find much of interest in this monograph.

Beevis and Butthead Do College Studies....

I really get a kick out of these politically and ideologically correct notions that "evil lefties" have been taking over higher education since the 1960s. One has to admire the crackpot notion that college and university administrators trained in management techniques developed under managerial capitalism are inherently leftist. Such notions may be looney but the notion that they are leftist is truly daft and such notions also, of course, miss another thing that is obvious, social scientists and practitioners of the humanities do not, by and large, run universities and colleges these days, not even Oxbridge.

During my lifetime universities and colleges have indeed been taken over by a kabalistic cabal, neoliberals. Neoliberals have brought into universities those good old corporate capitalist mantras of, first, the customer is always right, and second, try not to offend the customer. Additionally, since neoliberal universities are run by devotees of another one of those capitalist mantras, namely, that growth is good, and since so much of financial growth in higher education comes from increasing the number of students or holding on to them, many universities have been recruiting and admitting students from other countries including China. And given the catechismal statement that you should not bite the hand that feeds, well you do the math.

The Books of My Life: Seven Up

In 1964 ITV broadcast a documentary called Seven Up!. As Stella Bruzzi notes in her monograph Seven Up (London: BFI, BFI TV Classics series, 2007), Seven Up! was the brainchild of an Australian and a Canadian working in Britain who wanted to explore the impact of class on the present and futures of English girls and boys. To get at the impact of class on English youth the makers of Seven Up! chose ten males and four women, some from the upper class, some from the middle class, the class the Up Series celebrates, claims Bruzzi, and some from the working class, and one minority. "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man", Seven Up!, quoting Ignatius of Loyola, declared. The fourteen were asked questions, some where shown at play, some at school, and all were brought together at the end of the 40 minute long "episode" at the zoo so that the camera and the voice of god narrator could "observe" how the fourteen interacted with each other.

As Bruzzi notes, Seven Up! was initially a one off. ITV, however, decided to revisit the participants in a second installment in the series in 1970, Seven Plus 7. Since then ITV and Michael Apted, one of the researchers in Seven Up! and now the chief interviewer and director starting with the third installment in the series, have revisited as many of the participants who wanted to be participate every seven years in 21 Up (1977), 28 Up (1984), 35 Up (1991), 42 Up (1998), 49 Up (2005), 56 Up (2012), and 62 Up (2019). the most recent installment of the series. As a result, as Bruzzi notes, the Up Series has become one of  the most celebrated and iconic documentaries and perhaps the most celebrated and iconic documentary series ever, has been mimicked by a host of other Up like documentaries, and has influenced a host of documentaries that came after it.

Bruzzi's monograph on the Up Series is a good workmanlike exploration of the series. In her monograph Bruzzi briefly explores the influences on the series, the contextual background to the series, the production of the series, the "participants" in the series, the influence of the series, and the "narrative" structure of the series. Bruzzi's monograph is enhanced by interviews with two of the "children", Michael Apted, and executive producer Claire Lewis.

Bruzzi's monograph puts Up into the context of the realist tradition of documentary cinema with its emphasis on exploring everyday life and the direct documentary tradition. Bruzzi also explores the changes in the series over its 66 year history. Bruzzi argues that the Up Series changed with 28 Up, transforming itself from a series focused collectively on class with most of the interviews conducted along the class based lines of the "children", to one in which interviews were conducted individually with the 'participants. Bruzzi argues that the tragic trajectory of one of the lives of one of the "children", Neil, was one of the main factors for this change to a more individualistic format, as were changes in the television documentary form itself as television documentaries became more focused on the lives of individuals in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Up Series has stuck with this format ever since. As a result of this change from a more collectively focused documentary to a more individualistically focused one, a change marked by a change from the juxtaposition of posh participants to working class "participants to individual interviews, Bruzzi argues, the narrative of the Up Series changed somewhat and, like other documentaries that focused on individual lives, used the individual lives of the "children" to make points about the broader social and cultural contexts of the lives of the "children" As Bruzzi notes, over the years the "children" and particularly Neil, have become kind of "reality" stars and the Up Series became a forerunner and role model of the "reality" shows of the late 20th century and early 21st. Many of the "participants" also became, very early on in the series, critics of how the series portrayed giving the series a reflexive quality. This was one of the reasons, as Bruzzi notes, that some of the "children" refused to participate in later installments in the series.

If you haven't seen the Up Series it is definitely worth your time. If you are looking for a good guide to this documentary bildungsroman, Bruzzi's introduction and exploration of it, is also worth your time. Bruzzi's textual analysis of the series alone is probably worth the price of admission  even if some might like to see more production analysis of the series grounded in a greater degree of archival research.

The Books of My Life: Essential Concepts in Sociology

Anthony Giddens's and Philip Sutton's Essential Concepts in Sociology (Cambridge, England: Polity, second edition 2017) is a kind of Keywords--Raymond Williams's famous book on the history of keywords in the humanities and social sciences--for sociology. At the heart of Essentials are 67 "essential concepts" in the academic discipline of Sociology selected by the authors. For each of these 67 key or essential concepts in sociology, the book defines the concept, explores the origins of the concept, delineates the meaning and interpretation of the concept, notes critical points related to the concept, and offers a discussion of the continuing relevance of the concept to academic Sociology (and by extension Political Science, History, Social Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, and Social Psychology). 

Each of the 67 concepts Giddens and Sutton explore, concepts like society, culture, sick role, division of labour, sexuality, and stigma, for instance, are, in turn, organised into ten themes, as Giddens and Sutton call them-Thinking Sociologically; Doing Sociology; Environment and Urbanism; Structures of Society; Unequal Life Chances; Relationships and the Life Course; Interaction and Communication; Health Illness and the Body; Crime and Social Control; and Political Sociology. Organising the concepts into themes allows the authors of the book to touch on and succinctly introduce readers to most of the central sub-disciplines of the discipline of Sociology in the twenty-first century.

Though one might quibble with the concepts Giddens and Sutton include or exclude--I found it unfortunate that the book did not include a discussion of civil religion, public religion, or civic religion given its centrality to national identity--Essential Concepts in Sociology does an excellent job of exploring, in a little over 200 pages, most of the central theoretical concepts of the discipline today. In addition to being brief--each essay is three to four pages--and to the point, each essay is written for a general audience making it an excellent guide to the state of the current Sociological art, and a book that can be usefully assigned in general education introductory classes in Sociology. At its heart, after all, Essentials tells us things all of us need to know and understand about the human condition, something everyone, including every college student, needs, in my opinion, to think about at least once in their life.