Zizek On Avatar
Posted by onehundredflowers on March 7, 2010
This was originally posted on newstatesman.com.
“What one should thus bear in mind is that, although Avatar’s narrative is supposed to take place in one and the same “real” reality, we are dealing – at the level of the underlying symbolic economy – with two realities: the ordinary world of imperialist colonialism on the one hand, and a fantasy world, populated by aborigines who live in an incestuous link with nature, on the other. (The latter should not be confused with the miserable reality of actual exploited peoples.) The end of the film should be read as the hero fully migrating from reality into the fantasy world – as if, in The Matrix, Neo were to decide to immerse himself again fully in the matrix.”
Return of the natives
James Cameron’s Avatar tells the story of a disabled ex-marine, sent from earth to infiltrate a race of blue-skinned aboriginal people on a distant planet and persuade them to let his employer mine their homeland for natural resources. Through a complex biological manipulation, the hero’s mind gains control of his “avatar”, in the body of a young aborigine.
These aborigines are deeply spiritual and live in harmony with nature (they can plug a cable that sticks out of their body into horses and trees to communicate with them). Predictably, the marine falls in love with a beautiful aboriginal princess and joins the aborigines in battle, helping them to throw out the human invaders and saving their planet. At the film’s end, the hero transposes his soul from his damaged human body to his aboriginal avatar, thus becoming one of them.
Given the 3-D hyperreality of the film, with its combination of real actors and animated digital corrections, Avatar should be compared to films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) or The Matrix (1999). In each, the hero is caught between our ordinary reality and an imagined universe – of cartoons in Roger Rabbit, of digital reality in The Matrix, or of the digitally enhanced everyday reality of the planet in Avatar. What one should thus bear in mind is that, although Avatar’s narrative is supposed to take place in one and the same “real” reality, we are dealing – at the level of the underlying symbolic economy – with two realities: the ordinary world of imperialist colonialism on the one hand, and a fantasy world, populated by aborigines who live in an incestuous link with nature, on the other. (The latter should not be confused with the miserable reality of actual exploited peoples.) The end of the film should be read as the hero fully migrating from reality into the fantasy world – as if, in The Matrix, Neo were to decide to immerse himself again fully in the matrix.
This does not mean, however, that we should reject Avatar on behalf of a more “authentic” acceptance of the real world. If we subtract fantasy from reality, then reality itself loses its consistency and disintegrates. To choose between “either accepting reality or choosing fantasy” is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality. Because the hero of Avatar doesn’t do this, his subjective position is what Jacques Lacan, with regard to de Sade, called le dupe de son fantasme.
This is why it is interesting to imagine a sequel to Avatar in which, after a couple of years (or, rather, months) of bliss, the hero starts to feel a weird discontent and to miss the corrupted human universe. The source of this discontent is not only that every reality, no matter how perfect it is, sooner or later disappoints us. Such a perfect fantasy disappoints us precisely because of its perfection: what this perfection signals is that it holds no place for us, the subjects who imagine it.
The utopia imagined in Avatar follows the Hollywood formula for producing a couple – the long tradition of a resigned white hero who has to go among the savages to find a proper sexual partner (just recall Dances With Wolves). In a typical Hollywood product, everything, from the fate of the Knights of the Round Table to asteroids hitting the earth, is transposed into an Oedipal narrative. The ridiculous climax of this procedure of staging great historical events as the background to the formation of a couple is Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981), in which Hollywood found a way to rehabilitate the October Revolution, arguably the most traumatic historical event of the 20th century. In Reds, the couple of John Reed and Louise Bryant are in deep emotional crisis; their love is reignited when Louise watches John deliver an impassioned revolutionary speech.
What follows is the couple’s lovemaking, intersected with archetypal scenes from the revolution, some of which reverberate in an all too obvious way with the sex; say, when John penetrates Louise, the camera cuts to a street where a dark crowd of demonstrators envelops and stops a penetrating “phallic” tram – all this against the background of the singing of “The Internationale”. When, at the orgasmic climax, Lenin himself appears, addressing a packed hall of delegates, he is more a wise teacher overseeing the couple’s love-initiation than a cold revolutionary leader. Even the October Revolution is OK, according to Hollywood, if it serves the reconstitution of a couple.
In a similar way, is Cameron’s previous blockbuster, Titanic, really about the catastrophe of the ship hitting the iceberg? One should be
attentive to the precise moment of the catastrophe: it takes place when the young lovers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), immediately after consummating their relationship, return to the ship’s deck. Even more crucial is that, on deck, Winslet tells her lover that when the ship reaches New York the next morning, she will leave with him, preferring a life of poverty with her true love to a false, corrupted life among the rich.
At this moment the ship hits the iceberg, in order to prevent what would undoubtedly have been the true catastrophe, namely the couple’s life in New York. One can safely guess that soon the misery of everyday life would have destroyed their love. The catastrophe thus occurs in order to save their love, to sustain the illusion that, if it had not happened, they would have lived “happily ever after”. A further clue is provided by DiCaprio’s final moments. He is freezing in the cold water, dying, while Winslet is safely floating on a large piece of wood. Aware that she is losing him, she cries “I’ll never let you go!” – and as she says this, she pushes him away with her hands.
Why? Because he has done his job. Beneath the story of a love affair, Titanic tells another story, that of a spoiled high-society girl with an identity crisis: she is confused, doesn’t know what to do with herself, and DiCaprio, much more than just her love partner, is a kind of “vanishing mediator” whose function is to restore her sense of identity and purpose in life. His last words before he disappears into the freezing North Atlantic are not the words of a departing lover, but the message of a preacher, telling her to be honest and faithful to herself.
Cameron’s superficial Hollywood Marxism (his crude privileging of the lower classes and caricatural depiction of the cruel egotism of the rich) should not deceive us. Beneath this sympathy for the poor lies a reactionary myth, first fully deployed by Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous. It concerns a young rich person in crisis who gets his (or her) vitality restored through brief intimate contact with the full-blooded life of the poor. What lurks behind the compassion for the poor is their vampiric exploitation.
But today, Hollywood increasingly seems to have abandoned this formula. The film of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons must surely be the first case of a Hollywood adaptation of a popular novel in which there is sex between the hero and the heroine in the book, but not in its film version – in clear contrast to the old tradition of adding a sex scene to a film based on a novel in which there is none. There is nothing liberating about this absence of sex; we are rather dealing with yet more proof of the phenomenon described by Alain Badiou in his Éloge de l’amour – today, in our pragmatic-narcissistic era, the very notion of falling in love, of a passionate attachment to a sexual partner, is considered obsolete and dangerous.
Avatar’s fidelity to the old formula of creating a couple, its full trust in fantasy, and its story of a white man marrying the aboriginal princess and becoming king, make it ideologically a rather conservative, old-fashioned film. Its technical brilliance serves to cover up this basic conservatism. It is easy to discover, beneath the politically correct themes (an honest white guy siding with ecologically sound aborigines against the “military-industrial complex” of the imperialist invaders), an array of brutal racist motifs: a paraplegic outcast from earth is good enough to get the hand of a beautiful local princess, and to help the natives win the decisive battle. The film teaches us that the only choice the aborigines have is to be saved by the human beings or to be destroyed by them. In other words, they can choose either to be the victim of imperialist reality, or to play their allotted role in the white man’s fantasy.
At the same time as Avatar is making money all around the world (it generated $1bn after less than three weeks of release), something that strangely resembles its plot is taking place. The southern hills of the Indian state of Orissa, inhabited by the Dongria Kondh people, were sold to mining companies that plan to exploit their immense reserves of bauxite (the deposits are considered to be worth at least $4trn). In reaction to this project, a Maoist (Naxalite) armed rebellion exploded.
Arundhati Roy, in Outlook India magazine, writes that the Maoist guerrilla army
is made up almost entirely of desperately poor tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people who, even after 60 years of India’s so-called independence, have not had access to education, health care or legal redress. They are people who have been mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in large part to the Maoist cadres who have lived and worked and fought by their sides for decades. If the tribals have taken up arms, they have done so because a government which has given them nothing but violence and neglect now wants to snatch away the last thing they have – their land . . . They believe that if they do not fight for their land, they will be annihilated . . . their ragged, malnutritioned army, the bulk of whose soldiers have never seen a train or a bus or even a small town, are fighting only for survival.
The Indian prime minister characterised this rebellion as the “single largest internal security threat”; the big media, which present it as extremist resistance to progress, are full of stories about “red terrorism”, replacing stories about “Islamist terrorism”. No wonder the Indian state is responding with a big military operation against “Maoist strongholds” in the jungles of central India. And it is true that both sides are resorting to great violence in this brutal war, that the “people’s justice” of the Maoists is harsh. However, no matter how unpalatable this violence is to our liberal taste, we have no right to condemn it. Why? Because their situation is precisely that of Hegel’s rabble: the Naxalite rebels in India are starving tribal people, to whom the minimum of a dignified life is denied.
So where is Cameron’s film here? Nowhere: in Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists. The true avatar is thus Avatar itself – the film substituting for reality.
James Cameron responded to criticisms [not to Zizek in particular] in this interview on The Charlie Rose Show.
Tell No Lies said
Just when you thought there was nothing new to say on the subject. From Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the Naxalites, much to chew on.
Radical-Eyes said
Thoughts on Zizek on Avatar
On one level, Zizek seems to revel in reading texts against the grain; in showing that the true significance of cultural works is just the opposite of what one would have assumed.
Is this sheer perversity, or is there a method to this mode of reading?
Generally speaking, Zizek tends to be critical of cultural works that—whatever their ostensibly radical or progressive contents—he perceives as domesticating the (traumatic) Real of social contradiction. Especially those works that appear to him to smooth over or package political conflict with the trappings of Oedipal or romantic love plots.
So then he is critical of Avatar for the way that its avatar-fantasy imaginary-escapist (two worlds) structure allows for an oh-so-seamless insertion of a white settler colonist soldier into the ranks of the eco-friendly blue native Na’vi, a process of course facilitated by the predictable love story, between Jake Sully and the warrior Princess. (Indeed, he does seem to make this process seem more seamless than I recall it being in the actual film…)
Certainly there is something very interesting and ironic about a film that uses hundreds of millions of dollars worth of state of the art digital space age technology and virtual reality computer programs to offer us all a collective fantasy of “going native” and going “back to nature.”…Zizek is on to something here…
Nonetheless, there seems to be what we might call a certain determinism of form at work in Zizek’s readings here (and elsewhere, for instance in his treatment of REDS). As if the family and/or racial ideology of these films totally trumps any sort of resistant content. As if there is only one type of viewer’s gaze engaging these works…As if the social reception of a film is not a highly over-determined and contradictory affair…
What, I wonder, does Zizek make for instance of those Chinese workers and Palestinian protesters who have been dressing in blue like the Na’vi so as to draw global media attention to their real world struggles?
Certainly Zizek does draw out an important point however when he emphasizes how actually existing revolutionary resistance—he references the Naxalite Maoists who are currently under state assault in India—will tend to appear, at least from the outside or from within the frames of dominant reactionary media, as horrifying, frightening, etc…as “terrorism,” not as “easily accessible love story.” No doubt it would have been provocative and productive for viewers of the film if Avatar has shown us PR reps of the Empire labeling Na’vi resistance “terrorism.” Or even showing us elements within the Na’vi who wanted to actually engage in “terrorism” or “suicide attacks” as a way of driving out the invaders.
As has been discussed on Kasama already, there are many ways that one could imagine Avatar going further to expose the traumatic nature of such actually existing social conflicts and oppressed people’s struggles.
But does the aesthetic /formal mode of getting viewers to identify with and root for the Na’vi in their struggle against the Empire utterly negate the basic political coordinates of that anti-imperial sympathy? Zizek seems to think so.
Is there not something to be said for a film that gets hundreds of millions of people, in this country and across the world to cheer for the destruction of forces that could be easily seen as representatives of the (US) “military-industrial complex”? Zizek seems to think not.
I would tend to disagree with him on both counts.
Or rather to point out that cultural texts can be more contradictory than he allows, and that these contradictions can be not just disabling but productive, as they enter a world that is itself, yes, full of social contradictions.
Not only radical is the rebel whose total rejection of imperialism appears as “terrorism”, but so is the rebel labeled as a “terrorist” who paints himself in Na’vi blue to elicit sympathy from those who have been trained to hate and fear him.
Radical-Eyes said
Zizek writes:
“This does not mean, however, that we should reject Avatar on behalf of a more “authentic” acceptance of the real world. If we subtract fantasy from reality, then reality itself loses its consistency and disintegrates. To choose between “either accepting reality or choosing fantasy” is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality. Because the hero of Avatar doesn’t do this, his subjective position is what Jacques Lacan, with regard to de Sade, called le dupe de son fantasme.”
But is it the case that JakeSully does NOT change his fantasy? Does his basic subjective orientation remain escapist?
The film, in the end, does give JakeSully his legs back, letting him fully assume the form of a Na’vi.
It would have been really interesting had the film NOT gone this way, and had left us with a reminder of the gap between Sully and the Na’vi.
But really Jake does not know this transformation is possible or likely earlier in the film, does he? Indeed, it is the Colonel on the military base that promises him his legs back, in exchange for his loyal service. Thus we might say that JS’s fight for the Na’vi is in some sense not only that of a “race/empire traitor” but of a “revolutionary suicide”…He gives up hope of getting his own legs back…in order to…well, what? What is his real motivation here? And how so are his motives read and experienced by viewers? These questions need to be answered to address Zizek’s claim about Jake’s basic unchanged subjectivity…
Perhaps, what Zizek is saying is that even though JS cannot know it literaally, WE DO intuit this possibility proper subjects of Hollywood movies; that the film’s romantic sexual ideology makes this neat union a foregone conclusion.
Radical-Eyes said
Zizek writes:
“So where is Cameron’s film here? Nowhere: in Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists. The true avatar is thus Avatar itself – the film substituting for reality.”
Again, there is an important point here. No doubt.
But, the Na’vi DO fight back, killing their enemies, no? They do not simply agree to peaceful coexistence.
Furthermore, JS’s passing point that “there is no more green” left on earth reflects back on our own present, prompting us to wonder what the world may look in the future if mining companies like the one’s in Orissa have their way.
Hegemonik said
In response to Radical-Eyes:
IMHO, Zizek’s expertise in film is an element that’s strangely both front-and-center in his work and yet totally disregarded, perhaps because he has long since moved on from what initially brought him to the public consciousness (Hitchcock and its relationship to psychoanalysis).
Nevertheless, I think it’s important in that he could easily have taken the Adorno route which is simply dismissing Hollywood entertainment, or for that matter the Roger Ebert route which is to take apart all the technical aspects of a canon of consensus favorites (while ignoring blockbuster fare). I think as a former dissident (and still a communist) in the old Yugoslavia, it has kind of forced him to take apart films in a way that is askew — for example, his criticisms of the Matrix trilogy isn’t so interesting for him regurgitating everything that was great about the first film, but why the trilogy as a whole is weak (namely, that it felt like the stakes were too high by Reloaded that the ending of Revolutions seemed both trite and politically weak).
And to be personal, having been exposed to so many bad freshmen year Philosophy 101 course discussions inspired by The Matrix, having someone really explore the issues the whole series raised (and could not resolve) isn’t so bad.
On Avatar itself: Zizek’s comparison of the fictional Navi with the real indigenous/Naxalite groups is that the utopian life of the Navi makes it way too easy for the viewer to accept both Sully’s defection and the Navi revolt against the invading humans. And I think that is precisely shown by the Palestinians dressing in blueface to protest the border fence: video of Palestinians condemning the wall, throwing rocks, etc. feels as if it is both forgotten and vulgar. The Palestinian action wasn’t just good PR that injected novelty into the playbook, it was also wicked satire. They not only found an inspiration, but they also found one of the best ways to mock U.S. and Western complicity in their dispossession.
DR said
It is maddening to the extreme to encounter such an extensive array of criticism, (some of which is very comprehensive, and quite cynical, or laden with cynical contempt) in the general vein of Zizek’s, being leveled at James Cameron’s “Avatar”. Anyone who wants to get a clear sense of what this movie is all about, in addition to actually seeing it with fresh, unjaded eyes, would do better by going to the horse’s mouth. I highly recommend Charlie Rose’s interview with Cameron.
I say this because then such critics (among them Neuwirth, and Zizek, with their particular focuses, and some similarities) can be seen for what they have actually been doing: Creating straw men of various sorts to foist upon us warped perspectives, based on their own insistence of “seeing” this movie through some very fractured prisms. They all could stand to learn from the Na’vi ethos of “seeing”.
Philosophically they do not deal with the reality of what the movie is. Instead, they filter it through their own skewed perspectives. Twisting and packaging. It is idealism plain and simple.
It’s tiring and starting to get boring as well. Shit wide of the mark.
If such critics themselves were to engage Cameron’s own professed motivations and explanations, how would they do so? I think, if they wished to hold on to their own cynical contempt, or their own “special” insights, they would have to insist that Cameron himself is being deceitful. That he is lying. That the movie is not about what he claims it is. That he is manipulating people. That his motivations are something quite the opposite of what he purports. And they’d have to find evidence of Cameron’s “deceit” to prove their point. I don’t, however, see any of them going anywhere near that. Too inconvenient. It’s much easier to piece together a narrative based on subjective assertions. To the extent that this approach is rigid, it can also be dogmatic.
Enough of all this charlatanism.
Ian Anderson said
Enjoyed Zizek’s analysis, but I’d agree with this:
“Nonetheless, there seems to be what we might call a certain determinism of form at work in Zizek’s readings here (and elsewhere, for instance in his treatment of REDS). As if the family and/or racial ideology of these films totally trumps any sort of resistant content. As if there is only one type of viewer’s gaze engaging these works…As if the social reception of a film is not a highly over-determined and contradictory affair…”
Reactionary texts can serve as inspiration for people resisting oppression. In particular, queer movements have drawn enormous amounts from bizarre hetero pop culture – and more concretely there’s the Palestinian protest.
In materialist analysis of fiction film, it’s nigh-on-impossible to draw concrete conclusions about the symbolic narrative. Much more useful to see a dialectical relationship between the content of the film and the surrounding world.
Hegemonik said
Why should a “skewed” perspective be any better than going in with virgin eyes? Are we supposed to play at faux-naivete, as if James Cameron’s ideas fell from the sky? As if he is not as contradictory a figure as any other artist? In some ways, I am reminded of those who defended Britney’s comeback: this is our LEAVE PANDORA ALONE! moment, I guess.
Come on. Cameron has as much baggage as the next director, and it’s as evident the minute you check the credits on his IMDb page and see such vile, racist, and trashy fare as True Lies. Not to mention that he sucked much of the radical content out of the original Alien to make Aliens a trashy 80′s action-adventure with space marines.
Even in his interviews, Cameron qualifies whatever radical content there is in his film by saying “I suppose you could say I believe in peace through superior firepower. I don’t believe that the human race is going to suddenly evolve to the point that we can all join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya.’”
So no, Cameron is not Eisenstein, and Zizek has as much of a right to interpret the film as a product Cameron does.
And re: Ian Anderson: the point of kitsch is precisely that it is a form of satire – it mocks what it depicts. It takes the piss out of things, which is to say it refuses to take them seriously.
templeton said
just a couple thoughts.
most people that i have talked to about this film who are not particularly “political”, from different sections of society (middle class, working class of different nationalities) do not see anything remarkable in this story. In fact they said basically what zizek did in terms of the story- predictable, heard it before, old fashioned. oh and the special effects were cool. they weren’t cheering for the destruction of US empire. I’m not being dismissive or pessimistic here. just anecdotes but I think it’s actually remarkable that this is what they saw.
the point about the palestinians and chinese workers dressing as the “Na’vi” (the fictional stereotypical indigenous,group that people here seem to be discussing as if they actually existed) affirms exactly what zizek is saying the fiction of the story is not relatable to the actual plight within our same reality. And what do you think they want jake scully to come to save them?
Cameron can attempt to make a movie about liberation. I believe he tried, he just failed.
MLW said
It should be noted that Zizek wants more alienation, this is one of the reasons why he rails agaist the concrete reality propagated by avatar. The film has its problems and I doubt theres gonna be a primitivist trend that comes out of it. However when zizek talks about jake and the possibility of him wanting out, he should consider the history of captured western soldiers in North America by the natives who after getting a whiff of what was a far less alienated existence with little to no exploitation did not think twice about going back to the future.
Radical-Eyes said
A MIND EXPERIMENT:
If I were a Hollywood loving US or Israeli or Indian soldier asked to move upon or even fire upon poor people protesting my presence, and I saw those people dressed as Na’vi, isn’t there at least a chance that I would have a subversive thought or two before I obeyed the order to fire at will?
My point is not to suggest that AVATAR bars people (or even discourages them) from reading it in variously domesticated ways that obscure its anti-imperial message. My point is simply that, moreso than Zizek’s readings suggest, these symbols and narrative figures are a terrain of struggle, open to appropriation in various ways…including radical ones.
khephra said
I’m also an avid appreciator of Žižek’s work. If interested, here’s my response to his critique of Avatar.
REN said
It is disappointing that the denizens of this site seem so unfamiliar with even the basic texts and ideas of leftist cultural criticism. You all need re-read your Marcuse, Adorno, Benjamin or at least their English counterparts (try Terry Eagleton’s “Marxism and Literary Criticism”)and execute a thorough self critique.
Bottom-line: Products of the culture industry, whatever there declared “message”, are never progressive because they are products of alienating labor intended to be consumed in ways that that deny and subjective agency. Relying on Cameron for an explanation of the films meaning is analogous to relying on Bush and Cheney for an explanation of the Iraq war.
Avatar is a sanitized fantasy about an ecological utopia that merely serves to compensate for the absence of any such experience of nature in industrial societies. The reality is that this experience is consumed in a capitalist wasteland behind plastic glasses, and always for a price.
What is more, the film’s corporate / militarist villains are such caricatures of themselves that they are incapable of functioning as a critique.
Attempts to appropriate a radical message from the film are well-intentioned but ultimately misguided and ineffectual.
Bob H said
Well, REN, how can you assume that “hear” at this site no one has read “there” Marxist literary theory?
Why do you assume that people always consume mass culture for a price, when no doubt the torrents for pirate copies of “Avatar” are being seeded as we speak?
Why assume that cartoon villains and heroes have no power to act as a critique of capitalism, when so many “Tea Baggers” seem to find it quite effective to act is a cartoon way? Does referring to pop-culture ideas and characters when doing popular education automatically negate its political character?
I guess CLR James doesn’t cut any ice with you, eh?
DR said
REN said: Relying on Cameron for an explanation of the films meaning is analogous to relying on Bush and Cheney for an explanation of the Iraq war.
[At Comic Con 2009, Cameron told attendees that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that". He wanted this to thrill him "as a fan" but also have a conscience "that maybe in the enjoying of it makes you think a little bit about the way you interact with nature and your fellow man".[74] He added that “the Na’vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are” and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans “represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future”. (Press, Associated (August 18, 2009). “‘Avatar Friday’: fans will be shown preview of James Cameron’s 3-D film”. telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved February 20, 2010).]
[(from: The Australian 12/ll/09, 9:02 am)-- while implicit criticism of America's conduct in the War on Terror...is not the main point of “Avatar”, Cameron said that Americans had a moral responsibility to understand the impact that their country's recent military campaigns had had. “We went down a path that cost several hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. I don't think the American people even know why it was done. So it's all about opening your eyes”.]
[Director James Cameron acknowledged that the film is "certainly...about imperialism in the sense that the way human history has always worked is that people with more military or technological might tend to supplant or destroy people who are weaker, usually for their resources".]
[“I have an absolute reverence for men who have a sense of duty, courage, but I'm also a child of the 60s. There's a part of me who wants to put a daisy in the end of the gun barrel. I believe in peace through superior firepower, but on the other hand I abhor the abuse of power and creeping imperialism disguised as patriotism. Some of these things you can't raise without being called unpatriotic, but I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled, or it becomes Rome”.]
All the above bracketed quotes are from James Cameron (taken from Wikipedia, some with sources included). Again I refer anyone to Charlie Rose’s interview with Cameron. To dismiss all of this out of hand would be just plain weird. To liken Cameron’s self-professed motives to Bush and Cheney’s explanations of the Iraq War smacks of an exercise in purist dogma. One shouldn’t use the likes of Godard and Pasolini as a club against Cameron. They are, indeed, great innovators and film makers. But, it should not be demanded that everything has to conform to those standards to pass the test of “criticism”.
In fact, we have in Cameron, a director who has a conscience, who is anguished by,and who has a not-so-flawed perception of, the current trajectory and dynamics of modern society, and who is making a heavy statement about it. And in my book, with “Avatar”, he has taken a bit of a wrecking ball to a wall that must be brought down. For this, he deserves a very appreciative nod.
Are there problems with “Avatar”? Undeniably, yes, and some of them stem from problems in Cameron’s own outlook and methods. These we might approach with him, if there is a way, from the standpoint of bringing him along with us for a most liberating ride. I think he has helped us to see some things, and we should return the favor.
I have blogged on other sites about “Avatar”, mainly in its defense. And, I have come across similar approaches which condemn the level of standards of the movie, and, in contrast, uphold the likes of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, or “Princess Mononoke” (an anime dealing with very similar themes), or Ursula K. Leguin’s “The Word for World is Forest” (a novel), as being more nuanced, lofty, thought provoking. Because they were posed as “better works of art” on similar themes, I checked into them. And all of them were excellent. They did, however have different approaches. I fail to see how any of them, can somehow, solely by dint of a given set of standards of criticism, mutually exclude any other.
On this, I seriously recommend Mao’s “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art”. There are problems with this, too, but I believe his discussion of the tension between “raising standards” and “popularizing” is totally right on target.
nando said
REN writes:
I think this comment is worth thinking through and discussing — if only because that kind of thinking remains quite influential.
In my opinion it is wrong. It is true (even obvious) that a great deal of art in capitalist society is produced on the basis of capitalist relations — but that does not mean that its content is irrelevent (or that its message needs “quotation marks” around it.)
We may have leaflets printed by expoited kids at kinkos — but the content (message) of those leaflets still deserve an independent analysis.
That content works on several levels:
a) there is what the author intended (i.e. the subjective desire of the creator(s)
b) there is what the piece textually says (i.e. a careful textual deconstruction of the actual script, sequence of events, and subtexts within that)
c) there is a difficult (always complex) assessment of the objective impact of the work (on different audiences, and in its different aspects).
Obviously interviews with the creators are important for uncovering their subjective intent (which they may, or may not, describe honestly). And as we assess impact, it is worth comparing their intention with impact.
There are other contradictions: Apocalypse Now was made by people with the intention of making an antiwar film, its actual text (the script based on Heart of Darkness) is actually rather nihilistic and even reactionary in many ways (portrayal of the vietnamese people, the acceptance of colonial sense of the “other,” the view of “the horror, the horror,” the view of ruthlessness as a central defining characteristic of humanity etc.) And then there was impact…. which was in turn complex.
There is in some corners a rather strange and reductionist view that says: it was made in hollywood by zillionaires, what else do we need to know? And so the only “task” is to uncover the details that justify the (preconceived) verdict…. i.e. the only question is HOW precisely it is fucked up.
Really it is an example of a mechanical thinking that avoids analysis and particularity.
In fact, and I think it should be rather evident, there are tons of radical and progressive works that have tumbled out of capitalist societies over the last decades — including films. And this is because there is complex political and ideaological struggle going on in society — that is both reflected and manifested in the cultural arenas.
[Take a second and just revisit this list.]
As for REN’s list of cultural theory and criticism — i would second the call to engage these works (critically), but I find it hard to imagine that these often subtle and perceptive theorists can be boiled down in a way that reinforces REN’s mistaken approach.
Radical-Eyes said
I want to echo Nando’s above argument, and also his openness and encouragement of a critical engagement with thinkers such as Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, and Eagleton.
In hopes of propelling such a critical interrogration of these thinkers forward, I’d like to issue a challenge:
REN:
You wrote:
“It is disappointing that the denizens of this site seem so unfamiliar with even the basic texts and ideas of leftist cultural criticism. You all need re-read your Marcuse, Adorno, Benjamin or at least their English counterparts (try Terry Eagleton’s “Marxism and Literary Criticism”)and execute a thorough self critique.
Bottom-line: Products of the culture industry, whatever there declared “message”, are never progressive because they are products of alienating labor intended to be consumed in ways that that deny and subjective agency.”
Putting to one side the mean-spirited and presumptuous tone of your post (I for one know my Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse quite well! And would you, REN, like to be called a “denizen”?), I would like to challenge you to find places in the writings of the above thinkers where they articulate ideas that you think would validate the position that you state above vs. mass culture within capitalism.
It is true that Adorno was very critical and in many ways pessimistic about the overall trajectory of the culture industries–as well of may specific works from these industries. But as Adorno was a consistently dialectical thinker, I really don’t that his at times nightmarish characterization of capitalist mass culture can be reduced to the one-sided quip you write above.
And with Benjamin and Marcuse both it is VERY different–making your characterization, I believe, even less accurate.
Both of these thinkers (whether we agree with them or not) hold out a great deal of hope for the role that modern mass culture may play on and for the left. Benjamin’s “Art in the Age of Mechanical Production” is a classic statement of WB’s radical optimism (which of course, Adorno took issue with).
As for Marcuse (or someone like Ernst Bloch), one of his dialectical insights was that modern capitalist consumer society–even through such degraded works as commercial advertising– was, despite itself, producing needs amongst people that it could not in fact satisfy, needs that pointed beyond the limits of capitalist society and consumerism.
At the same time, of course, there remain powerful forces that work to continue to co-opt these human and even potentially revolutionary desires, and to direct people towards commodities as the “answer” to their needs….But there is a tension here nonetheless…Even an irreducible one: in order to pursue its own ends of accumulating exchange value off of people’s leisure time (in addition to their labor time), capitalist consumer culture must tap into–and hence stir up– people’s true desires, wants, needs, dreams, and aspirations.
Yes, there are limits to how far the culture industries will cater to and stir up those desires and dreams of the people that would threaten to expose of encourage the overthrow of existing social relations, and there are various ways that the system polices the culture…(The blacklists and anti-communist purges of the 1950s would be an example of this.) But the very fact that the state and the ruling class need to police this terrain suggests that the system is not in its “normal” functioning quite so monolithic and totalitarian as your post sugests.
Short of installing fascism–which remains another box of tools in the ruling class’s closet–the market’s anarchic and competitive nature, as well as the subjective political outlook of cultural producers themselves, ensures that the work that the CI put out, however shitty, politically backward, and built by the sweat of exploited stage-hands, in many cases will contain contradictions, dissident ideas and narratives as well as reactionary and repressive ones.
I challenge you REN, to proove otherwise, bringing primary texts and passages into play to support your positiion, of course!
Many may benefit from how you answer such a challenge–at least as long as you actually bring some of what Adorno and co. had to say, and don’t work from a one-sided, second-hand appraisal of these nuanced and dialectical materials.
Radical-Eyes said
The Charlie Rose interview with James Cameron is very much checking out: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10866
REN said
It seems my “mean spirited” “dogmatism” will at least have served to generate some debate. It what follows I will attempt some clarifications and responses…
DR, you have criticized my comparison of relying on Cameron for an explanation of the film’s meaning to relying on Bush for an explanation of the Iraq war. Perhaps I misspoke here, or perhaps you misinterpreted. My aim was not necessarily to prove that Cameron is as maliciously reactionary as the Bush administration, but that reliance on an author’s stated intentions is a poor substitute for an understanding of how the work actually functions within culture. Not only might an author not be fully aware of their own intentions (perhaps even sinister ones), but the works themselves may function in a way completely different from those intentions. Obviously this is particularly important to be aware of when dealing with texts that claim to be emancipatory. You have provided a long list of seemingly well intentioned quotes from Cameron. Obviously I could provide an equally long list of seemingly well-intention quotes from Bush. The fact remains that the Iraq war was a travesty and Avatar is a commercial product generating millions for the entertainment industry. You would not accept Bush’s explanation of the Iraq war, so why accept Cameron’s explanation of Avatar? And this, Nando, is precisely why we must put the word “message” in quotation marks.
My suggestion is merely that leftist cultural criticism can provide a framework with which to make these kinds of judgments. I am afraid, however, that by emphasizing how “subtle and perceptive” thinkers of the Frankfurt School were, we may risk blurring the lines they set forth. There are definite (and different) limitations that each placed on the capacity for culture industry products to function as a critique. When we evaluate these sorts of cultural productions, we owe it to ourselves and to these authors to make use of the labors they have already undergone.
Radical Eyes, my one-sidedness here is some what calculated and polemical. Mostly, I would like to call attention to the relative absence of critical engagement and support for independent cultural production. We might make an analogy here to Badiou’s criticisms of the anti-globalization movement, which he has accused of only “chasing after power”; that is, of limiting itself to registering its dissent wherever the powerful assemble, rather than constructing an independent or autonomous political space (however local). It seems to me that the myopic focus on billion dollar films like Avatar deserves a similar critique.
Someone mentioned piracy of copyrighted films. I couldn’t agree more:
Stealing Avatar is more liberating than watching it!
Radical Eyes, with regard to your challenge, I am inclined to say that I cannot accept because we are already in agreement. i.e….
“Short of installing fascism–which remains another box of tools in the ruling class’s closet–the market’s anarchic and competitive nature, as well as the subjective political outlook of cultural producers themselves, ensures that the work that the CI put out, however shitty, politically backward, and built by the sweat of exploited stage-hands, in many cases will contain contradictions, dissident ideas and narratives as well as reactionary and repressive ones.”
On second thought, however, it occurs to me that someone like Adorno, on more than one occasion, makes the case that American style capitalism is in fact a more total form of social control than Fascism. Rather than a challenge, I propose that we both reflect upon this question at our leisure and reconvene.
Mike E said
REN writes:
I want to tease out just one small thread here:
What does “independent cultural production” mean?
I think we should encourage (and create) a movement of revolutionary culture. I think it can only emerge in the context of, and in complex relationship with, the rest of the culture.
I think that REN assumes that “independent” culture must mean sub culture. I.e. that revolutionary works cannot be made in hollywood. That revolutionary cultural works cannot be made by the directors and actors known to the people. That politically “independent” requires some kind of inherent isolation and distance from the larger cultural currents and institutions of society.
I think this is mistaken.
Obviously it is possible for revolutionary work to emerge from subcultural circles. And we should encourage and support that.
but I think it is also possible for revolutionary work to emerge on the “big screens” of this society.
Yilmaz Guney (the communist filmmaker of turkey) was first (in his career) a big mainstream action/romantic lead — before he had the basis to make his famous revolutionary works (as a director).
Brando did a lot of “take the money and run” work in Hollywood, while he was trying to make a radical work on Native people (a project that he was unable to complete).
In fact there are tremendous progressive and quite radical currents within the existing culture — actors and directors who are very open to revolutionary and communist ideas, whole crews of people consciously trying to shake up the world with radical ideas (expressed through creative and popular art).
Avatar is a quite radical film — it is not a communist work (obviously), and is not quite a revolutionary piece. But it is anti-capitalist, revolutionary defeatist, anti-patriotic, pro-ecological, and a real rupture with standard reactionary narratives (about U.S. wars, about “military service”, etc.) even while it does not rupture with a number of other standard narratives.
But part of what we are debating here is not just that film.
Let me put it another way: The left that has emerged around us is so pessimistic, second-string, ingrown, and hidebound, that some people can’t see a film like Avatar reaching millions and rejoice. And (not unrelated) many on the left are capable of being oblivious as the first communist revolution in decades confronts its greatest challenge in Nepal.
Some leftists think their job is a permanent cranky critique of everything — which is another way of saying “everything basically sux.” It is a reflection and expression of a profound (and unjustified) pessimism.
Yes, we need critical engagement with the culture (with both its radical and reactionary currents). We need to have a sharp and self-critical approach to our OWN work (and to the art made by people who are consciously communist). We need to have a lofty and historical view of cultural expressions… and not just act as “fan” or “cheerleaders” of the more progressive works that emerge. Yes to all of that… But lets not be naive to the passive, ingrown and one-sided approaches that are powerful within the schools of literary criticism… and that ignore the basic question of real world impact of different works.
The assumptions that “independent” culture has to be in subcultures that are small and isolated — confuses revolutionary content with an isolated and subcultural form. The punx accused the Clash of “selling out” because they had record deals and an audience of millions. The same happened to Rage Against the Machine — when thy were reaching people in whole stadiums. Some people think that anything that is part of the “popular culture” is inherently part of the oppressor’s culture.
Well we WANT to be popular, successful, widereaching, and attuned to real-world audiences — both in the creation of revolutionary culture, and in the creation of a revolutionary politics. If you assume everything sucks (or that everything out of Hollywood sucks, or that everything with a huge audience must suck) you are not being revolutionary, you are just already defeated.
Radical-Eyes said
Right on, Mike.
One of the things that I found so disappointing about Zizek’s article is that Zizek has in recent years been someone well attuned to the dead-end of left defeatism and the fetishism of the small and marginalized…He has, for instance, been out there arguing against mistaking those cultural FORMS that have at times been taken up by fascism–large marches and rallies, or notions of military discipline etc–as essentially reactionary or “fascistic” in CONTENT…
It was along these lines that he controversially defended the film 300 (which I haven’t seen) as an allegory of solidarity, and discipline in the face of (imperial) military aggression.
But if tropes of military discipline can (and should) be appropriated by the Left in Zizek’s view, why can’t the heterosexual romance similarly be appropriated for the Cause?
Mike E said
300 is an Aryan Nation film. It is the most remarkable and distinctly fascist work of art I have ever seen (in its portrayal of the white elite commando defense against legions of third world “mud people”). It is fascist in its aesthetic, in its view of feisty Aryan women, in its view of effete “stab in the back” traitor-politicians, in its mix of homophobia and homoeroticism, in its view of religion, in its portrayal of subcultures (face piercings etc.) etc. etc.
Perhaps it is hard to see (from Europe) that 300 is an articulate expression of American fascist tropes, codewords, symbolism, aesthetics, etc. But it is not thatopaque.
It is vast hordes of people of color seen through the eyes of elite, naked, manly Delta Force commandos with a conscious fascist mindset.
(And just for the record, I have seen it many, many times…. learning more each time.)
Radical-Eyes said
Very interesting…I’ve got to see it. (I wonder if you feel somewhat similarly about Fight Club, which Zizek also has praised?)
Your take on 300 leads me to think that what unites Zizek’s readings of Avatar and 300 may be not so much an underlying interpretive or political framework as an (opportunistic?) interest in reading text’s against the grain in a provocative and counter-intuitive way….heh
Radical-Eyes said
Though your point about Zizek looking at the film from Europe may be valid.
Mike E said
frankly, if you look at the film from the balkans (where every reactionary sees himself as civilizations defender against the Persian/Muslim hordes) — the message of that movie is not so hard to grasp. It may be that Zizek gets it wrong cuz its codes are too American, but I find that hard to believe. Also, you have to be utterly indifferent to the crude (and reactionary) cult of supermasculinity that defines and shapes every-friggin-moment of teh film. Why is that so hard to see?
The assumption that the left is too pacifist to appreciate this film is really a strange perspective for approaching 300 — as if our revulsion at its aesthetic “must be” a sign of our own anti-military and anti-male softness. There are pacifist and reformist corners of “the left” that do have trouble dealing with men and masculinity, but, I mean, puleez.
REN said
Mike E,
I see three basic arguments being put forth in favor of Avatar:
1. That it is resistant because its director has said so.
2. That it is resistant because it of its perceived content.
3. That despite its limitations it can be appropriated in ways that facilitate resistance.
I hope that the inadequacy of the first of these claims is obvious, but since more than one person has proposed it, I have my doubts.
Regarding the second, I propose that we need to supplement the the content of cultural productions with an understanding of their form. By form I have in mind two distinct things:
A. The relations of production and exchange in which they are made and in which they circulate.
B. The form of the works themselves. i.e… realistic/naturalistic, abstract/fragmentary, et cetera.
What you have taken issue with is only “form” in the first of these senses: that is, hollywood vs. subculture. This is an important discussion. Can the moral or political content of cultural productions survive their transformation into a commodity form? I think we have very little reason for optimism on the point. It is not a question of weather or not some individuals within the culture industry might have a political conscience; it is a question of weather this political conscience has any efficacy once it is packaged in a commodity form. Examples of this are few and far between. One thinks perhaps of Fassbinder’s interest in Douglas Sirk’s melodramas, but are you really prepared to put Avatar on the same level as Sirk? What I am arguing for is not a “permanent cranky critique of everything”, but a ethic of prefigurative cultural production.
With regard to the second sense of the word “form”, anyone attempting to defend a film as formulaic and staid as Avatar needs seriously reflect upon the words of Marcuse:
“[T]he concept of alienation seems to become questionable when individuals identify themselves with the existence which is imposed upon them and and have in it their own development and satisfaction.This identification is not illusion but reality. However, the reality represents a more progressive stage of alienation. The latter has become entirely objective; the subject which is alienated is swallowed up up by its alienated existence.” (Marcuse, “One Dimensional Man”)
Obviously the existence imposed upon individuals is not only political, but also cultural. Kasama has been quite innovative in refusing an identification with the imposed political existence, but some here are, in my opinion, very confused with regard to the cultural logic of Western Imperialism. The rigid defense of “content” is indicative of this and, I think, betrays a basic misunderstanding of left cultural criticism. A few quotes at random:
“[T]he politically correct tendency [i.e. content] includes a literary tendency [i.e. a form]. And I would add straightaway: this literary tendency, which is implicitly or explicitly contained in every correct political tendency of a work, alone constitutes the quality of that work.” (Benjamin, “Author as Producer”)
“[T]he the triumph of invested capital, whose title as absolute master is etched deep into the hearts of the dispossessed in the unemployment line; it is the meaningful content of every film, whatever plot the production team may have selected.” (Adorno / Horkheimer, “Dialectic of Enlightenment”)
Regarding the question of radical re-appropriation of the film’s content: I am simply not very convinced by blue protesters.
Radical Eyes, can you really not see for yourself how the form of the hetero-normative Oedipal narrative might serve to disqualify or domesticate a film’s otherwise egalitarian claims, and how this can be distinguished from the question of depictions of military discipline?
Incidentally, what with it’s militarism and saccharine couples, your vision of cultural resistance is starting to sound about as advanced as that of the North Korean beer commercial that has become so popular on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3GQkCzJygU
It has 72,000 views now. Perhaps when it gets to million you can pen up a lengthy defense of it.
Mike E said
Question:
Yes, rather obviously. Even under socialism, much of the culture circulates in the commodity form. I see no reason why that should affect the moral and political content of work (in our epoch).
What are we limited to — graffitti, folk song round robins, or scratching notes on napkins and handing them out for free on street corners?
Was brecht’s work suddenly reactionary cuz someone sold theater tickets? Or is Nexoe’s books reactionary because they are sold on amazon?
Don’t tempt me.
But seriously: The point is not putting various works on “levels” — though I do think that we should not glorify obscure and subcultural works because they are obscure and subcultural.
That is a strawman, and a rather revealingly mean-spirited distortion…. no one argues that Avatar has radical content because it is popular — but we are noticing that a film with radical content is popular. No amount of youtube popularity will make North Korean culture less reactionary, and that popularity is all about camp and irony for the terminally tacky, the opposite of appreciation.
Radical-Eyes said
REN,
My point, which I thought I made clearly enough, was not that Oedipal narratives and/or heterosexual romances cannot serve to domesticate or (allow readers to) elide more radical political themes, but that 1) the very presence of such narrative structures does not necessarily negate and flush away other sorts of contents (including radical or revolutionary contents) and 2) that in some cases the very presence of such narrative structures may in fact help to open up certain sectors amongst the people to thinking (and discussing) social and political issues that they might not otherwise be as open to (if say those same contents were offered up in a less smooth-packaged form).
For my part, I am not trying to “qualify” or “disqualify” a film as “radical” or not so much as to track its actual nature, in itself, and in the world.
REN said
Mike,
Again you are working only with the first sense of “form” as defined in my above post. Its not as if a Hollywood film appears miraculously from outside the relations of production and formal restraints imposed upon it by the studio system and then someone monetizes it by selling tickets (although something closer to this does happen with some other cultural products). Paying to see a Brecht play does not negate its value, unless the producer has forced concessions and imposed a hackneyed form upon it in advance, which is nearly always. Even Brecht himself tried to prevent Pabst from re-writing the script of Three Penny Opera for film. Just imagine what he’d have thought of the ghastly culture-industry renditions of that play (again I refer you to youtube!).
Radical Eyes,
What is the point of abstracting away all of the normalizing formal structures of Avatar just to get to its already simplified moral lesson? It strikes me that perhaps the moral content of the film is only there as a justification or apology for its reactionary form.
You want to understand what the film is “in itself” and “in the world”?
In itself it is formulaic.
In the world it is a fantasy sold to alienated people as compensation for their own political disenfranchisement.
I am not pessimistic about revolution. I am pessimistic about the culture industry. The process of picking oneself up from political disinheritance does not start behind 3D glasses.
Naturally, it concerns me that the development of left cultural productions is so retarded that communists are prepared defend Hollywood.
Mike E said
REN writes:
I think this is a good point, which is hard to deny. There are all kinds of restraints on artists seeking both funding and distribution in a capitalist society. And they are not just “commodification” constraints — sometimes artists are imprisoned or killed for making critical art. (Again the example of Guney in Turkey who made his 1982 communist masterwork Yol from within prison.)
But the question is not whether this process impinges on radical culture… it does. And it is worth saying that it does.
But the question is whether that constraint is so absolute that the directors and actors in Hollywood are (simply) part of the oppressors’ system of cultural disinformation and mindrot.
Are progressive works made right in the mainstream culture?
My answer is yes. It is hard. They emerge with birthmarks and scars. They are rare. But they do emerge.
More to the point: We want to create a new society…. and it will not emerge (like Minerva) full grown from our ideas (like Jupiters head). The new society will emerge from the old society, the new culture will emerge from the old culture. The new cinema will emerge from the old cinema.
There will be rupture, and struggle, and false starts, and miscarriages, and compromises…. but…
There will be some incubation of new ideas and form in subcultures. Those realms are precious and important. But there has to be some fusion of radical subcultures with mass audiences — or our work is inbred and sterile. There is an element of massline.
Just take a moment and reread Mao’s pathbreaking Yenan Forum speech on culture…. Its language is very “1930s” and a bit out of place for us, here and today. But if you read it with patience, you can get to the heart of what he is raising.
A key part of his polemic is a break with narrow incestuous left culture that doesn’t know or respect the people (both as a subject discussed in the art and as an audience “consuming” the revolutionary art.) And (on the other side) he is rejecting a culture that has forgotten revolutionary transformation, and is not cutting hard against the status quo.
What is our audience? It is the people. It is not the congnisenti, it is not ourselves (i.e. the radical fringes). We needs art that reaches millions of people, if possible, far beyond those reached by our explicit political work.
REN writes:
First, it is good we agree that merely commodifying culture doesn’t render it reactionary. (And i had not understood that Ren and I agreed on this).
Second, I try never to play the game “what would xxxx think if he/she were alive today?” Who the fuck knows? I don’t pretend to imagine what Brecht would have thought of this or that adaption of his work…. I imagine he would have liked some, and hated others. And I imagine that his views would (inevitably) surprise all of us. People who discuss “what would xxx think…” usually assume that xxx would agree with them (which to me is both naive and self-serving).
“Let the dead bury the dead.” And lets not pretend that Brecht is commenting on our world.
Third, it is true that commodification under capitalism de-fangs some culture. In fact, it defangs the culture as a whole — i.e. we live under a bourgeois culture (and it is a death embrace that drives many of us to fury).
That is overall the conditions. And that is why communists say we live in a “bourgeois dictatorship” that has created (and enforced) a “bourgeois culture.”
But the overall (and the nature of the overall) does not mean that this condition is absolute. There is class struggle and political struggle throughout the cultural superstructure, and it is often quite acute. There is tremendous discontent in reactionary circles over the politics and production of the cultural spheres. Go look at the movies on the Iraq war… and tell me how many “Rambos” there are? How many movies like “Green Berets”? Where are their John Waynes today? There are some movies that are not explicitly antiwar… but very few. Most movies are quite antiwar… and that is very remarkable for an imperialist country waging an (essentially) colonial war.
Are there things we can say (critically) about movies like “In the Valley of Elah”? Sure. But lets not forget how much the warmakers hate such films, and the communities that make them. And how much “Hollywood” is under attack from major sections of the ruling class.
The point is that the cultural superstructure is not homogenous, and is not simply tamped down, or simply bourgeois.
Look at the film “Reds” — with all its contradictions.
S0, yes, we agree that there is a bourgeois dictatorship that is enforced (in large part) by controling the funding of major cultural works (and the distribution, etc.) And it is enforced (ultimately) through guns and political suppression. But I am arguing that it is not homogenous, or absolute, or tamped down… and that the superstructure is riddled with contradiction and struggle. And that quite a remarkable body of progressive work emerges (including some occasional radical works)….
And that as we fight to create an even more revolutioanry expression in the cultural world — we need to understand that this does not mean withdrawing from “Hollywood” or the existing cultural spheres and retreating into tiny isolated subcultures. It means waging class struggle on the existing stages — including fighting for the funds, and actors, and distribution to be on the “big screen.”
You cant have great works without having a great audience — the production of revolutionary culture is related (in complex ways) with the “cracking” open of society generally and the emergence of far more radical currents among the people. But as we create our critiques, and as radical artists create their prototypes, we have to actually fight for audience and the main stage. And not assume it is unattainable and sealed off.
Radical-Eyes said
While we are dropping quotes from classic 1930s marxists analyses of culture and the masses (and mass culture) try this one from Antonio Gramsci on for size. Obviously, he is writing in a context that is far from saturated by the type of Culture Industries that we are dealing with today, but nonetheless, I think what he wrote speaks to the current discussion, about the need to engage the ‘formulaic’ fiction that has been taken up by masses:
-”The question of so-called ‘popular literature,’ that is…the success of serial literature (adventure stories, detective stories, thrillers) among the masses…represents the major part of the problem of a new literature as hte expression of moral and intellecutal renewal, for only from the readers of serial literature can one select a sufficient and necessary public for creating the cultural base of a new literature…The premises of the new literature cannot but be historical, political, popular. It must…sink its roots into the humus of popular culture as it is, with its tastes and tendencies and with its moral and intellectual world, even if it is backward and conventional.”
and also this one from Brecht (also from 1934):
-”Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones.”
zerohour said
“Can the moral or political content of cultural productions survive their transformation into a commodity form? I think we have very little reason for optimism on the point. It is not a question of weather or not some individuals within the culture industry might have a political conscience; it is a question of weather this political conscience has any efficacy once it is packaged in a commodity form.”
I think this way of understanding culture is very narrow in the it assumes a direct transmission from the “culture industry” into the psyches of the audience, and that culture is just an immutable product to be passively consumed. Cultural products exist within networks of other social relations, which affect how they are received and subsequently transmuted. I notice that REN does not quote Louis Althusser but I think relative autonomy may be a useful notion here. Culture is fluid, and this is very evident in the way language changes – words and phrases emerge, drop away, change meaning all the time. Cultural aesthetics tap into desires, hopes, fears and anxieties and the longer term impact isn’t so easy to predict.
I agree with others that the relations of production conditions [and limits] the kinds of expressions that get propagated, but capitalism isn’t that rigid. In the post-World War 2 period, “the Organization Man” notion of corporate capitalism was being replaced [in some sectors] by a more “hip” capitalism which was needed to reach a new consumer base was younger and had different social expectations than the previous generation. At the same time, the Civil Rights movement was gaining steam. In an attempt to address and domesticate any rebellious impulses, Hollywood produced movies such as The Wild One and Rebel Without A Cause. Did they succeed in channeling youth rebellion back into middle class tranquility? I think the 60s is the answer to that question. Capitalism took on a more cynical turn and in that way it does allow for radical expression to get through since they believe as REN does that the process of consumption will override any content. This is what Andy Warhol captured with his silkscreens of Mao in multi-colored pastels. In the short term, it’s generally true. But corporations do produce revolutionary works. Who publishes the works of Karl Marx, Lenin and the Black Panthers in the US? How would anyone know of The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy or the Coup? Despite Zizek’s claim that Reds is really about revolution as a romance, there is a communist revolution somewhere in there right? And it is portrayed in a favorable light? Warren Beatty could have easily made an anti-communist movie that vilified Lenin and Trotsky but he didn’t. Zizek ignores that this movie does something remarkable in western culture – it humanizes anarchist and communist revolutionaries. Why isn’t that the “underlying story” – that revolution is about humanity, which encompasses romance?
REN talks about “efficacy” and I want to look at that for a bit. What does that refer to? How does this efficacy manifest itself?
On one level, I think it puts too much of a burden on popular culture. Does anyone truly expect Reds or Avatar to generate a wave of radical thinking and politics? I think the value of such productions is that it places certain topics on the table for discussion, which is an occasion to debate and re-think ideas. These Avatar posts are some of the most highly trafficked ones on Kasama, precisely because this film raises issues of race, colonialism, representation, ecology, class. It presents an opportunity to challenge “common sense.” Often subversive ideas take more allegorical or cartoonish form [literally]. One can find this sometimes in The Simpsons and even in a children’s movie like Antz. Ignore the fact that bugs are the main characters in the movie and what is it about? An uprising of an oppressed class against its oppressor. One ant [voiced by Woody Allen] even refers to “the mode of production” – I phrase I don’t believe I’ve ever heard in a movie with live actors. Still, why should we expect anyone to start reading “What Is To Be Done?” after viewing this film, or one by Pasolini, for that matter? Culture and ideology don’t work in that simplistic way.
Also, it’s quite reductionist to dismiss the artists’ intent and the overt content in favor of the conditions of production. Any one of those things on its own would be insufficient to help us understand any works of art, but to assume that Hollywood makes intent and content irrelevant? As I pointed out above, the needs of capitalism to expand its domestic consumer base also made it responsive to social pressures. This created the possibility for Hollywood films to address social conflict, but also for more filmmakers to produce movies with a more progressive edge [think Bonnie and Clyde]. Let’s keep the political context in mind too. During the 60s it was possible to go and see Burn! and The Battle of Algiers, but just a couple of years ago, Stephen Soderbergh couldn’t get a US distributor for Che – and he’s a successful Hollywood director, and Academy Award winner.
To hold popular culture to some standard of efficacy is a bit self-serving and elitist, especially given the proposed alternatives: “Cornelius Cardew, Luigi Nono, Pasolini, Godard, Soviet Factography, John Heartfield, etc.” I don’t know some of these names, but I’m familiar with Godard and John Heartfield. Let me begin by saying that I’m in favor of promoting popularizing these works that REN mentioned. I happen to enjoy Godard’s films, except, ironically, Le Chinoise. That aside, what “efficacy” did they have? Did the French New Wave catalyze political action? Or was it radical politics in France that opened up the space for them?
In addition to misreading Benjamin and other thinkers [why not choose Eagleton's more recent work?], REN forgets to mention Adorno’s well-known racist disdain for jazz, and instead what does Adorno put forward? Schoenberg. I’m not qualified to discuss the merits of Schoenberg’s music, and it’s fine if people enjoy it, but I think that behind the critique of corporate culture, there is also an element of contempt for the culture created by the populace, that reflects their social situations and contradictions. On the other end, it is reflected in the idea that enjoyment of popular culture is akin to ingesting narcotics. Was it wrong for blues, jazz, rap and punk artists to want mainstream success and go through major labels? Is there something inherently aesthetically or politically superior in self-imposed marginality? Isn’t this the aesthetic equivalent to dumpster diving as a substitute for politics?
Don’t get me wrong, I support independent artists, but I think it’s absurd to assume that being non-corporate automatically means greater integrity. Also this moralistic demand that we “call for” independent production is naive. No artist waits for someone, much less a communist grouping, to call for them to create their art using whatever means they have at their disposal. This is followed by the dogmatic assumption that if we don’t do make such a call, we must be “defending Hollywood.”
Then there is the problem of accounting for the existence of progressives and radicals, who were, and are, immersed in this commercialism. I would guess that most of us were not red-diaper babies and did not come from radical households [I could be wrong], and we didn’t all grow up in communes or alternative spaces. How is it that all those years of reality shows and formulaic movies didn’t suppress our abilities to think critically? More importantly it isn’t just us, many people are quite astute and have insight into the world beyond their individual lives. This is the wellspring of resistance because, as Fredric Jameson once said against postmodernists, history is “what hurts” and even Twilight can’t change that. One would never think this from reading some of the Frankfurt School writings [which are valuable and should be read].
“In the world it is a fantasy sold to alienated people as compensation for their own political disenfranchisement.”
This is too one-sided. There is nothing wrong with enjoying entertainment, nor is it just about disenfranchisement. Radical Eyes is correct to bring Bloch into the conversation, who saw that even in the most crass forms of culture, there is reflected a longing for “something else.” This is something capital tries to satisfy but never can, but until revolutionaries can recognize and capture that utopian desire, I expect to see greater lines for the next iPhone than any Tarkovsky film festival or uninspiring rally.
Radical-Eyes said
Well said, Zerohour!
As I was reading your post, I was thinking about what when I was but a wee lad I watched Dalton Trumbo’s SPARTACUS based on the novel by Howard Fast. (These two Hollywood contributors were card-carrying Communists, by the way.) And Spartacus won Academy Awards too, no? (I cannot say anything about the new Spartacus series that is now airing on Starz (is that right?)…But a compare and contrast of these two works would be interesting…
[Actually now that I think of it, Spartacus is an interesting film to draw into the Avatar discussion as well, no?]
Anyway, to get nostalgic for a minute, sympathizing with the slave revolt in this film, I was moved tremendously…A part of me has been pulling for the collectively organized underdog, against the Empire ever since…despite (or maybe even because of) the ways in which these rebels were humanized.
It’s true when I watch the film today, and compare it to Fast’s in various ways more radical and les formulaic novel–a book he wrote mostly while *in prison*, by the way, while we are on the subject of how even the most repressive of institutions have their cracks and openings–I find its use of a formulaic love plot to be a bit gaggy…But those scenes of the slaves out-witting and out-hearting their Roman oppressors are just priceless, memorable, moving. Trumbo’s brilliant addition of that scene where ALL the captured slaves identify as “I am Spartacus” is profound. (Fuck Pepsi’s appropriation of this moment for commercial humor.)
Point being: some of the content can get through despite (and sometimes becuase of!) these Hollywood cliches….Though even that content then beomes contested terrain.
REN said
Zero Hour,
Again I would refer you to the two-fold distinction of the word “form” as defined in my above post. A commodity form is not only charging money for something but also the imposition or adoption of a set of formal constraints. If you can not make the distinction, then it is certainly you who are misreading Benjamin.
Adorno’s negative judgment of jazz is problematic, but you will need to qualify your claim that it is racist. What is more, he softened these statements somewhat over time. And anyways, even if Adorno was racist, that is hardly a reason not to listen to Schoenberg (who for his part, was rather skeptical of Adorno).
I never claimed that there is some form of “direct transmission” from Hollywood to spectators. In fact I am arguing the opposite! That is, despite the content transmitted by a film’s narrative, the form of this narrative and the form of its reception usually insure that it reinforces the dominant culture. As Zizek would say, echoing Althusser: ideology is not on the side of fantasy, but on the side of reality.
I never claimed that the goal of cultural productions ought to be to immediately incite revolutionary action. What I claim is that they should resist dominant cultural forms in meaningful way, with some efficacy. Obviously, I do not think that Avatar does this. I have advanced a few examples of artists who do or did. The fact that you are not familiar with the majority of them is part of the problem I am trying to bring to light.
Communists, throw off your ideological chains! Listen to Schoenberg!
Radical-Eyes said
REN,
You take issue with a number of Zerohour’s arguments, but not with the crucial one that I have copied and pasted below:
Zerohour wrote:
*Does anyone truly expect Reds or Avatar to generate a wave of radical thinking and politics? I think the value of such productions is that it places certain topics on the table for discussion, which is an occasion to debate and re-think ideas. These Avatar posts are some of the most highly trafficked ones on Kasama, precisely because this film raises issues of race, colonialism, representation, ecology, class. It presents an opportunity to challenge “common sense.” *
Do you disagree with this statement?
It seems at least to me to be difficult to disagree with. But perhaps you will find some way to.
You really do seem to me to be falling into the mode of reading that J. Ramsey criticizes in Zizek here http://kasamaproject.org/2010/03/14/zizek-avatar-and-the-dialectic-of-fantasy/
REN said
If “the value of such productions” is merely that they place “certain topics on the table for discussion,” then such productions are not art but propaganda. And, In the case of Avatar, they are mediocre propaganda. There is a rich history of leftist cultural production that resists dominate cultural forms. I do not see why these works should languish in obscurity while you rummage around for progressive content in the culture industry.
I cannot speak to the popularity of these posts on this site, but I do not see how it would really affect the arguments that I have put forth. I think a post or two about Avatar is practically obligatory, my preference is for those that critique it, not those that defend it. And especially not those who defend it by relying on the authority of statements made by it’s director.
By the way, why are you referring to yourself in the third person?
I am not “falling into” the mode of reading that you critique, I am defending it; defending it not only from your critique, but from the misrepresentation that your critique is founded on.
zerohour said
REN -
“The fact that you are not familiar with the majority of them is part of the problem I am trying to bring to light. ”
That’s not a problem at all, just an opportunity for me to learn more, but I tend to be curious by nature. You, however have not provided any compelling explanation as to why Alphaville [which I enjoyed] is more worthwhile than the latest Johnny Depp film [which I probably will enjoy when I get to see it].
“There is a rich history of leftist cultural production that resists dominate cultural forms. I do not see why these works should languish in obscurity”
Neither do I. They certainly do deserve to be seen as broadly as possible. Why is this in contradiction to seeing Avatar or any Hollywood film? But do you really want these films to be popular? Their acceptance by a mass audience might put their quality into question.
“If “the value of such productions” is merely that they place “certain topics on the table for discussion,” then such productions are not art but propaganda.”
You are so caught up in aestheticism that you can’t see how you want it both ways. On the one hand, mass culture dulls the critical senses, but on the off-chance that it may actually stir some thought and controversy, it’s dismissed by default regardless of its aesthetic merits. I’ll remember that next time I watch a Kurosawa, Kubrick or Hitchcock film. Also, I find it remarkable that a film that is able to insert topics like imperialism and race into mainstream conversation and it’s dismissed as propaganda on that basis – that people are actually talking about it!
“I never claimed that the goal of cultural productions ought to be to immediately incite revolutionary action. What I claim is that they should resist dominant cultural forms in meaningful way, with some efficacy. ”
Here, you pull back from addressing the issue that is raised by words like “efficacy”, and now “meaningful”. Efficacious and meaningful for whom? You mention disenfranchisement and yet don’t show how something like Soviet Factography has or can overcome this. I feel the only way to argue this is to presume that the influence of cultural works overshadows that of other political, economic, social and emotional relations. Rather, I suggest that cultural work enters into and influences existing networks of relations, including those that produced the work, but also gets transformed in the process.
“That is, despite the content transmitted by a film’s narrative, the form of this narrative and the form of its reception usually insure that it reinforces the dominant culture.”
Perhaps this where your confusion is best expressed. You are assuming that the aesthetic commodity can only take one form and be produced from one place. What is “the dominant culture” exactly, and why would non-dominant culture be any better? Postmodernism has been called the logic of late capitalism and I think there’s truth to that. That is, the proliferation of several forms is the very mode of experience under modern capitalism, whether produced by major corporations or an independent artists. Let’s break that down:
1] Pasolini [a communist], like other filmmakers, had to exploit workers to make his films. It was and is unavoidable for a large scale enterprise like filmmaking
2] Even as an individual producing brilliant collages, John Heartfield may not have exploited anyone directly, but the very conditions in which he worked relied on exploitation: who built his house, made his clothes, gathered the food he bought, created the original images he re-arranged, etc.,?
You are not really arguing against the commodity form at all, you are just rejecting one in favor of another, dumping the corporate for the petty artisan, or auter as it may be. While we live under capitalism, it will be a part of everything we produce. Reductionist materialism fails to account for the qualities that make rebellion and revolution possible, our ability to think about and transform our surroundings even while being part of it.
“By the way, why are you referring to yourself in the third person?”
I’m not Radical Eyes.
Radical-Eyes said
REN and ZH,
I assume it is me to whom REN is referring with the “third person” comment. I plead guilty. I had forgotten that I had posted a similar critique of Zizek under “Radical Eyes” in this thread before posting it under my own last name in another. Thanks for reminding me.
Back to issues of substance, if I may?
REN, So then I take it by your latest response that your AGREE with the comment from ZH that I asked you to take a position on? You agree that mass culture works can help to “put issues on the table for discussion”?
Only you would characterize culture that does (only) this as “propaganda” not true left cultural production. DO I have that right?
I just want to repeat the essential point.
Clearly form (in either or both of the senses that you have defined it) exerts a sort of DETERMINING force on content and the way that content will be received. But other factors determine that reception as well–which is to say the actual meaning and effect of the culture work in the world. (This of course makes the overall phenomenon OVER-determined.) This seems to me to be quite obvious…..Yet this contention is quite different from the argument that I hear coming from Zizek (as well as yourself), which is that form NEGATES (radical/progressive/critical) content.
“The misrepresentation that your [my?] critique is founded upon”? Do tell.
REN said
Zerohour,
I am tiring of this, so I will limit myself to the following:
You need to re-read the above exchange between Mike and I in which I already addressed many of the same objects you have just made. I am only going to repeat myself so many times.
When I say that your unfamiliarity with these artists or musicians is a problem, I did not intend it as a personal attack. I simply mean to point out how many people who are otherwise quite informed are unaware of large parts of left cultural production. I think the failure to engage with these works is a general problem, especially for the American left.
I did not dismiss Avatar as propaganda. What I said was that the defense you are mounting of it seems to defend it as propaganda, and not as art. That is, even it does “generate discussion”, this is not the criteria by which one judges art, but propaganda.
Anyways, the bit about talking in the third person was not directed at yourself, but at Radical-Eyes. He was referring to himself in third person, no?
zerohour said
“That is, even it does “generate discussion”, this is not the criteria by which one judges art, but propaganda. ”
Since when is that not a criteria for art? And who decided that?
This is a bit disingenuous since you kept using words like “disenfranchisement” to refer to a social condition which was reinforced by popular culture. You also insisted that form prevented any content other than that of capitalist ideology. To quote you: “The process of picking oneself up from political disinheritance does not start behind 3D glasses.” And what about “communist” and “left” films you kept referring to? Are those aesthetic criteria? If not, if they are political, is it not a measure of “efficacy” that the themes they raise are to be discussed? Are we to limit our discussion to lighting angles and clever metaphoric juxtapositions?
In fact, if art does not generate discussion is it good art, or even art at all? Do you think Damien Hirst doesn’t want people to ask why he is slicing up sharks or Andres Serrano wanted “Piss Christ” to be passed over in silence?
I agree with you that art is about “meaning” and “efficacy”. But you never did answer my question: to whom? Now I’ll add one more: in what way?
REN said
Naturally most art usually will generate discussion of some sort, but that is rarely the criteria by which we judge it. To be art, something must be subjectively judged by individuals. Reactionary art produces judgments that reinforce ruling ideas, revolutionary art produces judgments that disrupt them.
I cannot see what you think is disingenuous. I have stated very clearly that I think that culture industry products help perpetuate disenfranchisement, both because of the circumstances in which they are produced and circulate, and because they generally reinforce the political and cultural ideas of the ruling class; This reinforcement takes place not only at the level of content, but also (and I think, more significantly) at the level of form. In fact I think that lighting angles and “metaphoric juxtapositions” (i.e. filmic montage) are a perfectly legitimate terrain of cultural struggle, if perhaps a bit specialized. But one need not understand them in perfect detail to appreciate their use.
Yes, there is some room in Hollywood productions for contradictions to develop. But these are really quite slim. Less constrained forms of cultural production have a greater freedom to operate, and they deserve to be supported. Obviously, many independent films also reinforce or reproduce dominant cultural forms as well and deserve to be criticized for this.
I believe I have already answered “in what way” cultural productions can have meaning and efficacy: by resisting dominant cultural ideas both at the levels of content and form. This is a broad but clear statement, and there are many specific ways it could be accomplished depending on the circumstances.
The question of meaning and efficacy “for whom” is an important one. I will reflect on it and respond. I would invite Radical Eyes to give his view on this matter as well, as I suspect he has an opinion.
We might even begin with the third section of Sartre’s “What is Literature?”, titled “For Whom Does One Write?”
REN said
REN said
Clearly I have yet to master the block quotes.