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Archive for April, 2007

Challenging the Reproduction of Gender Inequality in Anne Bront??s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

In Anne Bront?’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ideological apparatuses, as defined by Marxist theorist Louis Althusser, work to mold and sustain vast differences between men and women in the early nineteenth century. Each gender is groomed to occupy a separate societal sphere, men as master of the public realm and women as mistress of the domestic. These distinctions foster inequality and oppression of women, yet they are consistently reinforced by both genders within the patriarchal system. The danger of such inequality, at worst, allows for the abuse and silent oppression of women while, at the very least, it reproduces the same oppressive social system from generation to generation. Helen Huntingdon, the novel?s heroine, is the tool by which Bront? experiments with an alternate existence. Helen challenges the traditional role of motherhood by raising her son Arthur differently than a more traditional mother, Mrs. Markham. She also takes issue with the oppressive nature of marriage for women. By examining the cycle in which inequality of gender is enforced and reproduced, Bront? successfully confronts the traditional Victorian ideals which foster inequality, vice and abuse.

Bront??s Markham family is the epitome of late nineteenth century societal views. The topics that Mrs. Markham, as an authority on traditional Victorian motherhood, uses to reprimand Helen are telling of the general opinion of her day. Her first criticism is of Helen?s wine restriction for her young son, Arthur, which in turn leads to a critique of Helen?s child rearing practices in general. “If you would have your son walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them — not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone” (Bront? 28). Mrs. Markham is arguing that a young boy?s education requires experience, not shelter, and that a mother?s role is to be unobtrusive, not overbearing. Mrs. Markham undermines her own authority by requiring a man with religious authority, the vicar, to validate her claim on this tradition. ?[M. Millward will] tell you the consequences; ?he?ll set it before you as plain as day, ?and tell you what you ought to do? (Bront? 30). In doing so, Mrs. Markham maintains a discriminatory stance for herself and broadcasts it among her parlor. In the vicar?s absence, Gilbert defends the veracity of his mother’s words, unaware of his own role in reinforcing the societal precedent. He reiterates what his mother had said, that Helen must not shelter her son like a hot-house plant. “Shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on a mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements” (Bront? 30). Laura Berry?s scholarly article, ?Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,? addresses this ideology:

Bront??s fictions deny the idea of sentimentalized motherhood as a potential haven from imprisoning or torturous anti-familial or institutional structures. If homes imprison, mothers do not, in this novel, liberate ? The family then is the place where gender difference is created. It is by ?protection? and ?influence? that a mother forms a daughter; but ?making a man? of a boy is achieved in giving him a liberal hand. (Berry )

Essentially, as is evident within the previous passages, mothers are expected to remain in the domestic realm and to mature their sons through the freedom of experience, an effort championed by free men and sanctioned by the church. Interestingly, both genders within the same family share this male-centric point of view, one perpetuated unawares until Helen challenges the requirements of motherhood.

Mrs. Markham is not without defiance within her own household. Her daughter Rose naturally opposes her mother?s reverence toward her brothers, sensing through her societal innocence, the disparity between herself and them. She complains to Gilbert when asked to make him tea once tea time is over, ?you?we can?t do too much for you ? I?m nothing at all ? I?m told not to think of myself? (Bront? 53). Rose is young and still in training. Her burning opposition is repeatedly snuffed out by her mother’s constant discipline in accordance with the laws of gender. ?You know, Rose, in all household matters, we have only two things to consider, first, what?s proper to be done, and secondly, what?s most agreeable to the gentlemen of the house?anything will do for the ladies? (Bront? 53). According to feminist theorist Judith Butler in her essay ?Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,? the body becomes a cultural sign:

Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis; the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions?and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them; the construction ?compels? our belief in its necessity and naturalness. (Butler 2500)

Rose doesn?t naturally understand the distinction between genders because it doesn?t naturally exist. Mrs. Markham, having fully absorbed gender ideology, believes that not only must she conform, she must teach Rose to conform as well; to submit to the rules of difference is preferable to the punishment offered if either one of them does not.

This snapshot of Victorian life demonstrates that religion, motherhood and education are the vehicles which perpetuate rather than challenge the rule of inequality. According to Marxist theorist Louis Althusser in ?Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,? an imaginary social construct is used to coerce submission to and reproduction of the labor condition. This ensures the power of the ruling class:

Of course many ? contrasting Virtues (modesty, resignation, submissiveness on the one hand, cynicism, contempt, arrogance, confidence, self importance, even smooth talk and cunning on the other) are ? taught in the Family, in the Church ?in a variety of know-how wrapped up in the massive inculcation of the ideology of the ruling class that the ? relations of exploited to exploiters, and exploiters to exploited are largely reproduced. (Althusser 1495)

The domestic realm espouses the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), particularly as it functions within the previously mentioned private, rather than governmental, realms of religion, family and education. In addition to class division, this enforced separateness also applies to gender, illustrating the masculine social power driving women into submission. Within Helen?s first marriage to Huntingdon, she has assumed the role of modesty and submission in response to his self importance, smooth talk and cunning. Helen understands the failure of this system for women and seeks an escape from its grasp.

Bront? intentionally creates the Markham setting ripe for Helen’s retort, allowing her to challenge not only the way in which men are socially groomed, but to rebuke the male dominant religious authority over the subject. ?Mr. Markham here, thinks his powers of conviction at least equal to Mr. Millward?s. If I hear not him, neither should I be convinced though one rose from the dead? (Bront? 30). Holding fast to her spirituality while simultaneously rejecting the domination of religion, Helen directs her rebuttal to Gilbert, specifically challenging the unseeing portion of his male point of view. She asks how he would raise a girl as compared to a boy:

You affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; — and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation … It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation ? whereas, in the nobler sex, … exercised by trial and dangers, is only further developed. (Bront? 30-31)

By exposing the duplicity between the rearing of young men and women, Helen logically questions whether or not Gilbert believes feminine character and virtue is inherently fallible. Gilbert trapped within the machine of a defunct society, objects. ?Heaven forbid that I should think so!? (Bront? 31). Herein lies exposed a great contradiction between the practice of a disguised lack of faith in women and the heralded ideal of the virtuous “angel in the house.”

Seeking balance and equality, Helen defends her practice as a mother with a strong presence in her son?s life. She breaks from prevalent expectations saying:

You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. (Bront? 31)

According to Helen’s declaration, Bront? rejects the idea that such freedom afforded young men should be fully experienced only to later be reigned in through marriage. She also rejects the opposite extreme of sheltering young girls to the point where they have no self-actuated sense of wisdom and virtue, ill preparing them for independence and strength in difficult times. Scholar Elizabeth Gruner, in her essay ?Plotting the Mother: Caroline Norton, Helen Huntingdon and Isabel Vane,? says of the same passage quoted above:

Helen?s argument here neatly defends the novel, as teaching by others? experience, and her own maternal practice, while simultaneously undercutting any conception of an essential gender identity. Masculinity and Femininity are taught in this novel and can be played, revised, changed?as Gilbert himself learns. (Gruner 312)

A compromise must be met. The possibility exists, for which Helen is an example, where each gender benefits from preparedness to function in all aspects of society rather than to perform supplementary roles from separate spheres of a distinct division.

As Rose requires constant reminders to conform to her feminine identity, Gilbert also requires more than one lesson in his education to break free from engrained gender perspective, demonstrating how deeply entrenched the importance of gender identity is to the commonwealth. The town gossip darkens Helen?s true virtue because, as a wife who left her husband regardless of his abuse, she no longer fits within the ideal of ?angel in the house.? Here the machine manipulates Gilbert once more. Performing his gender duty, he avoids Helen, punishing her for doing her gender wrong (Butler 2500). Silence aggrieves the lovers, and Gilbert finds himself ?deceived, duped, hopeless, my afflictions trampled on, my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend incarnate? (Bront? 102). Not until Helen offers her journal, appointing a witness for her story, does Gilbert escape his torment. While he does loosen his grip on the feminine definition, the reader is left to wonder if this change is binding. Scholar Russell Poole, in his article ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,? argues:

Helen?s diary is often identified as the means of instruction ? but we should not exaggerate its effect ? A few of [Gilbert?s] comments as a narrator suggest that a mitigation of his more aggressive traits has occurred subsequent to marriage rather than before it and certainly not as a precondition of it. (Poole 863)

Gilbert is like a child under the instruction of Helen, one in constant need of a reminder not to fall into old habits, learning who Helen is as a person, not as a misunderstood cog in the gender hierarchy. Regardless of Gilbert?s retention level, more importantly demonstrated is the fact that silence must be broken by women and their stories acknowledged by men before change can occur.

Bront? appears to fall short under the contemporary lens of feminism when Helen?s relationship flourishes with Gilbert and their wedding merely reinserts her into the same system from which she fled. Her property becomes Gilbert?s; it is he who must grant permission for Helen?s aunt to stay in the home that was once hers; and Arthur ?he was my own Helen?s son, and therefore mine? (Bront? 469). Gilbert makes a statement of claim on both mother and son, as if they are property to be owned. This reads as if Bront? could envision no practical solution for the plight of women. Although she is not able to write Helen out of society?s grasp, all is not lost. Rather than becoming an example by which women may redeem their power, Helen, more realistically for Bront??s time becomes the subject for discourse among Bront??s readership. Scholar Carol Senf, in her essay ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender,? explores the value in Bront??s delineated story telling technique, one by which Helen?s tale is both divulged edited through Gilbert:

Like the unique narrative structure, the wife?s story framed by that of her husband, this emphasis on domestic life?especially on the relationships of men and women during courtship and marriage?encourages the reader to focus on questions of gender, especially to see the way that nineteenth-century notions of marriage consigned women to silence. (Senf 450)

As Helen?s full story unfolds, Gilbert and the audience of the novel learn of the horrors that can exist when expectations of women remain unchallenged. Beyond that initial lesson, a more subtle lesson is also divulged. Helen?s experience of oppression and abuse, that which had been locked within the confines of her journal until shared with Gilbert, becomes the property of Gilbert once they marry. Personal expression is no longer her own. Bront?, may not have had the vision to free Helen from the stranglehold of mastership without denying her love, yet she offers this subjection up to all of society to reform as a whole.

These social values and customs of the early nineteenth century are of importance to study because remains of those gender imbalances are still present in society today. To understand where gender inequality fails and reproduces oppression of women can help to pinpoint ways in which it can be remedied. Historic trends provide commentary through literature, allowing for study of the causes and effects within this division. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in particular, provides a most valuable social commentary as it is the first novel of its kind to reveal the harsh reality of those women who suffered the worst of oppression of the time. Without discussion of the process by which women perpetuate their oppression, the importance of the challenge posed by Bront? is unable to be fully appreciated for the impact it has had in liberating the minds of women and imparting change upon a nation.

Works Cited:

Althusser, Louis. ?Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.? The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1476-1508.

Berry, Laura C. ?Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.? NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 30.1. (1996): 32-55. JSTOR. 4 April 2007

Bront?, Anne. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. New York: Oxford University Press. 1992

Butler, Judith. ?Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.? The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 2488-2501.

Gruner, Elisabeth Rose. ?Plotting the Mother: Caroline Norton, Helen Huntingdon, and Isabel Vane.? Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. 16. 2. (1997): 303-325. JSTOR. 4 April 2007

Poole, Russell. ?Cultural Reformation and Cultural Reproduction in Anne Bront?’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.? Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 33.4 (1993): 859-873. JSTOR. 28 March 2007

Senf, Carol A. ?The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Narrative Silences and Questions of Gender? College English. 52.4 (1990): 446-456. JSTOR. 28 March 2007

I’m?devolving into a babbling?idiot. I blame the mad dash?for the semester’s end.?In true cyborg style I warn you:
RAM IS CRITICALLY LOW.
NO MORE INPUT PLEASE.

PREFACE:
In June of 1977, my grandmother watched the launch of NASA’s Viking 1 Mars mission on TV. Before the craft sent photos back to Earth, scientists believed that?the little red planet possessed a life sustaining atmosphere. At 6 1/2 years old, my only focus was deadlocked on Dumbo and a fat blue crayon.

“Did you hear that, Kim? They’re talking about space shuttles. Someday you?could live on Mars.”

My?concentration, and life as I knew it, was shattered. Me??Trade the beautiful Earth and its pulpy coloring books for a technological shelter and an iPod? I dropped?my crayon.?Tears breached the borders of my lashes. The?flood gates?broke open.

Gram’s?hand rested on my shoulder. “Oh no. Did I scare you?”

I think now, “You bet yer ass you did, and so does Donna Haraway.”

DONNA HARAWAY, A MANIFESTO FOR CYBORGS:
Cyborgs have the ability to delve into the borderlands, or as Gloria Anzaldua would say, the last mestiza. They challenge the boundaries between?human and animal; organism and machine; physical and non-physical. My favorite quote from Haraway falls under the first category:

Biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have simultaneously produced modern organisms as objects of knowledge and reduced the line between humans and animals to a faint trace re-etched in ideological struggle or professional disputes?between life and social sciences. Within this framework, teaching modern Christian creation should be fought as a form of child abuse. (2271)

Rock on, girlfriend. Eat vegetarian. Down with religion. Equality can never come from a patriarchal Christian hierarchy.

Because cyborgs?have no origin story, no dominating patriarchal?tradition or otherwise, there?exists possibility for freedom?from these Western dualisms:

Self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female, civilized/primitive, reality/appearance, whole/part, agent/resource, maker/made, active/passive, right/wrong, truth/illusion, total/partial, God/man. (2296)

This is brilliant and beautifully Utopian. I love it. I love Haraway… until I remember where?she says:

Microelectronics mediates the translations of labor into robotics and word processing; sex into genetic engineering and reproductive technologies; and mind into artificial intelligence and decision procedures.?(2285)

Communication systems and technologies are the tools?necessary to recraft our selves, to disassemble and reassemble, to recode who we are. Okay. But… (This is where I cry like a 6 year old.) I don’t want to live like this. Is?this even living? Are we really already there?

Warning, Will Robinson! Tangent ahead: Sure, modern medicine provides artificial limbs that respond to mental stimuli. This ability?is truly amazing and beneficial to people who have lost body parts. But what happens when the Bionic Woman becomes a reality? (Answer: Countless?Lindsay Wagner?reproductions sell billions of?Sleep Number Beds.) What?becomes of?talent, ability?and stamina for physical training in arenas like the Olympics? We chastise those who take performance drugs for being dishonest. Sneaking in a pair of knees with?mnemonic assist can’t be good.

All Systems Online: To get back on track, I found great value in the text and got all sorts of serious while?commenting on Joei’s Blog. Pardon me while I plagiarize myself (with a few tweaks):

My take on page 2269, where Haraway says, ?Modern medicine is also full of cyborgs, of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices?? is that people are no longer being seen as the sum of all their parts. The medical realm has created artificial limbs, and thus human/machine hybrids. Do we consider these hybrid people/cyborgs any less human, whether male or female? No.

This leads directly into the next quote?[Joei] pulled from the text.

Identities seem contradictory, partial, and strategic. With the hard-won recognition of their social and historical constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in ?essential? unity. There is nothing about being ?female? that naturally binds women. (2275)

In agreement with Joei, I say this. Gender in our society is based on biology, yet Judith Butler says that maleness or femaleness is not a ?natural? assumption based on?body parts. If some men are born with ovaries and breasts, women with male genitalia, or?some women undergo hysterectomies, all of these provide a gray area within the dichotomy of ?men??and ?women.? To invert this system of categorical breakdown, the same holds true for women as a collective. Being female, possessing the required parts, does not create unity among the group. As Haraway points out, society, history, difference in race, class, and gender are divisive.

The?end game is that cyborgs hold the key to possibility in that they breach the boundaries of dualism. The list on page 2296 [and above] shows all the ways that cyborgs circumvent the categories. This circumvention can lead to freedom because the categories of identity break down.

Shutting Down: As a web geek, I love technology.?Still, I beg, can’t?the plight of humanity be?improved?while remaining?human? Or?are cyborgs Haraway’s way of?”letting the dead monster fall?”?(Think Watchmen.) Here’s my trouble. I hold close to a Native-American-style reverence?of the Earth, its creatures and their spirits. I hate cell phones . People that wear them “hands free” on their heads look stupid.?Borders employees?are freaks. They agree to assimilation, wearing ear devices to connect with the Mother Ship’s corporate command center. Cyborgs. Sellouts. Corporate America gets?fat because communication travels faster than bodies. Sit back, sip 12 Cokes, and take it all in.

Post Script: Maybe I’m?a victim of?Horkeimer and Adorno’s theory. Brainwashing IS present in film. Do I have the utmost respect for the wonderfully villainous?Borg?on Star Trek? Yes.?Could I ever?see them as heroes, breaking through the barriers of Western duality? Not so much. They want to cruelly assimilate Captain Piccard’s individuality and that, my friends, is a crime against humanity. Similarly, AI (Speilberg’s Artificial Intelligence)?boasts the dangers of loving?the clone of?a “real boy,”?one developed through genetic and technological advancement, while cyborgs?riot against?humanity for hurting their wittle feelings. In the end it all goes to hell. I’m a sucker for this message of pending doom. I believe.

Consider this an application add-on to my?Baudrillard post below.

According to the Yahoo article,?”BBC, Geldof join forces to draw up a map of mankind,” Bob Geldof says:

This will be an A to Z of Mankind, which will catalogue the world we live in now, the people who share this planet, the way we live and the way we adapt to face common and different challenges. Mankind is the world’s most extraordinary animal.

So, after reading Baudrillard, does anybody else feel doomed?by the?Dictionary of Mankind??(Does this include or exclude womankind?) I imagine?our final headline EVER to read:

“Rocker Bob Geldof, founder of Live Aid and promoter of?general well being, studies and catalogues?mankind into?hyperreality with his new hack-stab science.”

I’m just saying.

Note to self: Never theorize over morning coffee before the caffeine takes hold.

REPRESENTATION: The sign and the real are equivalent
Although Jean Baudrillard?recently passed away, he lives on?through the memories of his family and?”The Precession of the Simulacra,”?a theory?bequeathed to?his readers.?Sadly, as is the nature of death announcements, Baudrillard has since become a?representation of?himself in the eyes of the public.

SIMULATION: Substituting signs of the real for the real itself
So, who?initially broke this story? Why is that?singular point of view?the only representation we have in every publication? Where has personal interest and diversity dissappeared to??Reporters?have become a mere sign of reality, a hyper-reality in the field of Associated Press style “journalism.” By way of news masquerading as authentic journalism, the?story is systematically categorized,?distilled?down to?a?passage with carbon copy capability, and identically catalogued in each and every publication across the planet:?

- BBC News
- The International Herald Tribune
- Reutors.com
- ABC News
- And on and on…

Note the ridiculous post script on Reutor’s?carbon copy article: “Copyright 2007?Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.” What?

SIMULACRA: Simulation envelopes the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum
Capitalism and the lack of true governance of the FCC have allowed our varied sources of news to merge into?a select few?corporate interests. How amazing that the general public believes news media?is fair and balanced, particularly?because The?Fox Network says so. Without diversity, this cannot be true. Media, as it exists today, is limited in scope.

How beautifully ironic that this?simulation must divulge?itself, particularly?under the guise of?”reporting” on?the very man who revealed the truth:

Baudrillard argued that mass media and modern consumerist society had built up such a complex structure of symbols and simulated experience that it was no longer possible to comprehend reality as it might actually exist.?(Yahoo News: Asia)

Another fine example says:

Baudrillard focused his work on how our consciousness interacts with reality and fantasy, creating from them a copy world he called hyper-reality. He said that mass media led to hyper-reality becoming a dominant force in today’s world.?(BBC.com)

And there we have it. Diverse journalism is not real. Mass media is the culprit,?as it summarizes Baudrillard’s existence in miniature, giving little reverence to?his vital human essence or?the intricacy of his theory. France’s Liberation daily?is the only?publication that offered a?3 page spread in honor of the man.

REST IN PEACE?
Museums will probably seal Baudrillard’s thoughtful notes in airtight,?acid-free folders to be filed?away once they’ve been copied?for display. As he says, “the duplication is sufficient to?render both artificial” (1738).?He?will be studied?far into future?generations and his past will be perceived as their own.

Perhaps somewhere in the ether, Dear Jean Baudrillard, you will know that I?respect you as an authentic?human being.?Your past is your own,?as is that of?Rameses, and?I am willing to let you rest, in the sacred secret of your grave, as you?return to the earth from which you came. May paradise look nothing like Disneyland.

I’m posting this for?Michael and Elliot, who recently had me reminiscing about my encounter with black pudding and haggis. I dug through my old flight?journal to retreive?this entry, going all the way back to…

June 25, 1999
My First Time in Brighton, UK
Photo caption: How many flight attendants fit in the loo of a 777?

Our crew reached the hotel at a million o?clock in the morning (Eastern Standard Time and otherwise). I had pulled a full shift on no sleep. Visions of a bed with fat pillows raged through my gray matter harder than any sweet sugarplum could. Even if the bed had stupid sheets with stupid paisley patterns in orange and purple to match the stupid curtains, I didn?t care. (There are some hotels that could benefit from the Interior Design Police.) Anything soft that allowed me to get vertical for several hours would suit me fine. It?s not like my eyes would be open long enough to vomit at the decor.

Unfortunately, our hotel wasn?t immediately able to accommodate the crew?s needs. Instead, the apologetic staff offered a three hour wait with a compensatory breakfast buffet. Great. I could eat myself into a food coma with nowhere to pass out.

As the herd of fourteen uniformed zombies gathered around the buffet trough, we half snored and half snorted at the food. I vaguely remember hearing, ?Oh look! Black pudding, I?ll have to try that. Typical English cuisine?? (I wonder now, who was that asshole?)

Pudding can?t be bad, black or otherwise. I took a slab and placed it on my plate. A fellow zombie approached inquiring about the dark cake. Taking a small piece into my mouth, I swirled it around the full surface of my tongue. It was like soggy cardboard cooked in herbs and spices? but not. There was a hint of sweetness to it? but not. It wasn?t too rancid, but it most definitely was NOT good. It lingered over my taste buds like a thick fog. Fog? Frog. No, not frog.

Our International Service Manager appeared to my left, looked at my plate, and spouted, ?You?re a brave soul.?

So I replied bravely, ?I?ll try anything once.? Just then my sleepy eyes registered the many English folk around the buffet watching with anticipation. I finally asked, ?Well, what IS it??

My ISM, a fabulous prankster, whispered in my ear, ?It?s deep fried cow?s blood.?
I laughed, albeit nervously. I felt a look of nearly-nauseous disbelief wash over my face. ?You?re such a liar!?

His answer came in the form of a steadfast stare.

I scanned the crowd. Nods of agreement bobbed at me from every angle, reflected in the polished glass of the sneeze guard for double clarification.

?I JUST ATE DEEP FRIED COW?S BLOOD??

Okay. So what. I didn?t die. I didn?t even puke; I was damn proud of that. I?ve eaten many a strange thing: octopus, squid, eel, oysters, a ham sandwich off a New York City sidewalk, but this was the cake topper.

As if I could prove my audience wrong, I smeared the slab with my fork. Soft, fleshy, red stuff streaked a dark, crimson smudge across my white plate. Not only was it NOT pudding, it wasn?t truly black. A fat clump of clot stuck to the fork.

Now I was ready to hurl. I recognized the residual taste, familiar, metallic, like when I last bit the inside of my cheek. I pictured eating a not-quite-hard scab. The loaf was the consistency of an hour old, coagulated, deep fried flesh wound.

My next move was to find something to mask the flavor. I moved down the buffet and pointed at another dish. I asked the nearest Brit, ?What?s this??

?Haggis.? His tone flashed a smidge of negativity.

?I can read the sign. What?s IN it?? Those nutty English. They turn out a few gems like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers and think they?re funny.

?It?s a Scottish (perhaps he said Irish) dish. It usually has lamb, oatmeal, herbs, spices??

?Would you put it on your plate??

?Uh, no.?

I opted for the sausage, eggs, and potatoes with little appetite. No amount of replacement food could make the horrendous taste go away. Once we were finally assigned rooms, shots of mouthwash didn?t work either. I couldn?t sleep. I was assaulted by thoughts of some sacrificial, virgin cow being slaughtered to make a loaf of aneurysm.

I found this description?from?P.G. Wodehouse on Haggis while surfing?an internet cafe today:

The fact that I am not a haggis addict is probably due to my having read Shakespeare. It is the same with many Englishmen. There is no doubt that Shakespeare has rather put us off the stuff…. You remember the passage to which I refer? Macbeth happens upon the three witches while they are preparing the evening meal. They are dropping things into the cauldron and chanting “Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog,” and so on, and he immediately recognises the recipe. “How now, you secret, black and midnight haggis,” he cries shuddering.

This has caused misunderstandings and has done an injustice to haggis. Grim as it is, it is not as bad as that– or should not be. What the dish really consists of — or should consist of — is the more intimate parts of a sheep chopped up fine and blended with salt, pepper, nutmeg, onions, oatmeal, and beef suet. But it seems to me that there is a grave danger of the cook going all whimsy and deciding not to stop there. When you reflect that the haggis is served up with a sort of mackintosh round it, concealing its contents, you will readily see that the temptation to play a practical joke on the boys must be almost irresistible. Scotsmen have their merry moods, like all of us, and the thought must occasionally cross the cook’s mind that it would be no end of a lark to shove in a lot of newts and frogs and bats and dogs and then stand in the doorway watching the poor simps wade into them….

Note to self: Never?ingest anything?without knowing the full goddamn history of it first.

THE TRAGEDY
Cynicism runs rampant in “Dialectic of Enlightenment.” Horkheimer and Adorno present us, once again, with a theory that embraces “death?of the individual. ” I felt compelled to draft an obituary in honor of the loss (–>).

H&A set up the?tragedy by saying: ?

The culture industry as a whole has molded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product. … The explicit and implicit, exoteric and esoteric catalog of the forbidden and tolerated is so extensive that that it not only defines the area of freedom but is all-powerful inside it. (1227, emphasis mine)

In other words, film not only imitates life, it reproduces the?cyclical effect?where?life then?imitates film.??This may seem innocent enough, until we realize that “whenever the culture industry still issues an invitation naively to identify, it is immediately withdrawn” (1233). Breaking its promise to offer escape, entertainment never allows us?anything but reinforcement of?conformity in a late capitalist?society.?It offers what we cannot have (sexual freedom), then punishes those characters who indulge as?tragic examples of how not to operate within the collective.?Delight is cheapened and we are reduced to laughter at another’s expense. (Does anyone remember laughter?) We are allowed nothing more than this freedom to laugh.

A SYMBOLIC EXAMPLE
This picture from Julian Beever, the sidewalk chalk artist, reminds me of this theory in action. (I realize that this is not an example of?film. Bear with me.) H&A say that:

The lucky actors on the screen are copies of the same category as every member of the public. … [Movie-goers] are assured that they are all right as they are, that they could do just as well and that nothing beyond their powers will be asked of them. But at the same time they are given a hint that any effort would be useless because even bourgeois luck no longer has any connection with the calculable effect of their own work. They take the hint.(1233)

In essence, film offers us a self portrait like?Beever’s above, but with an awful?message attached. You are who you are and that’s all you’ll ever be: a consumer, an employee, another?cog in the machine. In Beever’s?self portrait?he is?working, the reflection of one more cog in the collective. He isn’t an individual in his own art as there are now two of him, one a copy and different only by a matter of degree. We see ourselves in film, we think, but?those characters we identify with are mere copies as well, figments of society?stifling our imagination, keeping in?check our ability to escape. Sadly, as consumers, we are complicit in this process of repression.

THE QUESTION OF ARTISTIC VALUE
In late capitalism, H&A believe that?use value in art is replaced by exchange value. To create art strictly as?expression?was once revered, yet to exchange that art strictly for monetary reasons dilutes personal expression down to a marketable style. We continue to be victims of capitalism and cooerced into such consumerism because nothing better is offered. So, again, we must ask,?is our individual existence?controlled by the culture industry into?a social collective? Must I post yet another picture of Star Trek’s Borg? (I refuse.)

A COMEDIC TWIST
Hope exists! What about TIME‘s 2006 Person of the Year? YOU!

As the article says:

Look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story … It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes … The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web …?And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Take that, Horkheimer and Adorno!
Thank you, Time Magazine.
Who says technology is oppression now?!?

JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Ryan and I are having an interesting conversation about this theory. It would be awesome for others to join in. Does anybody know of a film that doesn’t fall into the culture industry trap? Die Hard surely does.

These?are merely a few thoughts that presented easily for me.

Foucault and Cho sittin’ in a tree…
There are SO MANY different types of sexual discourse within Cho’s performance of I’m the One that I Want: gay, straight, drunk, slutty, medical – and people pay to hear all about it. We are not a prudish population overall. (In fact, after posting?about foot lickers and 7 feet of sex, my?blog traffic?went through the roof.)

The most pertinent point where Cho and Foucault align is the moment when?Cho’s small desire in the grand scheme of her identity briefly defines?her identity as a whole. Cho tells her mother that she?has a?sexual encounter?with a woman while working on a lesbain cruise line. This is not typical behavior for Cho and she asks herself if she’s gay or straight. She decides she’s just slutty but her mother needs to classify Cho and calls her machine asking:

Are you gay? Are you gay? Are you gay? If you don’t pick up the phone, you’re gay. Okay, you’re gay.” Her mother then continues with “Why can’t you talk to Mommy? Mommy is so cool… Mommy know all about the gay!”

Suddenly, Cho is seen differently through her mother’s eyes in light of a singular experience. Cho’s mother is interesting in that she is deeply effected by racism when she arrives in the States in the 60′s. Knowing that classification is hurtful and dangerous, she reproduces the same behavior with her daughter. I’m seeing both Althusser and Foucault here. Ideologies are in place to perpetuate the system.

Butler and?Cho sitting in a tree…
So, Cho’s?performance includes?the roles of both men and women. How do we, as an audience, know which role she is playing? Gender roles are important here. Cho seems to prove Butler’s point that gender is imposed, learned and performed. In playing the role of a man, Cho displays mannerisms belonging to that gender. When she depicts her gay male friends, she displays?more forced feminine gestures as performed by these men. Certainly, these performances play on stereotypes, but Butler would say that stereotypes are as false as the gender we assume. Butler would also use the example above to say that there is no true identity/soul. There are just chaotic desires within us that are reigned in by social expectations. These expectations are?placed upon us?and we, in turn, place them upon ourselves.

BODY AND SOUL
Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990),?explores the process by which society inscribes identity on the body. Before this happens, a body has a sex or silhouette?but no specific gender. External sources, not internal,?determine gender identity by way of “surface politics” (2496) and?”the law of heterosexual coherance” (2498). Whatever doesn’t fit the mold?is cast out, scorned, punished?for being?dirty, polluted and polluting to society.

PERFORMANCE PARODY
Performers have been raising the gender question for as long as there have been performances. The most popular and contemporary gender parody is the Pat skit on Saturday Night Live. Androgenous to the core, Pat is never forthcoming with clues as to which gender he/she belongs. Because Pat can’t be identified as male or female, the people that Pat interracts with?are?generally polite in their confusion.?Does this really raise awareness and acceptance of alternate identities?

GENDER AS PASTICHE
Parody playfully mocks an original but since gender is not an original identity, parody is imitating?an imitation.?This becomes pastiche, which Jameson says has lost its humor. Butler disagrees:

The loss of the sense of “the normal” … can be it’s own occasion for laughter, especially when “the normal,”?”the original” is revealed to be a copy … In this sense, laughter emerges in the realization that all along the original was?derived. (2499)???

So, this is why we have cult classics like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

THE REMEDY?
I have to wonder, are audiences getting it? Are they laughing with the transvestites or at them? And how do drag?performances build support for tolerance when those who are performing are preaching to the already converted?

Don’t many heterosexuals feel they deserve the right to?act as?Gender Border Patrol? If those who define their heterosexuality by way of opposition to alternative identities are dangerous to the mental and physical health of others, how do we break the restrictive social mold?

Laugh, take two queens and call me in the morning…

I find the idea of drag interesting as a remedy for intolerance, having never contemplated how:

We are actually in the presence of three contingent dimensions of significant corporeality: anatomical sex, gender identity and gender performance. If the anatomy of the performer is already distinct from the gender of the performer, and both of those are distinct from the gender of the performance, then the performance suggests a dissonance not only between sex and performance, but sex and gender, and gender and performance.

Having friends in several shows, I knew?their performance?was an expression of repressed sexuality and identity. Still, I don’t think even my drag queen friends were aware of the intricate triangular relationship between sex, gender and performance. Of course, this difference is what Butler says is crucial. I guess I’ll have to tote my Norton to the next show and let everybody know what’s really going on.

FICTIONAL CHIC
Clelebrity examples of gender bending are always interesting and influential, I suppose. Patti Smith dressed in men’s clothes to speak out against the male domination of Rock n’ Roll. David Bowie was “cool” as Ziggy Stardust,?a fictional, genderless poet character from Mars. I just don’t see the acceptance crossing beyond the boundaries of rock’s trendy tolerance yet.

WRAP IT UP, I’LL TAKE IT
So, for those who feel no affinity for their body’s sex, gender becomes a performance. Those?who seem to align “naturally” with the law of heterosexual coherance are also performing a learned behavior. In essence, gender is nothing more than a social construct, not a reality. We all just play our roles as a collective, striving for acceptance by the whole… or challenging the confines of the social construct called identity.