Postmodern Analysis, A Serious Man

(please refer to the following, unfortunately embedding disabled, scene:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUTyEEiulQk

The Coen brothers (as a unit) are one of the few postmodern American filmmakers. Critic A.O. Scott states, “Their insistence on the fundamental absence of a controlling order in the universe is matched among American filmmakers only by Woody Allen.” Their 2009 film, A Serious Man, continues in this postmodern tradition.

The story’s setting is a mid-western city in 1967, where Jewish main character Larry Gobnik encounters a series of misfortunes. Larry is also a passive man who allows himself to be victimized by several of the film’s other more dominating characters. Confused and hurting, Larry, desperate find some sort of rhyme or reason to his predicament, attempts to get answers from his religion in the form of counsel with three rabbis. The first meeting, with a very young rabbi, conludes with the inexperienced rabbi giving Larry stale advice about keeping a fresh perspective and appreciating things more—like the parking lot outside the window. The middle-aged second rabbi tells a bewildering story about an orthodontist finding mystical symbols from God carved in the back of his goy patient’s teeth. When Larry asks what this means, the rabbi says we don’t know. Larry then counters with, ”Why does God make us feel the questions if he is not going to give us any answers?’ The rabbi replies, “He hasn’t told me.” Larry’s attempt to get answers from celebrated elder Rabbi Marshak, is thwarted when he refuses to see him.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, who defines “postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (356), would classify religion as a blanket ”metanarrative” incapable of adequately providing answers in a system that is basically a chaotic “heterogeneity of elements.” (356) .

Larry is also rendered passive, his actions influenced by his wife, his church, his kids, his doctor, his wife’s lover, the tenure board at his college, his white gun-toting neighbor, and a dissatisfied student. These represent the intimidating, unseen social lateral forces of western culture that Michel Foucault calls a “subtle, calculated technology of subjection” (564) .

The film provides no answers, only questions, with unexpected tragedies thrown in and potential doom on the horizon.

Works Cited

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and Punish” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Print.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. “The Postmodern Condition.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Print.

Scott, A.O. “Calls to God: Always a Busy Signal” New York Times on the Web, 2 Oct. 2009. Web. 9, May 2010.

Why is Madonna always trying to be sexy?

Sex sells, but women are almost always the ones doing the selling, and they are almost always selling to men. When men are pimping and reaping the rewards, the cultural take is that women are being taken advantage of. But when women are in control, our culture accepts it as empowerment. When Madonnna exploded onto the scene in the '80's and became a hugely successful, very sexy pop star, she kept control of her image and profits, and this was unusual. Comparisons were made with Marilyn Monroe-- how Marilyn was a victim of men's objectification and it killed her. But not Madonna. She's in control of her image.
In the "Like a Prayer" video, big themes are attempted to be dealt with-- victimization, racism, religious oppression, freedom, and through it all, Madonna is sexy. Everyone else is fully clothed, robed from head to foot even, but Madonna wears a low-cut slip with straps falling off her shoulders. She dances provocatively in front of burning crosses and singing choirs. She seduces the Christ/Saint figure on a church pew.
Women throughout the ages have always tried to look beautiful/sexy to attract men. Women contort, distort, slice things into and out of their bodies, and cover their faces with paint. Because this practice has carried on through the ages, the question arises: is this trait "essentialist" in that it "reflects a natural difference between men and women that is as much psychological, even linguistic, as it is biological?" (Rivkin 766). Will women always dress to attract men because biology demands mating and consummation? Or is women's image choice, which is consistently different from men's, constructivist, "merely the product of conditioning under patriarchy" (Rivkin 768).



Works Cited
Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. "Introduction: Feminist Paradigms" Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed.Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. Print.

Post-modern prisons

In the labyrinth of high school peer politics and social regulations, the prison guard in the Panopticon is not the principal, it is the Cool Standard. This unseen guard imposes strict codes on dress and behavior, eliciting fear and angst at the spectre of making a horrid uncool mistake.


I know he has passed away, but when reading of Jean-Francois Lyotard's "incredulity towards meta-narratives," and his claim that any code of universal ethics is impossible, I am tempted to inflict something sudden, irrational, and mean--like a kick in the shin--and try to make him admit: Okay that's just not right!

Foucault

Who's the Boss?

According to Foucault, modern society is veined with suppressing invisible threads of power and politics. These strictures render us docile and obedient,doing what is boring, disagreeable or even humiliating because we are told to by a boss, teacher, police officer, any designated member of society that has some sort of power over us. Keeping the status quo, acting socially acceptable, not making a scene, keeping one's nose to the grindstone, not making waves, doing what we're told. But even when the boss is not around, we self-discipline. Imagine you are driving a road in the middle of nowhere, not another car for miles, and you come to a stop sign. Do you stop?

Analysis 3, Psychoanalysis

Psycho Planet

In this episode of Star Trek “Return of the Archons,” the crew of the Enterprise discovers a society that is forcefully manipulated into a psychologically compartmentalized existence that fits into Sigmund Freud’s three delineated manifestations of the theory of the mind. By day the citizens appear to be completely under the influence of the ego, which Freud describes in The Ego and the Id as that “which seeks to bring the influence of the external world to bear upon the id” (Freud 19) The citizens are complacent, happy, controlled by “what may be called reason and common sense” (Freud 19) . At 6:00 pm however, the festival red hour begins, and for twelve hours these same citizens turn violent and libidinous, completely descending into the id as Freud describes it in his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, “we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts… striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle” (Freud 498, 499) . In control of this pendulum swing is the god-like Landru, the lawgiver.
It turns out Landru is a computer who claims that before it took over, the planet was plagued with war, hate, unhappiness, uncertainty, and crime. In other words, like our normal human existence. Landru’s daytime controlled society is happy and peaceful, with none of the “ancient evils.” But, Landru realized the necessity for instituting a specific regulated escape valve for the id. Real life human existence is a continual struggle of balancing the id. The “ego in its relation to the id is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse” (Freud 19).
As the “lawgiver” in control of these psychological states, god-like Landru has set himself up as a figure who must be obeyed. In this way he fits into Freud’s role of “the super-ego [who] retains the character of the father” (Freud 30) .

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. New York: W.W. Norton, 1960. 19-30. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. The Essentials of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Anna Freud. New York: Penguin, 1986. 498-499. Print.

If a Mirror Cracks in the Forest...

Introduced last Wednesday to Slavoj Žižek, the self-proclaimed Lacanian and Slovenian "rock star" of philosophy. I was struck by his off-hand comment that in his earlier books he naively supported democracy. This opinion appears to be linked to his view of his core as somehow untrustworthy and negative. He is clearly a rebel thinker, and brave enough to throw political correctness on its ear. A cursory look at his Puppet and the Dwarf, The Perverse Core of Christianity, reveals an unexpected stance; instead of the typical, liberal slam against a belief in absolutes, Žižek criticizes western intellectual's postmodern ethical relativism and recommends some sort of Christianity.

Regarding Lacan's crucial mirror stage, where the baby fragments into realization of another self--the separate idealized version of self. Alienation arises because the mirror image appears more whole than the baby's own uncoordinated self, and voila, ego is born to attain mastery over the image.
But what if there are no mirrors? What if the baby only sees others for months, even a few years, before he/she sees an image of him/herself. Sounds like a premise.

Hamlet's Mommy Issues

With filmmaker Zeferelli's Freudian glasses on, Hamlet's "closet scene" is rife with juicy Oedipal possibilities. Before the prince enters his mother's chamber, he says "now I could drink hot blood." Hmmm, mother's milk? Hamlet says, "I will speak daggers to her." Phallic allusions? Mel Gibson quickly ramps up the emotion to a full state of id release as he expresses his frustration and rage towards his mother, and in this state,he pulls out his sword and thrusts it. (Into what he thinks is his false father figure, the uncle, but who is actually Polonius). Zeferelli stages the controversial kiss just before Hamlet sees the ghost of his father. Is the ghost a projection of Hamlet's guilt for harboring sexual feelings towards his mother?