Apollon EJournal Vol. 4

UNDERGRADUATE EJOURNAL

Volume 4 - 2014

contributors this issue Jason Cohen Faculty Director Featuring articles by Julianna Joyce • Sara Maki • Cory Collins • Rosalind Fursland • Quinn Gilman-Forlini • Helena Gandra

Faculty Director

to publish superior examples of undergraduate humanities research from a variety of disciplines as well as intellectual approaches.

ibutors this issue

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Deciphering the Manic Pixie Mythos

by Julianna Joyce

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Laughing at Men Sara Maki

10 - 20

Cloud Atlas Cory Collins

21 - 26

Back to the Futurism Rosalind Fursland

27 - 32

Erasing the Grotesque Quinn Gilman-Forlini

33 - 37

Perspectives in Music Helena Gandra

38 - 44

Deciphering the Manic Pixie Mythos

Contemporary Depictions of Alternative Femininity

By Julianna Joyce

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Unnaturally colored hair, alternative style, an affinity for the Smiths, and just socially awkward enough to be lovable, the alternative girl has found her way out of the high school and college hallways and directly onto the silver screen. In the last twenty years, television and film have begun to feature the quirky, alternative female alongside the usual female characters who embody homogenized ideals of feminine beauty. Television shows such as New Girl, Girls, and even NCIS have featured the alternative girl as either a protagonist or an important secondary character. The acceptance of diverse and alternative female characters into mass media represents a move towards drawing in the “Indie crowd,” a now marketable demographic made viable by the hipster movement. The increase in the use of alterna-girl characters has created notable character tropes within the labeled classification. Despite the character’s alternative label, the trope assigns specific attributes to the character, therefore homogenizing any preexisting notion of difference. For example, the sub-trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl has gained particular notoriety in the last twenty years. Despite the alternative appearance, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is well situated within the constructed female image in modern cinema; an image that is progressive enough to feign feminism but at its essence perpetuates post-feminist rhetoric. This character is depicted as a quirky, fun-loving, alternative girl whose life is devoted to the male protagonist.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl perpetuates the care-giving stereotype, in which women exist simply to cater to men, with her mythos and the subsequent characters existing in a realm of post-femininity, which subverts female progress by glorifying the role of the caretaker and typical women’s roles. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exhibits no true desires of her own, does not have any real aspirations, and is simply there to help the male protagonist. She is easily amused, childlike in her social interactions, and seemingly incapable of truly taking care of herself without the male lead, i.e., her childlike ways give her the uncanny ability to raise the brooding (usually white) male from his failure-induced depression. Her inability to function separately from a male lead or rather constant need for male attention, in addition to her childish ways, again feeds into negative stereotypes, which undermine women’s intellectual ability. Her character exists within the post-feminist masquerade working to “resecure the terms of submission of white femininity to white masculine domination”[i]. While off-beat plots and characters provide audiences with a different voice and an option outside of the mass produced “shoot-em-up blockbusters,”

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films including the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character tend to follow many of the same plot lines and perpetuate many of the same negativities as those criticized within traditional mainstream film. Although it seems that the inclusion of the alternative girl speaks to a changing view of women to a more encompassing and vaguely feminist understanding of diverse body type appreciation, many of the films featuring the alterna-girls perpetuate the same regressive stereotypes as those that precede them.

Methods and primary sources In this paper I hope to further examine the role of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl within contemporary film, as well as her relation to the feminist movement. Close textual analysis was conducted on two contemporary “off-beat” films: Scott Pilgrim versus the World (Edgar Wright, 2010), and (500) days of summer (Marc Webb, 2009) in order to better understand the relationship between the male protagonist and the female supporting role. The close textual analysis was also used in order to look at the characters’ roles and evaluate if they were stereotypical and to examine the dialogue, dress, and general character traits as a way to assess the femininity of the characters and how they are expected to act. The qualitative analysis helped distinguish particular characteristics of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, to compare them with feminist and post-feminist theory.

The research was guided by the main question (1)How and where does the Manic Pixie Dream Girl situate herself within feminist theory? And where is she situated within representations of femininity and feminism? The research was then further supplemented by secondary questions: (1) What are the traits of the Manic Pixie Dream girls? (2) What is her role within the life of the male protagonist? (3)Does the character best fit into post-feminism and the idea of the “new young women” or is the image portrayed completely outside of feminism?

Theory: The Manic Pixie Ethos fits into Samantha Senda-Cooks’ theory of the Incomplete Woman. Between the Manic Pixie Girl mythos and the Incomplete Woman theory one major difference exists, the character’s sense of agency. The character established within the Incomplete Woman theory has a sense of agency in that she is driven to pursue a career. The characters are usually fairly successful within

their career, but must choose between it and the male love interest. Although the plot line usually involves the female character managing to keep both a job and their love interest, there is still the conundrum of choice. The situation presents a form of semi-feminism: she has career aspirations which give her a progressive feminist edge, but her willingness or consideration to give up her career for a man seems regressive. Senda-Cook, blames the “double bind” on patriarchy, “A patriarchal society expects women to go to college and plan a career, but forego or amend that possibility when the opportunity for a family arises.”[ii] However, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl does not have to worry about the “double bind;” her lack of agency, career aspirations, wants, and desires outside of catering to the male protagonist, ensure that she has no choice. The MPDG fits into Senda-Cook’s argument that “films explicitly encourage women to complete their lives by becoming less professional or more feminine and engaging in a heterosexual romance[iii]”. The MPGD’s complete abandon of personal aspirations is regressive and represents a move towards a more traditional understanding of femininity.

Angela McRobbie’s theory of post-feminism can also be applied to the project given the role the women play in a relationship setting and in the larger context of the film itself.

McRobbie sees the current trend in postfeminist media as engaging in a post-feminist masquerade, which she explains “is a new form of gender power which re-orchestrates the heterosexual matrix in order to secure, once again, the existence patriarchal law and masculine hegemony, but this time by means of a kind of ironic, quasi feminist staking out of a distance in the act of taking on the garb of femininity” (89).

Her discussion of the post-feminist masquerade continues to encompass the role of young women as they establish themselves within a world that has fought past feminism, won, and can now reap the benefits. The young women of which the author speaks are those who have come of age through the struggles of recent feminist movements. They often reject the school of thought because of its unpopular or rather strict stipulations. They now exist within a feminist masquerade which gives the pretense of feminism without tangible equality. McRobbie discusses three figures within the masquerade and their relation to what she calls a “new sexual contract: the phallic girl, the working girl, and the global girl”[iv]. McRobbie’s phallic girl stands to represent the sexual freedom provided by the feminist struggle in a young female who now treats her sexual life in a way similar to that of her male counterpart. She sees sex as sport, and

adopts many of the habits of a male “drinking, swearing, smoking, etc.”[v] Although she challenges gender and Judith Butler’s theories of gender performance, the phallic girl and her actions don’t call male hegemony into question, and are actually “disparaging of feminism.[vi]” Ultimately, the postfeminist construct of the phallic girl represents a move away from traditional feminism in order to give women enough freedoms to placate them but within a limit which still follows patriarchy’s agenda.

What defines a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl manifests herself as the dark brooding protagonist’s eccentric love interest. The character stands as the new form of the muse, which has existed in literature, art, and science, seen as early as the Ancient Greeks’ nine Muses. Much like the Muses, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl lives in a world where her sole purpose is to cater to and inspire the male protagonist. The term was originally coined by film critic and blogger Nathan Rabins in his discussion of Kirsten Dunst’s character in the film “Elizabethtown.” Rabins defines the MPDG: existing solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writerdirectors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.[vii]Although the character is fictional and her traits are relatively harmless, it is important to consider her role as subordinate to the male lead. Not only are MPDG the secondary character, their frequent use has made them a trope - a common pattern in a story or recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience. A trope becomes a cliché when it’s overused. Sadly some of these tropes perpetuate negative stereotypes. The Manic Pixie mythos and its subsequent characters exist in a realm of post-femininity, which subverts female progress by glorifying the role of the caretaker and typical women’s roles. Women play a secondary role to male protagonist within the trope in a way which speaks to a more traditional role for women and ignores feminism and women’s progressive rights. Although there are glimpses of feminist discussion intermixed into the female character’s dialogue, the glimpses only provides a bit

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of luminosity on the subject rather than a full examination or argument in favor of women’s rights. Despite the alternative appearance, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is well situated within the constructed female image in modern cinema; an image which is progressive enough to feign feminism but at its essence perpetuates post-feminist rhetoric. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl perpetuates the care giving stereotype, in which women exist simply to cater to men. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl shows no true desires of her own, she does not have any real aspirations, and she is simply there to help the male protagonist see a more fun style of living. Her ability to raise the brooding, usually white, male from his failure-induced depression comes from her childlike ways.

She is easily amused, childlike in her social interactions, and seemingly incapable of truly taking care of herself apart from the male lead. Her inability to function without a male or rather constant need for male attention, again feeds into negative stereotypes of dependency on males as well as childish ways, which undermine women’s intellectual ability.

Her character exists within the post-feminist masquerade working to “re-secure the terms of submission of white femininity to white masculine domination.”

(500) Days of Summer: Following the life of protagonist Tom -played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer chronicles the pre, post, and during periods of an amorous off-beat relationship between the protagonist and the girl of his dreams. In this film, the MPDG trope is visible in Tom’s dream girl andco-worker, Summer - played by Zooey Deschanel. The two characters meet at a greeting card company where Tom works as a writer and Summer is an assistant/secretary. The female character’s job as a secretary plays into power dynamics often seen in films from the 1940s-60s and now in retro-based shows like Mad Men, where men play dominant roles in the workplace.

Women were often hyper-sexualized within these roles on screen, showing a subservient, sexualized image of women in the workplace. By sexualizing the career-minded women, the images obfuscated women’s struggle to gain employment and the fight for equality, thus normalizing patriarchy as the correct dominant force. Summer’s job as a secretary plays into this role, even though Tom is not her boss. Simply by being a secretary and because of their frequent copy room escapades, Summer plays into the subversive role. Therefore Tom is established as more dominant, despite how their non-

traditional relationship unfolds.The traditional sequence of the off-beat plotline involving the trope is inverted in this film.

Instead of moving from a place of despair into happiness with the help of the MPDG, the character finds himself destroyed by her absence and must rebuild himself on his own. Despite her non-traditional participation in the well-being of the character, Zooey Deschannel’s character, Summer, still embodies the MPDG trope, particularly in aesthetic qualifications. During the positive period of their “relationship”, Summer dresses in a vintage style, with bows in her hair, high-waisted pants, and classic 1950s dresses. To complete the aesthetic image of 1950s or vintage, Summer sports what Tom refers to as a “1960s haircut.” Her total image is similar to a modern pinup, an image embraced in hipster and alternative circles.

Summer’s love of The Smiths and Belle and Sebastian, also place her as a consumer of indie or alternative music, thus completing her alternative image.

Despite dressing according to the alternative fashion style, Summer’s personality is not completely representational of the MPDG trope. In contrast to the rather vapid opinionless Claire whom Rabins critiques in Elizabethtown, Summer is not afraid to express her views on relationships and her role within them. The film offers a view of the characters more feminist side, in a scene where Summer, Tom, and another co-worker have all gone to the bar after work. The co-worker asks Summer if she has a boyfriend, to which Summer answers no, leaving the two men baffled.

McKenzie: [drunk] So do you have a boyfriend?

Summer: No. McKenzie: Why not?

Summer: Because I don’t want one.

McKenzie: Come on; I don’t believe that.

Summer: You don’t believe that a woman could enjoy being free and independent?

McKenzie: Are you a lesbian?

Summer: [laughing] No I’m not a lesbian. I just, don’t feel comfortable being anyone’s girlfriend. I don’t actually feel comfortable being anyone’s anything ...

Summer: Ok. I, like being on my own. I think relationships are messy and people’s feelings get hurt. Who needs it? We’re young, we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world; might as well have fun while we can and, save the serious stuff for later.

McKenzie: You’re a dude. [to Tom] She’s a dude!

Tom: Ok but wait–wait. What happens, if you fall in love?

Summer: You don’t believe in that, do you?

Tom: It’s love, it’s not Santa Claus.

In a way, the film has reversed the traditional understanding of love and relationships, placing the female as less receptive to amorous life and the male character as more of a hopeless romantic. Summer’s retort to being perceived as strange or a lesbian speaks to the feminist movement. Summer is in control of her sex life and does not substantiate her own worth within male companionship. Her reluctance to become seriously involved with the male protagonist and sexual freedom aligns the character with McRobbie’s post-feminist figure of the “phallic girl.” Summer is both aesthetically and emotionally feminine, while exhibiting more masculine traits.

In the scene previously described, the character speaks out against love, right after happily accepting a beer, which the drunken friend, McKenzie, sees as a more masculine beverage, as evidenced by his insistence on switching her drink because she’s “a chick.” Although it seems ridiculous to assign gender performativity to alcoholic preferences, the gendered image usually associated with marketing campaigns for beer is largely male-oriented. Her desire to keep her relationship with the male protagonist casual seems to contradict the understanding of the nurturing, loving, mother figure, which women are expected to become.

Instead, she conducts herself and her sexuality in a more masculine way, focusing more on “recreational sex” over “reproductive sex.[viii]” Summer even takes on a masculine

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role when describing her relationship with Tom by saying that she is the Sid Vicious of the relationship, leaving the male protagonist to be Nancy, the feminized victim. Summer therefore establishes herself metaphorically as the “phallus bearer”[ix] by assigning the masculine role to herself. Her sexual morality and tendency towards traits deemed more masculine (such as willingness to watch and reenact adult films) further establish her adoption of the phallus as her own.

The character’s choice to dress in vintage 1950s style takes on a more playful role, when Tom and Summer take a trip to an Ikea and play house in a showroom kitchen. Summer plays the role of a housewife, and pretends to prepare a meal for Tom. During the scene, Summer mockingly praises Tom for being so smart, pretending to reward him by waiting for him in bedroom. The scene satirizes the 1950s social construction of gender expectations in the household. The mockery implies that both Summer and Tom understand the absurdity of the assigned roles. Additionally, because the non-relationship they share is inversed according to gender perceptions, the acting out of traditional roles seems to speak to the “new backlash” in the feminist movement which points out “the ridiculousness and unnatural nature of our contemporary gender relations.” By mocking traditional gender roles, the film attempts to normalize Tom and Summer’s gender-switched relationship.Summer as a character sits in a place of feminist ambivalence. She is both subversive and progressive, in ways that situate her best within post-feminist rhetoric. Despite her short burst of feminist rhetoric, the character’s “phallic girl” understanding of relationships and sex as well as the ultimate decision to get married, seems to undermine the initial burst. In fact the feminist rhetoric she espouses may best be represented by Merri Lisa Johnson’s argument for female pleasure and third wave feminism. Summer appears content in the “relationship” because it functions in her control. She is in control of the pleasure received from the relationship, rather than simply catering to the sexual needs of the male character. Like Third Wave Feminist, she is empowered through her own control of pleasure rather than being controlled by patriarchy[x].

However, Summer never raises herself from the secondary role she plays to Tom, she appears to have no real aspirations of her own, and despite establishing herself as having strong opinions on relationships, she ultimately falls into traditionalism, thus undercutting the strength of her initial argument. Because she does benefit from her control over her own pleasure and sexual life, but still plays a secondary role without agency, Summer best embodies post-feminism.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Based on the graphic novel by the same name, Scott Pilgrim vs the World chronicles protagonist Scott Pilgrim’s – played by serial indie-film protagonist Michael Cera- battle to win the love of his dream girl, Ramona Flowers – played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Scott is a 22-year-old thin, white, male whose love life takes a turn for the worse after his girlfriend “breaks his heart and turns into a super bitch.”

The male character is girl-obsessed (to the point of skipping band practice to go on a date), unemployed, and living in a one-room basement apartment with his gay roommate. Scott does not initially seem to fit the traditional characteristics of the male protagonist within the Manic Pixie Mythos, mainly because he is not visibly depressed. However, the audience quickly learns that his break up, which occurred over a year ago, has left him a bit unstable, both romantically and emotionally. Additionally, Scott has created an image of a perfect female in his mind, who manifests herself into his life.

Thus, the protagonist has his dream girl.

The dream girl, Ramona Flowers, is an American native, dyed hair, hipster girl who moves to Canada in order to escape her past. Her fashion aesthetics connect her strongly to the alternative or hipster scene, an aesthetic which the movie’s dialogue addresses frequently. Her fashion and hair closely resemble many of the styles seen within the riot grrrl movement in the early 90s.

Steam punk goggles on her head, brightly colored tights under plaid pleated skirts, and combat style boots, seem to be the character’s general aesthetic. The steampunk[xi] and riot grrrl[xii] styles add an edgy level to the character’s personality. Her clothing is feminine, but strongly alternative, which, aside from its edginess, also lends a more masculine air to her persona. Her bomber jackets and asymmetric haircut detract from the traditional sense of female beauty because of its historically male perception and appropriation by the character. To add to her alterna-girl aesthetic, Ramona’s ever-changing hair color mimics that of fellow Manic Pixie Dream girl Clementine, in “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The wildly colored hair is a fashionable trend within alternative scenes, particularly within emo and scene kid aesthetics. Her involvement with the music scene and frequency in dating musicians also aligns her with a more alternative scene, given that most alternative scenes tend to align themselves with particular

genres of music, i.e. punk, emo, etc. Ramona’s alternative be unable to fight against a male. The male protagonist style and tie to the music scene aligns her with several Manic expresses this idea when fighting Ramona’s female ex - from Pixie Dream Girl aesthetics. her “bi-curious,” or as Scott calls it, her “sexy” phase. When informed that he would have to defeat the female ex Scott Aside from her aesthetic identity within the MPDG, insists that he can’t fight a girl because “they’re soft”. The Ramona’s character plays a secondary role to the male image of the strong fighting woman who is willing to defend protagonist, despite showing herself to hold more power herself and those she cares for is undermined by the femalein the relationship. In a telling scene, Scott, the male on-female battles which insinuate that women are too soft to protagonist, is shown wearing an apron and cooking dinner fight men. for Ramona. He speaks to his roommate, about all of the emotions and anxieties he is having about Ramona coming To further align the Ramona character to the phallic girl, it is over. His banter seems stereotypically female in the way that important to note the character’s previous relationship with he quickly becomes over-emotional and worries about his another female. Because Ramona discredits the relationship body image. This scene places the relationship dominance by calling it simply a “phase”, she is aligning herself with in the hands of Ramona and masculinizes her character. the more taboo side of the phallic girl, “who is not averse to Additionally, Ramona clarifies early on that all sexual power having sex with other girls[xiv]”. However, like the phallic is hers to control. This is established after Ramona and Scott’s girl, the relationship is just a fling rather than an acceptance first date once they end up in Ramona’s bed: of bisexuality or homosexuality. By calling it a bi-curious phase, the relationship still accepts heterosexuality as the Ramona V. Flowers: I changed my mind. normative orientation, and thus does not take away from the patriarchal power dynamic. Were Ramona to accept Scott Pilgrim: Changed it to what? From what? the validity of the relationship and her possible feelings, the relationship may have been a threat to her potential Ramona V. Flowers: I don’t wanna have sex with heterosexual relationships. She is therefore still an object that you, Pilgrim. Not right now. is conquerable for males. The fling fits into a more “sexy” understanding of lesbian desire, which is perpetuated by Scott Pilgrim: Okay. modern media. Additionally, her sexual life, which she appears to be in control of, is expressed to be more focused Ramona V. Flowers: It’s not like I’m gonna send you on “recreational sex” rather than “reproductive sex”. When home in a snowstorm or anything. You can sleep in her past relationships are discussed she speaks of them my bed. And I reserve the right to change my mind without any real attachment or regret. Her relationships about the sex later. seem to be based on recreation rather than any level of emotional attachment.

Much like Summer in 500 Days of Summer, Ramona embodies the characteristics of McRobbie’s “phallic girl”. This taken into account, it can be said that the Ramona Ramona is both in control of her sexual life, as evidenced character fits into views of sexuality and third-wave by the first date scene, and exhibits a willingness to use feminism. Not only does she fit into Johnson’s argument in violence when necessary. According to McRobbie, the favor of female pleasure being empowering for women, “phallic girl,” besides engaging in a sexual lifestyle which she also can be aligned with Naomi Wolf’s argument on is reminiscent of patriarchal male prowess, will also engage promiscuity. Although McRobbie might see recreational sex in masculine habits such as “smoking, swearing getting into as outside of feminist rhetoric, Naomi Wolf argues that by fights, having casual sex...[xiii]”. Ramona is shown to have embracing one’s “shadow slut[xv]” one is embracing one’s several battle scenes where she defends herself and/or the own power of patriarchy. Wolf argues against the policing male protagonist. Although this show of strength and power of female sexuality and says that, by embracing the oftenis a more masculine trait, there isn’t true equality between the shunned promiscuous aspects of one’s personality, women male and female characters. Ramona only fights the female are actively fighting against standard ideologies of female characters, which gives the impression that women would sexuality. Ramona is shown to be unabashed in her sexual

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freedoms as well as in the number of relationships she has participated in. By embracing her “shadow slut,” i.e., not acting accordingly to standard perceptions of female chastity, Ramona fights against it.

Conclusion: In both films, it is possible to see how the trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl can sit in a liminal space between feminism and post-feminism. Despite the ephemeral glimpse of strong feminist rhetoric by both of the characters, the ultimate decisions to give up personal morals and desires for a heterosexual relationship delegitimizes their feminist argument. Because the trope has established itself as placing the male lead as the protagonist, it is difficult to argue for its feminist power, regardless of the strength of the supporting female role. This can be seen within 500 days of Summer and Scott Pilgrim vs the World, since both of the characters give a glimpse of feminist rhetoric, but ultimately adhere to patriarchal notions of feminine comportment. Because they adhere to the gender power distinctions perpetuated within the Manic Pixie mythos, both women set themselves as subversive characters. Their lack of true agency in favor of inspiring the brooding male protagonist further depicts their character as secondary and almost less important to the male. This need to care for the male protagonist emulates the antiquated notion of women as caretakers or homemakers.

Ultimately, the trope best situates itself within post-feminism and the theories of the new sexual contract as discussed

by Angela McRobbie. The characters do benefit from the past struggles of feminism as noted by their enjoyment of sexual freedoms and pleasure without many repercussions.

They also show themselves to be more traditionally feminine, wearing girly clothing and worrying about their future within a committed heterosexual relationship. The trope’s placement within the alternative scene aligns it with an expectation of greater leeway within the freedoms of the female body and femininity. However, femininity as a construct and the female body, regardless of the labeled perception (i.e. mainstream, riot grrrl, feminist, post-feminist, etc.) when depicted on screen, must adhere to the patriarchal concept of idealized femininity.

1] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009). Page 28

Helford, Elyce Rae. “The Stepford Wives And The Gaze..”

Feminist Media Studies. 6. no. 2 (2006): 145-156.

[2] Samantha Senda-Cook, “Modernizing Two Double Binds: How Six Contemporary Films Perpetuate the Myth of the Incomplete Woman ,” National Communications Association (2009): 18-28, http://sendacook.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/postfeminist-double-binds.pdf.

Johnson, Merri Lisa. “Ladies Love Your Box: The Rhetoric of Pleasure and Danger in Feminist Television Studies.”

In Hammer, Media/Cultural, 392-410. McRobbie, Angela. the aftermath of feminism: gender, culture, and social change. London: SAGE Publications, 2009.

[3] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009). Page 83 [4] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009).

[5] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009).

Nikandam, Noya. “Gender is Performative in Illusive Beliefs..”

English Language & Literature Studies. 2. no. 2 (2012): 84-88.

Rabin, Nathan. The Bataan Death March of Whimsy Case File #1: Elizabethtown.

A.V. Club, 2007 Rakow.

Lana F. Feminist Approaches to Popular Culture: Giving Patriarchy its Due. Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall, 199-214

[6] Rabins, nathan. “The Bataan Death March of Whimsy Case File #1: Elizabethtown”.

The AV Club. January 25, 2007.

Senda-Cook, Samantha. Modernizing Two Double Binds: How Six Contemporary Films Perpetuate the Myth of the Incomplete Woman.

National Communication Association, 2007

[7] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009). Page 64

Thornham, Sue. “Starting to feel like a Chick” Re-visioning romance in “In the Cut”. Feminist Media Studies, 2007.

[8] Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009). Page 83

Wolf, Naomi. “Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood.”.

New York: Random House Inc, 1997

[9] Merri Lisa Johnson, ““Ladies Love Your Box: The Rhetoric of Pleasure and Danger in Feminist Television Studies,” Third Wave Feminism and Television : Jane Puts It in a Box,

Vint, Sherryl. “The New Backlash: Popular Culture’s “Marriage” with Feminism, or Love Is All You Need..”

Journal of Popular Film and Television. 34. no. 4 (2007): 160-169

[10] Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that features steam-powered machinery. There is also a fashion statement associated with the sub-genre, which includes 19th century aesthetics and steam powered machinery accessories.

[11] The Riot grrrl movement is an underground feminist punk rock movement that originally started in the early to mid-1990s. The movement is often tied to Third Wave feminism and its bands often deal with issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, and female empowerment. In addition to a music scene and genre, riot grrrl is a subculture: zines, the DIY ethic, art, political action, and activism are part of the movement.

[12]Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009).

[13]Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, (London: SAGE Publishing Ltd, 2009). Page 89 [14]Wolf, Naomi. “Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood.”.

New York: Random House Inc, 1997.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ang, Ien. Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture, (Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall, ), 189-198 Bell, Crystal. “75 years of Manic Pixie Dream Girls.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com2012/07/26/manic-pixie-dream-girls-video_n_1705312.html.

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Laughing at Men

Masculinities in Contemporary Sitcoms

By Sarah Maki

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Literature Review

Introduction The situation comedy, or the “sitcom,” is an established part of daily television. Prime time is rife with them; some are considered classics (All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Cheers), and others are quoted long after they are off the air (Friends, Seinfeld, Will and Grace). Because of its common use and established role, the word ‘sitcom’ assumes a definition– many scholars allow the term to define itself without constructing the genre to develop a “map” of how the narratives and characters have developed over the years into what they are on contemporary television. The study of these character developments, specifically the development of masculinities within sitcoms is the purpose of this study.

There is a relevancy to this study of the portrayal of masculinities in this society that struggles with defining masculinities (and consequently male sexualities) every day.

The recent media and political discussions surrounding the definitions of “marriage” and “family” create opportunities for prime-time television series to address these issues in a way that may challenge the dominant ideologies of Americans – what a “man” is, who a man “should” be with, what a man “should” do. The sitcom is successful because its characters and episode subjects are rooted in the social, cultural, and political discourse of its time – it not only reflects American ideology but also works to shape that ideology.

Its audiences are allowed to laugh at the challenging or uncomfortable situations regarding masculinities because they take place within the context of comedy. These comedic moments often coincide with the widely and fiercely debated role of masculinity in America.

For the purposes of this study an analytical comparison of masculinities between How I met Your Mother and Modern Family initially felt like an arbitrary choice; the first follows a group of friends who live in the city and the second follows three families who live in suburbia. It is the unexpected similarities in the development of the wide range of malecharacters in each show acted as the determining factors.

How I Met Your Mother includes bachelors and “bromances”; Modern Family includes men on their second wife and homosexual relationships; and both shows include married men with families. Because both shows comically present men in traditional gender roles and men challenging these roles, this analysis aims to determine if these characters maintain, challenge, or ambiguously debate the traditional masculine, heteronormative roles.

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The Sitcoms How I Met Your Mother first aired on CBS in September of 2005, and since then has established itself as a sitcom of recognizable characters and catchphrases [i.e. Barney Stinson’s “Legen-wait for it-dary!” or “Suit up!”]. The series has been running for eight seasons, but I will only work with the first seven. The three male characters of the series are Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), Marshall Erikson (Jason Segal), and Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). The two female leads are Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) and Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). The series focuses on an older Ted, in the year 2030, telling his children the story of how he met their mother; this includes, but is not limited to, his romantic relationships, his business ventures, his friendships, and his adventures. Since its debut, the series has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards and won a Primetime Emmy in 2012, as well as eight other wins and fifty nominations[i].

The show is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and in the 2011-2012 season television viewer statistics, ranked 45th with the total viewership being 9.673 million[ii].

Modern Family debuted on ABC in September of 2009, and since then the show has become a popular family sitcom.

Presented in mockumentary[1] style, the show follows the storylines of three very different families living in suburbia.

One family is “traditional”; Claire Dunphy (Julie Bowen) is married to Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) and they have three children, twin girls Haley and Alex (Sarah Hyland and Ariel Winter) and son Luke (Nolan Gould). The second family is interracial; an older man, Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill) is now married to a Latina woman, Gloria Delgado-Pritchett (Sofia Vergara) and she brought into the marriage one son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Claire is Jay’s grown daughter by his first marriage. Jay’s other child, Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) is gay and committed to partner Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) and they have recently adopted a Vietnamese baby, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons). The series follows the relationships within and between the three families. Since its premiere, the series has won one Golden Globe (2012) and received another fifty awards and 101 nominations. The show is produced by 20th Century Fox Television and in the 2011-2012 season television viewer statistics, ranked 17th with the total viewership being 12.93 million.[iii]

As an introduction to the situation comedy, Jane Feuer’s article “Genre Study and Television” (1992) serves as an in-depth analysis of both genre and character development.

Feuer refers to the work of television scholars to offer three differing insights into the sitcom genre: David Grote, Horace Newcomb, and David Marc. Grote presents a negative definition of the sitcom – it is the most basic genre on television that is both conservative and static in its form.

Newcomb reiterates the basic structure of the sitcom, citing the simple and reassuring nature of the problem/solution formula for its audience. David Marc interprets sitcoms as having the subversive potential of a social critique with the ability to challenge social norms. In his book Comic Visions (1997) Marc developed a formula for the situation comedy and how it confronts social norms; each episode features a familiar status quo, a ritual error made and then a ritual lesson learned that returns the family to that familiar status quo.By steeping each episode in familiar social or cultural contexts, audiences can relate to and find the humor in the “crises” of each episode. Within this context of a general “formula” for the situation comedy, in his book Television Style (2010) Jeremy G. Butler wrote that the majority of sitcoms are limited to recurring interior and in-studio exterior sets; characters spend a substantial amount of time in a living room, dining room, or kitchen. These sets emphasize situations in the home and workplace and encourage dialogue rather than action. These applied guidelines create the structure for the sitcom.

In the article “Sitcoms” (1987), Ronald Berman alleges that “good comedy has a way of breaking away from ideology.” Berman discusses the challenges that arise with a willingness and opportunity to critique and address social problems; create a show that is too socially forward-thinking and the networks lose interest, too conservative and there is the risk of losing a thinking audience. He suggests that comedy as a genre corresponds to the actual world rather than to the ideal world, which is echoed in the application of hegemonic masculinity to real men; the ideal is not necessarily achievable or applicable to actual men or to the men in sitcoms.

In Robert Hanke’s article “The ‘Mock-Macho’ Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and its Reiteration” (1998) he describes one of the stock characters in a sitcom,

the “mock-macho” man. Hanke charts the development of the “macho” male character who is comedic because of a previously established concept of masculinity; these characters attempt to attain a certain masculinity and fail to do so. He identifies these sitcoms and characters by the jokes that are written (and at whose expense they are written), their correspondence to “true life,” and what kind of masculinity they identify with: the “Wild Man” or the “New Father”. The “Wild Man” is hyper-masculine (81); he is created in the clichéd model of a modern cavemen.

The “New Father” is assertive in his paternal responsibilities within the structure of clichéd masculinity; he prefers sports to the arts and encourages “natural” aggression (i.e. roughhousing, wrestling, etc.), particularly if he has sons.

Hanke argues that because these characters foreground the question of what the definition of a “man” is, their parodic discourse of masculinity acknowledges the precariousness of hegemonic masculinity (88).

Father characters in television, be they new fathers or father experts, are discussed in Erica Sharrer’s article “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s” (2001). Sharrer’s hypothesis is rooted in the notion that men who are taking on traditionally female roles in the sitcom have become “fair game” for light-hearted humor and this is particularly pronounced in working class television family households. The modern sitcom about these families is expected to offer foolish portrayals of fathers; Mark Crispin Miller, in his article “Prime Time: Deride and Conquer” (1987) concurs with this idea, mapping the development of the sitcom father from its original state as a patriarchal figure who was not considered a laughing matter to this “fool dad” who originates from the disappearance of the patriarchal emphasis in society. Both Miller and Sharrer relate these character developments to the social system of the era because television reproduces the larger ideologies of society. The characters that sitcoms show their audiences’ are rooted in the world around them and with whom they are already familiar.

Continuing the scholarly discussion of inadequate male characters is David Buchbinder in his article “Enter the Schlemiel: The Emergence of Inadequate or Incompetent Masculinities in Recent Film and Television.” Buchbinder (2008) applies the characteristics that have been reserved for the construction of Jewish Masculinity to the incompetent male character present in television. The “Schlemiel”

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character struggles to meet gender norms; despite efforts to achieve the desired masculinity, he may be clumsy, awkward, or physically lacking. Buchbinder summarizes this character concisely as the “incompetently masculine male”, a man who tries to meet the norms of culture and fails. His discussion of the growing anxiety around masculinity applies Judith Butler’s notion of performativity to the development of masculinities in television characters. Inadequate male characters in a comical context, or such as the male characters discussed

by Miller, Hanke, or Sharrer, allow audiences to relax in the portrayal of characters they can relate to or who are exaggerated.

Sitcoms and their male characters, according to Diana Miller in her article “Masculinity in Popular Sitcoms, 1955-1960 and 2000-2005” (2011), rely “on stock characters and stock humor”(144) that create basic formulas and coding systems for identifying their masculinities. The uncertainty surrounding masculinity in the latter half of the twentieth century, the context for contemporary sitcoms, has added the “hen-pecked husband,” the “childish man,” and the “metrosexual man” to the ongoing list of stock characters.

The “hen-pecked husband” is “fearfully respectful” of his wife; popular characters like Ray Barone of Everybody Loves Raymond and Hal of Malcom in the Middle are mindful of their poor decision making because they fear punishment, belittling, or anger from their wives. The “childish man” refuses to function as an adult; he may reject marriage, avoid responsibility within the family life, and/or behave like an overgrown child. The “metrosexual man” promotes an urban, polished masculinity that equates manhood with personal care, fashionable clothes, and other luxuries often associated with femininity.

corporate job, changes careers, and is occasionally mistaken for being gay[2]. The “New Lad” is created as a man of one-night stands whose career is unimportant and he is not defined through financial independence (138); the character of Joey Tribbiani (Friends) epitomizes Edward’s “New Lad” – a womanizer with an unstable acting career.

Male characters are created within, but not confined to, the structures of these archetypes.

These archetypes result from the development of masculinity over time because the characters are products of their social and cultural environment. The career emphasis of a male sitcom character is rooted in the traditional role of a man in the home. In Jessie Bernard’s article “The Good-Provider Role” (1981), she outlines the place of men in the home as the “providers.” Bernard wrote that a serious cost of the inherent good-provider role was the identification of maleness within the work site, specifically in success within the career (207).

Success in this good-provider role comes to define masculinity itself; the role became a competition among men. The good provider needed to be smart, strong, and capable in the workplace if he was going to be considered a man.

Theoretical Approach

Masculinity theory is necessary to understanding development of the male character in sitcoms. In his study Cultures of Masculinity (2006)[iv] Tim Edwards refers to a three-phase or ‘wave’ model of critical studies of masculinity. The first phase or wave refers to the development of the sex role paradigm in the 1970s to apply more direct questions to the concept of masculinity. These studies sought to demonstrate the socially constructed nature of masculinity and its reliance on socialization, sex role learning and social control (2).

As masculinity develops and the male character-type This primary sex role paradigm was the most dominant set changes they are categorized into three co-existing types of masculinities exerting influence and control - hegemonic of men by Tim Edwards in his article “Sex, booze, and masculinity. The second phase, developed in the 1980s out fags: masculinity, style, and men’s magazines.” Edward of immense criticism for the first wave, and is concerned (2003) created the “Old Man”, the “New Man”, and the with the power struggle within gender and society. The third “New Lad”. The “Old Man” is defined through the ideal of phase of studies of masculinity defines gender in terms of marriage or promiscuity and he pursues a standard career normativity, performativity, and sexuality.

(138); the character Ross Gellar of Friends is created within this form with his established career as an archeologist and Hegemonic masculinity is explained by Mike Donaldson his multiple marriages throughout the series. The “New as the pattern of practice that allows men’s dominance Man” has a career with fluidity and is caring, loving, with over women to continue. These patterns create the ideal an ambiguous sexuality; written within this category is man and in a contemporary society men still position character Chandler Bing (Friends) – he has an unidentified themselves in relation to it. Donaldson refers to Patricia

Sexton’s suggestion that “male norms stress values such as courage, inner direction, certain forms of aggression, autonomy, technological skill, group solidarity, adventure and considerable amounts of toughness in mind and body.”[v] These concepts of masculinity are framed within a heteronormative concept of gender, which is based on the dichotomization of sex (biological) rather than gender (cultural) and subsequently naturalizes the body. Because the heteronormative ideal is “logically” rooted in the biological notion of reproduction, heterosexuality and homophobia are the bedrock of hegemonic masculinity. The conformity of men to the demands of this masculinity rewards homophobic behavior in the form of social support and reduced anxiety about their own manliness[vi].

Connell and Messerschmidt reformulate Donaldson’s original conception of hegemonic masculinity. Their analysis includes male and female gender categories within the concept of masculinity; they recognize that masculinity is not limited to the biological definition of man, but is a configuration of practice that is accomplished in social action.[vii] Their reformulation also concludes that the notion of hegemonic masculinity as it is constructed does not correspond closely to the lives of actual men. The hegemonic ideal is not necessarily achievable or applicable to actual men or to the male characters in sitcoms. Connell and Messerschmidt argue that “masculinity” does not represent a certain type of man, but instead represents a way that men position themselves through discursive practices; men can strategically adopt or distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity.

This idea of performance and the maintenance of masculinity are rooted in the work of Judith Butler. Butler dislikes identity categories; she recognizes them as limiting “guidelines” for expected behavior. These identity categories create a compulsory heterosexuality[viii]; society is obligated to perform the heteronormative expectation because social norms and behaviors derive from it. Butler refers to the phenomena of drag to explain her idea of the abstract gender performance; she alleges that every person is in their own, socially acceptable normative version of drag every day. The hegemonic heteronormative ideology exposes itself through repetitive performances every day and the performance has to be repeated daily because it is constantly being challenged. The manly man has to be manly every day for fear that, should his behavior change, he would face criticism or accusations of not falling within

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the heteronormative identity category. Her theories demand that we recognize the ambiguity of sexual identity and of the performances enacted daily by everyone to maintain his or her sexual identity[ix].

– a cultural relationship. This analysis discusses how the genre, or the series within the genre, maintains the social order and adapts to cultural changes to remain relevant.

The ideological approach sees genre as an instrument of control. This analysis would review how the genre or series Constructed masculinities do not correspond with the lives reproduces the dominant ideologies of a capitalist system. of actual men, or characters. Instead Sharon Bird’s models Approaching these sitcoms from these three angles will express the fantasy, the desire, and the ideals of masculinity create an in-depth analysis of these series as examples of that men hold themselves to. Bird’s theory of homosociality the sitcom genre. references the nonsexual attractions held by men (or women, but for the sake of this study men will be the sole focus I will investigate how each character conforms to, deviates of discussion) for other men. Bird argues that “homosocial from, and/or challenges these “standard” male characters interaction, among heterosexual men, contributes to the found in sitcoms. To analyze the characters I will examine maintenance of hegemonic masculinity norms by supporting the narratives and mis-en-scène of the episodes with means associated with identities that fit hegemonic ideals attention to setting, lighting, costume, and behavior of the while suppressing meanings associated with nonhegemonic characters[xii]. These details create the effect of comic masculinity identities.”[x] There are meanings that are exaggeration, understated beauty, and realisms – the miscrucial to this perpetuation of hegemonic masculinity: en-scene helps to codify and emphasize details that develop emotional detachment, competitiveness, and sexual throughout each narrative. objectification of women. Although these understandings characterize hegemonic masculinity, an individual person Analysis: The men of How I Met Your Mother does not necessarily internalize them; they are about how men behave, not necessarily what men believe.

The comedy in How I Met Your Mother is rooted in reallife, real-world situations to which an audience can relate: Methods dating, marriage, friendships, and careers. These familiar situations are the epitome of why a sitcom is successful and The focus of this study will be an analysis of seasons one what makes a sitcom a ‘situational comedy.’ These moments through seven of How I Met Your Mother and seasons of comedy that an audience can relate to happen within the one through three of Modern Family to create a broad recurring sets that Jeremy Butler mentioned; the majority of commentary and then focus on the masculinities of the the show is filmed in Ted/Marshall/Lily/Robin’s apartment(s) characters in specific scenes from these episodes. The broad (specifically the living room with little time being spent commentary will allow for the analysis of the character in the kitchen or bedrooms), the bar McClaran’s that the development within the situation comedy genre. I will characters frequent, the streets of New York, or an office examine how the lead male characters are defined by their building. Just as Butler suggested, the series’ emphasis on female counterparts (looking for love, close friendship with dialogue between the characters rather than action or great a female, and marriage), the relationships between the male movement solidifies How I Met Your Mother’s structure as a characters (love interests, “bromances.”), and how their sitcom. The development of the masculinities of characters masculinity is defined by the series.

Barney, Ted, and Marshall are all found within the structure of the show’s sitcom genre.

My analysis of the television series will be rooted in Feurer’s three approaches to genre[xi] – the aesthetic, the ritual, and Suit up! the ideological. The aesthetic approach views the sitcom as a conventional genre and it defines it in “terms of a system Barney Stinson is, by Diana Miller’s definition, a metrosexual of conventions that permit artistic expression” and then man. He confidently recognizes his personal interest in determines if the series discussed, fulfilled, or transcended his appearance and his own narcissistic confidence; his the generic characteristics. The ritual approach views genre laughably ostentatious behavior negates any negativity as an exchange between the audience and the industry the audience may have towards a character so callously

self-invested and judgmental of others whose standards for for example: appearance do not match his own. He encourages other men to take pride in their appearance and confidently Article 1: Bro’s before ho’s. The bond between two men approaches the notion of judging other men based on their is stronger than the bond between a man and a woman appearance without hesitation. In a homosocial situation because, on average, men are stronger than women. defined by the accepted standards of heteronormativity and That’s just science. masculinity, if a man judges another man solely based on Article 25: A Bro doesn’t let another Bro get a tattoo, his appearance, more specifically his fashion sense and particularly a tattoo of a girl’s name. The average level of physical attraction, he would likely be ostracized. relationship between a man and a woman lasts 83 Alternatively it would be seen as a point of competition– days. The relationship between man and his skin lasts who looks better, and, by that standard of appearance, who a life time and must be nurtured because the skin is the gets more girls. largest and second most important organ a man has.

Article 77: Bros don’t cuddle. [xiv] The emphasis of Barney’s character on exploits with women The man who adheres to the Bro Code dominates women gratifies Bird’s means of masculinity perpetuation- the blatant and establishes his dominance in homosocial situations. sexual objectification of women. His lack of interest in This man is confident enough in his masculinity and developing legitimate relationships with any of the women sexual identity to develop close enough relationships he sleeps with maintains his promiscuous sexual identity; his with other men to consider them ‘bros.’ Barney is fervent heterosexuality is made obvious. An important marker of in his dedication to the rules of the Bro Code.

Barney’s sexual objectification of women is his “Playbook.”

The Playbook is a collection of characters and pick-up lines His masculinity established and unwavering, Barney is that Barney uses over the course of the series to successfully hesitant to alter his patterns of behavior in any way. One get woman after woman into his bed, or himself into theirs. of Barney’s primary qualities is his avid disgust towards The plays include everything from “The One Week to live” any serious relationship, particularly those headed towards to “The Olympian.”[xiii] An amusing character quirk, this matrimony, until Robin. Barney and Robin have a one nightbook immediately marginalizes women. Women are to be night stand (after she and Ted have broken up), which used as objects and “played” with until Barney is satisfied; temporarily decimates his relationship with Ted because he the women Barney uses his plays on are not expected to broke Article 150 of his very own code, ““No sex with your call his bluff or turn him down because they should not bro’s ex. It is never, EVER permissible for a bro to sleep with have the mental capacity to question his character’s claims. his bro’s ex. Violating this code is worse than killing a bro.”

This contributes not only to his hegemonic masculinity as Barney, unaccustomed to enjoying the company of a woman defined by his dominance over women, but it also promotes with whom he is emotionally close finds himself developing competition. Barney tracks the statistics of various plays, feelings for her. This realization arises during the season determining their success rate. Barney is making plays three finale, but no relationship is pursued until season five. and running numbers to achieve the maximum amount of Barney feels a social compulsion, as Butler would theorize, promiscuity that he can and treating relationships like we to maintain the masculinity that he has been “performing” would treat a competitive sport. for so many years. He cannot handle his sudden urge to conform to heteronormative behavior and he does not want While his sexual identity with women is perpetuated in his to risk the loss of his status as a “playboy” by entering Playbook, his identity in homosocial situations is maintained into a monogamous relationship. This reluctance to enter by his “Bro Code.” The “Bro Code” is a book/blog written into a relationship allows him to maintain the masculinity

by Barney that are guidelines to outline the acceptable that he has established within his own specific guidelines. behavior in particular situations as well as the behaviors Following Barney’s attempt to have a “normal” relationship that will result in being ostracized or the questioning of is an episode that exaggerates Barney’s (and Robin’s) sexual identity; these guidelines tend to align with Bird’s unhappiness in their relationship together. The increasingly characterizations of masculinity (emotional detachment, overweight and unhappy Barney that is created from his competitiveness, and/or sexual objectification of women), participation in a monogamous relationship completes the

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maintenance of his masculine identity as the anti-relationship, promiscuous man.

The Barney character is at once a representation of Miller’s “childish man,” Edward’s “New Lad” and “New Man.” Barney’s aversion to commitment within any romantic relationship and his continued participation in certain activities develop his childish masculinity; he rejects marriage in its entirety and is frequently trying to harass one of his friends to play laser tag with him, a game intended for children. Barney as the “childish man” correlates to his identity as a “New Lad;” although he is financially independent, his series of one-night stands and resolution to live the “legendary[3]” life coincide with the concise philosophy of this “New Lad:” get drunk and get girls. It is Barney’s metrosexuality that adds the “New Man” to his list of character attributes; this “New Man” created some anxiety because it left room to question a man’s sexuality due to his narcissistic focus on appearance and self-maintenance,[xv] definitive qualities of Barney. Because Barney cannot achieve the entire hegemonic ideal (Connell and Messerschmidt note that this is impossible) he positions himself as closely to the ideal as possible through these character behavioral practices.

Have ya met Ted? Ted Mosby is an optimistic romantic striving to find the love of his life to whom he can get married and start raising a family. Because the narrative is told from the year 2030 and he is already married, with children, the audience is privy to the ultimate end of the series: yes, Ted finally finds a woman to marry. The inclusion of Ted’s eventual heterosexual nuptials from the pilot episode of the series automatically establishes the sexuality of his character leaving little room for an audience to seriously question it. With his sexuality established, Ted’s character has the opportunity to engage in romantic antics that would not be associated with the men who align themselves with the hegemonic ideal. When Ted and Robin go on their first date, Ted tells her he loves her[4]. Ted wears the same Halloween costume each year for his apartment complex’s rooftop party in the hopes that the “slutty pumpkin” will recognize him because he lost her phone number after they made a connection four years ago[5]. When Ted is trying to romance his dermatologist he grows a mustache, reads a self-help book, and then plans the perfect first “two-minute” date for them to share

in her busy schedule[6]. His ostentatious acts of romance are essential to establishing Ted’s heterosexuality; they establish his masculinity and sexuality similarly to the notion that Barney establishes his via promiscuity. Barney’s promiscuity defines his character in the same way that Ted’s serial dating defines his. In the first seven seasons of the series, Ted has five serious relationships (not including the mother, who has yet to be introduced), has a dating relationship with six women, goes on at least one date with sixteen women, and casually sleeps with three women (that the audience is made aware of; others are briefly mentioned but never confirmed); Ted is entirely uncomfortable being single. Where Barney defines his masculinity and sexual identity in the number of sexual encounters he has, Ted’s masculinity is rooted in his search for the perfect woman. With each girlfriend, Ted reestablishes his heterosexuality, his masculinity, and his heteronormativity; each man is obviously heterosexual because of his relationships with women although Ted’s is more rooted in the socially established heteronormative ideal.

Lawyered!

Marshall’s heterosexuality is as obvious as Ted’s from the beginning of the series. Marshall’s engagement and eventual marriage to Lily not only establishes Marshall’s sexuality but also roots the series in stable heteronormativity; the situations the couple experiences are representative of the socially constructed norm of a healthy and stable heterosexual relationship (and the very relationship Ted hopes to attain some day).

Marshall’s role in his relationship provides stability for his masculinity rooted in hegemonic masculinity’s notion of the ideal man. Lily is a kindergarten teacher with a modest income and Marshall’s employment as a corporate lawyer allows him to provide the primary income for the two. This position perpetuates the alpha-male ideal: the man has the economic power over the woman. Marshall is the epitome of Bernard’s “Good-Provider” role, even willing to continue to work at a corporation that he cannot morally stomach so he can support Lily and their future child[7]. In “Natural History”, season six episode eight, Marshall informs Lily that he has been offered a five-year contract with the corporation that he has been working for (Goliath National Bank) and that he has every intention of signing the contract even if environmental law is what Marshall would really like to pursue. Lily is offended by the five-year contract because the man she married wanted to save the environment and she believes that he is selling out for money. Marshall, on the defensive, says that it is the financially secure career that he thinks he should have to properly provide for his growing family. Notably, Marshall’s dominance is limited to his monetary value: while his career supports his family his character is still reminiscent of Miller’s “hen-pecked husband”. Marshall has been avoiding telling Lily about the contract because he knew that she would be disappointed, so each time she has asked him about when he plans on leaving Goliath National Bank he has answered in madeup legal-sounding jargon to avoid having the conversation.

Marshall fears making Lily angry and is/was careful to avoid the argument until it was absolutely necessary, but while he is reminiscent of the fearfully respectful sitcom husband, Marshall is more willingly devoted than miserably married.

Bernard having established the correlation between masculinity and a man’s ability to fulfill the “Good-Provider” role via his career, Ted’s successful career as an architect is inherently masculine. His building design could influence the skyline of New York, he is creating something from nothing, and he is creating large, vaguely phallic skyscrapers. He, for all intents and purposes, is constructing giant penises, the very body part that participates in the act of reproduction in which heteronormative ideology is rooted. In doing so he helps to cement his own masculinity. The masculine and virile appeal of his career is only further confirmed when Barney, masquerading as Ted, uses the line, “Ted Mosby, Architect”, to pick up women. The abundant success that Barney achieves solidifies the masculinity (and hetero-sexual appeal) of his career. The relevancy of his career does not end with its sex appeal, but continues with the influence his career has on his role as a future “Good Provider” for his family. The importance of this future role for Ted is obvious in the twentieth episode of the fifth season, “Home Wreckers”, when Ted buys a house after he watches his mom get married a second time before he has been married once.

During this episode Ted is single, without any prospects for marriage, but his fervent desire to provide a home for the family he does not have yet emphasizes the importance of being a “Good Provider.” As Bird suggested, Ted’s ability to An optimistic gentle giant standing at six foot four inches, be strong, smart, and capable in the workplace defines him Marshall’s size initially could become a point of Donaldson’s biological male-dominance, but his demeanor negates as a man in both his career and his home.

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from this biological “manliness;” it is his relationship with his family that assists in the solidification of his masculine identity. Marshall is an inherently kind person who was raised in Minnesota with two older brothers. The “small” kid in the family, it is assumed that Marshall endured the aggression that occurs between male siblings[8]. But it is not until the tenth episode of season four that it is revealed how aggressive Marshall can be, entitled “The Fight,” this episode centers on the masculinity and sex appeal of men fighting. After Ted and Barney are both given credit by their bartender, Doug, for helping win a fight that neither of them participated in, neither man admits the truth because they would risk losing women’s sudden interest in them (i.e. Robin overtly flirting with and hitting on each of them) and admit that it would reduce their masculinity. Marshall is skeptical that his two friends actually took part in the fight, but they stick to their story up until the moment they are sued by the man Doug knocked out. The pending lawsuit requires Ted and Barney to approach Lawyer Marshall for help. Marshall informs the two men that they need to admit that they did nothing in the fight or they would face legal repercussions.

After agreeing to legally admit that they were not involved in the fight, Doug becomes the sole person named in the lawsuit. Doug’s response to becoming the only prosecuted man is to fight Ted and Barney. Once Ted has been knocked out and Barney has run away, it is Marshall who steps forward and knocks Doug out. Afterwards it is revealed that he and his brothers would spend nights aggressively participating in their own version of a fight club when their parents would go away. Robin, whose sexual interests in Barney and Ted waned as soon as it was revealed they had not fought, is suddenly interested in Marshall. Even though he is consistently with Lily, Robin’s attraction re-establishes the sex appeal of fighting. This particular episode broadens Marshall’s masculine identity; having established himself as a relatively harmless character, this episode revealed the “Wild Man” part of Marshall.

Analysis: The men of Modern Family The subjects that the families and different episodes deal with as the series progresses, and how they are dealt with, are reminiscent of David Marc’s sitcom formula; the men (and their families) face a conflict that an audience can relate to and they, comically, resolve their problems all within thirtyminute time slots. The men handle family pets, proper-child rearing, birthday parties, emotional support for children,

and a host of other matters that men, and particularly fathers, gender roles within the home and re-establishes his role as may be able to identify with. Modern Family is undoubtedly the “Fool Dad.” a sitcom.

The development of Phil’s character as a “Fool Dad” and a The “cool dad” “Schlemiel” creates the perfect environment for the sensitive father figure. As he struggles to perform within the structure Phil Dunphy is first and foremost a family man: he is happily of ideal masculinity, Phil develops his own sense of what married and the father to three children, each of whom define being a “man” is. In his role as a sensitive father, Phil him and firmly establish his heterosexuality. Phil is a member maintains his masculinity by struggling to articulate his true of a traditional nuclear family: in the home there is a father, feelings or refusing to acknowledge that he is having an a mother, and children[xvi]. This creates a presence for emotional reaction. In season one, episode six, it is the first the heteronormative ideal family within a series whose title day back at school for three children and Phil projects his suggests that it is going to challenge this ideal. Despite the melancholy at his children being another year older onto establishment of Phil’s obvious heterosexuality via his family Claire. Having an emotional reaction to this is acceptable from the pilot episode of the series, he continues to re-affirm for a mother and a woman, not for Phil. Phil first tries to use his sexuality throughout the series by being clearly interested his role as the good-provider to take care of his wife and in Jay’s wife Gloria and reacting to other attractive women as she refuses each of his attempts he becomes increasingly he comes across in the same way. Phil’s interactions with frustrated with his inability to properly take care of his wife, women other than his wife are the epitome of Buchbinder’s which challenges his sense of masculinity. This frustration “Schlemiel;” he is awkward and eager. His fumbling with with his own sense of masculinity culminates with a road attractive women at once challenges his masculinity and re- race between Phil and Claire. Claire participates in halfestablishes his sexuality. marathons and runs several miles each day and Phil does not work out (another poke at his masculinity). Claire is Phil’s father role is the pivotal point of his character anticipating an easy win but as they run she realizes that development; his attempts to maintain his status as a “cool this is how Phil is coping with his reaction to the kids’ first dad” and his role in childcare often end in him being day of school and she lets him win, telling the camera represented as Miller’s “Fool Dad.” In the series premiere that “He needed the win more than [she] did that day”. after he gives his oldest daughter permission to wear a skirt Phil’s restored sense of masculinity is not negated by the that Claire had already told her was too short for school, audience’s knowledge that Claire let him win; because he Phil says to the camera, “I’m a cool dad. That’s my thang. “won” it back in a physical competition, Phil’s character I’m hip, I surf the web, I text. LOL; laugh out loud. OMG; is obviously rooted in the social norms of masculinity. Phil oh my god. WTF; why the face.” The ridiculousness of this never acknowledged that he was feeling emotional and he moment introduces Phil as the father-figure to laugh at; the never admitted this “weakness.” He can be a sensitive father episodes where Phil struggles with parenting continue to re- figure because the way that he re-establishes his masculinity establish him in that role. In the twenty-second episode of derives from the cultural norms of what a “man” is and how season two, Phil and Claire argue over their separate roles he should behave. in child-rearing. Claire accuses Phil of treating parenting as a novel and fun distraction[xvii], which subsequently allows “It sounds better in Spanish!” him to be the “fun” parent. When the two decide to switch roles for the day, Phil creates a mockery of the original Jay Pritchett is the established patriarch of his modern patriarchal figure in sitcoms; he becomes exaggeratedly family: he is the grandfather and the wise, retired man. authoritative when he makes his two daughters clean the Jay is introduced during the premiere sitting next to his bathroom, going so far as to deny them lunch. His afternoon exceptionally beautiful Colombian wife, an immediate of parenting is deemed wildly ineffective when Claire comes establishment of his heterosexuality and male virility. Jay is home and it is Phil that gets scolded for not feeding the girls what Edwards would call an “Old Man”: he is married and lunch instead of the girls getting scolded for not cleaning financially secure and sexual ambiguity or homosexuality their bathroom. Phil’s inability to parent the girls reinforces makes him uncomfortable. Jay’s sense of masculinity derives

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from Sexton’s definition of what the male norms are: courage, aggression, and technological skill[xviii]. Jay’s homosexual son repeatedly provokes instinctual reactions from Jay because his idea of masculinity is firmly rooted in hegemonic masculinity which reinforces homophobia.

Jay’s role as the “Old Man” also develops his role as the “Mock Macho” man: Jay is trying to maintain a sense of what being a man was defined as “in his day” in a modern era. His struggles to adjust to his “modern family” and to maintain a sense of the hyper-masculine, heteronormativity that he idolizes are what make his character comedic.

Jay’s adjustment to accepting homosexuality and deterring his homophobia are present during the thirteenth episode of season one, “Fifteen Percent,” when Jay introduces Cameron to his golfing buddies as Mitchell’s “friend”.

Mitchell is offended by this careful avoidance of identifying Cameron as his partner because he feels that his father has never been particularly comfortable with the fact that his son is gay. Mitchell confronts Jay and the conversation results in Mitchell implying that he thinks Jay’s friend Shorty is gay, referencing his own “gaydar” and Shorty’s sense of fashion as explanation. Once this idea is in Jay’s head, he begins to look for clues of his friend’s sexuality; Gloria tells him that Shorty is the only one of his friends to never have hit on her which confirms his suspicions. Jay decides to have a conversation with Shorty about it when the two men go golfing. Jay struggles to bring the topic up as the two men play their game until Shorty tries to assist him with his alignment which makes Jay uncomfortable and he ends the game. As the two men are having a post-game drink Jay confronts him and, trying to be supportive as possible, tells Shorty that Jay will be there as his friend no matter what, offering his services to do anything he can in his time of need. Shorty misinterprets the gesture as an offer of money because he was struggling with paying back a loan; he was never struggling with his sexuality. As Jay scrambles to explain the miscommunication Shorty is immediately defensive and offended; Jay has just questioned his sexuality, and by implying that he was a homosexual has questioned his masculinity as well. Because Mitchell planted that seed of doubt in his father’s head, Jay had to recognize that men who deviate from his definition of acceptable male behavior make him anxious; he is Edward’s “Old Man” character.

As a man whose own obvious heterosexuality is established from the series premiere, the significant age difference

between Jay and Gloria only enhances the unwavering sense of masculinity surrounding Jay. Frequently dressed in clothes suitable for his age, khakis and loose button downs, it is assumed that Jay either has a lot to offer Gloria financially or sexually; the audience can assume that his performance is satisfactory in both departments after the pilot episode.

Gloria is discussing her ex-husband with the camera and she says, “My first husband: very handsome but too crazy.

It seem like all we did was fight and make love. Fight and make love. Fight and make love.” This establishes Gloria’s sexual drive, which subsequently implies that Jay is now the man in her life fulfilling her needs. This, in turn, helps to establish his masculinity within the biological sphere that Donaldson attributed to the hegemonic ideal.

“No slapping your own butt.”

Mitchell Pritchett is a lawyer, a father, a son, and in love with his partner Cameron. Mitchell’s homosexuality is prevalent and relevant from the beginning: it dictates how he reacts to threats of his masculinity and how he reacts to the issue of homosexuality in social settings. Mitchell is not a flamboyant gay man (unless Lady Gaga is involved[9]) and he is often uncomfortable with his partner’s flamboyance because he recognizes it challenges heteronormative definitions of masculinity. There is a hyper-sensitivity to Mitchell’s character because he struggles with his roles as a “man” and as a “gay man,” which, when defined by social and cultural norms, are entirely different. Mitchell behaves as if displaying any behavior that is not considered masculine will undermine his various attempts to establish his hegemonic masculinity. But because hegemonic masculinity is rooted in heteronormativity, which is in turn built upon homophobia (a subject that Mitchell is particularly sensitive to) Mitchell struggles with establishing his masculinity within his sexuality.

Aware of his father’s homophobia accompanied by a desire to bond with his father, Mitchell makes multiple efforts to impress his father with feats of “manliness” that he believes will challenge the image his father has of him. When Cameron and Jay bond over their love of football[10], a sport that Mitchell knows nothing about, he makes an effort to memorize statistics to impress his father (and his partner).

Mitchell’s inability to participate in the conversation after the players he has memorized are taken out of the game diminishes his attempts at establishing masculinity within

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society’s or his father’s terms. This is only perpetuated when Mitchell and Cameron decide to build Lily a playhouse in their backyard and it is revealed the Mitchell is incapable of using tools without becoming a danger to those around him. When Cameron enlists Jay’s help and the two conspire to give Mitchell painfully simple tasks, Mitchell’s masculine pride is wounded and, in an attempt to prove that he is a capable man, he puts the roof on the playhouse by himself and locks himself inside the castle. Mitchell has to admit to himself that he is not the “manly man” that he aspires to be.

Regardless of his inability to establish the hegemonic masculinity in its ideal, Mitchell is the “Good Provider” for his family: Cameron is unemployed and with baby Lily in the house it is left to Mitchell to earn an income for the family.

Although, despite his financial independence, Mitchell still identifies with the “New Man”: he is loving, caring, and his open homosexuality does make some other men nervous about their own sexuality or the sexuality of others. As a father, Mitchell makes the same mistakes that new parents make: he becomes irrationally concerned after Lily hits her head on the wall and struggles to adjust to travel time with the baby in tow. When Cameron suggests to Mitchell that they adopt a second baby, a baby boy, Mitchell struggles with the thought of having to raise a boy because he is gay[11]. Mitchell, as usual, is concerned that his own masculinity (or lack thereof) might hinder the chance of any son he may have to be a “normal” boy. During a family trip to a Dude Ranch in Wyoming, Mitchell attempts to find his “inner masculinity” to reassure himself that if he raises a son, his son will be raised the “right way”: he tries shooting guns but to no avail. The juvenile exploding of a birdhouse with his nephew is what reestablished Mitchell’s confidence in his own ability to raise a son. Mitchell’s identification with Miller’s “childish man” in this episode establishes a sense of masculinity that, even if not always present in his behavior, positions him closer to hegemonic masculinity.

“No. Pink loves me.”

As his partner, Cameron Tucker is the other half to Mitchell’s character: he is flamboyant, loud, and entirely confident in his homosexuality. Cameron does not struggle to define himself by the standard of hegemonic masculinity; he does whatever pleases him without fearing any challenges to his masculine identity. This makes Cameron an enigma: he loves football and is hardware and handyman capable,

identifying characteristics of a man who aligns himself with hegemonic masculinity. On the other hand, he loves to dress his daughter up as a pop icon for photo shoots and has created an elaborate and ornate scrapbook for her. Cameron is the ultimate challenge to heteronormative ideology because, even with brief moments of masculinity that fall within the established structure, he does not adopt all of the discursive practices of hegemonic masculinity.

In comparison to the kinds of characteristics that culturally identify a man as masculine, Cameron’s daily attire and gestures are all stereotypical of a gay man – the pink shirts, the floral shirts, the “limp wrist,” and his flair for the dramatic. When he exhibits masculine behaviors, does this establish his traditional masculinity or does he challenge the hegemonic ideals of masculinity? Because femininity has not been defined in this analysis, I will not claim that Cameron behaves effeminately, but that he does not fulfill the masculine ideal. Neither Donaldson nor Connell and Messerschmidt would identify Cameron as positioning his masculinity with the hegemonic ideal.

Close male relationships in both How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family The Bro Code created on How I Met Your Mother is applicable to a variety of male character relationships on various television series including Modern Family. The condensed collection of rules and guidelines for men to follow in Bird’s homosocial situations and in their relationships with each other creates an outline for how a character can attempt to achieve the hegemonic ideal. The Bro Code is a tangible representation how men position themselves in relation to hegemonic masculinity; it demonstrates which social practices distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity and which reinforce it. This Bro Code is what differentiates men in “bromances” from men in homosexual relationships.

Analysis: How I Met Your Mother, “My best friend needs me!”

Under the guiding structure of The Bro Code, Barney, Ted, and Marshall have developed their relationship into a contemporary friendship called a “bromance.” The “bromance” is a socially established term used to define particularly close male relationships that appear to mimic homosexual relationships[xix]. These “bromances” are

affectionate, sometimes homoerotic, and emotional, but never homosexual. The previously established masculinities of the three characters create an environment for their relationships to be affectionate and emotional, if necessary, because their sexuality is unwavering throughout the series.

The season three finale centers on the relationship between Ted and Stella, his girlfriend throughout season three, but equally important is the subplot involving the relationship between Barney and Ted. To reintroduce the context of this subplot, after Ted and Robin ended their relationship at the end of season two, Robin and Barney slept together for the first time; Barney was in direct violation of the Bro Code article referring to sleeping with a “bro’s ex.” This violation inundates Barney with guilt, and he confesses to Ted in “The Goat.”[xx] This breach in trust results in a “break-up” between Barney and Ted that lasts until this season three finale.

Lily makes the executive decision to call Barney for Ted after he has been in the car accident; she disregards their “breakup” because she reminds Ted that he would want to know if the situations were reversed. Upon receiving the phone call Barney immediately excuses himself from a business meeting and sprints to the hospital, accompanied by dramatic music.

The music, and his sprinting, both abruptly end when Barney is hit by a bus as he prepares to cross the street to enter the hospital where he is then admitted to the hospital as a patient, and in far worse condition than Ted (who suffered minor injuries).

Concerned, just as Lily said he would be, Ted finds himself in the room with Barney, who has broken almost every bone in his body. At their bedside reunion Barney initially will not admit that he sprinted to the hospital because of Ted’s accident and his own concern, claiming instead that he “was on this side of town.” Actively participating in this emotional avoidance, Barney implies that his accident will make for an excellent “play” with ladies. At this point in the episode, the importance of Ted to Barney is evident and Ted decides it is time for him to reciprocate those feelings, regardless of the Bro Code violations: Ted: Barney, you…you could have died.

Barney: I’m sorry I broke the bro code.

Ted: No, I’m...I’m sorry.

Barney: Ted, can we be friends again?

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Ted: Barney, come on. We’re more than friends.

Barney: [tearfully] You’re my brother Ted. Ted: [crying] You’re my brother Barney.

Barney: [crying] Did you hear that Marshall? We’re brothers now.

Ted: Marshall’s my brother, too.

Marshall: [crying] We’re all brothers! [xxi]

their sexuality. In the second episode of the first season, right after they have adopted Lily, they sign up for a play group and Mitchell asks Cam to control his gay behavior because Mitchell is concerned about their reception from the other parents. Cam’s struggle with controlling his behavior is most comically obvious when it is time for the dance circle and Mitchell tells him to “dance straight” and Cam blatantly hates every second of it. Mitchell is trying to encourage In light of life threatening circumstances, this emotional behavior that coincides with the heteronormative ideal to reaction not only adds humor to a serious situation, but it dispel the possibility of rejection from their parenting peers. also momentarily highlights the relationship between Ted The conclusion of this episode reveals that there is another and Barney as well as all three men. These men are close gay couple in the play group already and Mitchell gives enough emotionally to cry for each other and reconcile Cam the freedom to dance as flamboyantly as he chooses, despite a violation of the Bro Code that is “worse than which he does not hesitate to do. death.” The men refer to each other as brothers and maintain their masculinity in a situation where emotions and affection This family’s juxtaposition to two more traditional families are, and should be, acceptable. The tearful scene is still strengthens the ambiguity of the male sitcom characters’ kept brief because Ted, as the narrator, says, “It got pretty relationship to the heteronormative ideal. The audience mushy and embarrassing after that. Let’s skip ahead;” the gets to simultaneously see Cam and Mitchell, Phil and emotion is acceptable because of the circumstances, but Claire, and Jay and Gloria struggle with their parenting. that does not make it acceptable for the episode to linger The documentation of these struggles creates a discourse on the tearful declarations of “bro love” for each other. This on the show about same-sex parenting and different-sex display of emotion is still a violation of the hegemonic norms parenting, how they are different and how they are similar. of masculinity.

What makes those moments with Cam and Mitchell funny is their relationship with the heteronormative ideal; adopting Analysis: Modern Family, Cam and Mitchell it, distancing themselves from it, or aligning themselves with it. If they experience a situation that any parents, gay or The comedy found within Cameron and Mitchell as the straight, could experience (i.e. Lily gets a bump on her head), homosexual family in Modern Family is not limited to the the audience relaxes; there is nothing unique or different quirks and characteristics that make them different, but there about this experience and they can laugh comfortably is also humor in the moments when they are behaving as because a heteronormative family would experience this the heteronormatively masculine man would behave. These parenting panic, too. If Cam and Mitchell find themselves in moments are funny because the characters are straying a situation that a heterosexual couple might not be familiar from what the audience would consider “homonormative” with (i.e. they are the only gay couple in a toddler class), an behavior. As discussed earlier, Cam is an avid football audience can laugh because the situation is different from the fan who was on a team during his college career. Cam is heteronormative situation but not so wildly different that they fulfilling a masculine norm and behaving as a “mock-macho” cannot relate: new parents are still going to be uncomfortable character: his behavior as a football fan is exaggerated so the first time they find themselves in a classroom comparing that it becomes a mockery of the typical sports-obsessed, the achievements of their child to another. heterosexual fan. His behavior as a stock male character has more comical value because he is gay.

Cameron and Mitchell also find themselves in situations Conclusions where they “act straight.” When their characters deviate from the “homonormative,” they fulfill a masculine ideal that In both How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family, the may be unexpected for a homosexual man; when the men characters are not limited to roles delineated in previous try “acting straight” they attempt to achieve some masculine studies. Their masculinities are hybrids of the character or heteronormative ideal in an attempt to fit in or conceal qualities that are representative of multiple character-types.

Each character fulfills certain attributes of multiple categories, creating characters with depth. The male characters on these two shows are ambiguous, simultaneously perpetuating the status quo and challenging it. They are representative of a society with an ever-changing definition of what a “man” is and how his masculinity is defined. Real men, just like our favorite sitcom characters, are held to a hegemonic ideal that does not exist. Characters such as Barney or Phil are funny because their struggles with and attempts to achieve an ideal masculinity are also experienced by real men.

Sitcoms create a comfortable parody of Butler’s notion of performativity: in the narratives, actors undertake daily “performances” of masculinity that derive from the fear of questioned masculinity or ambiguous sexual identity. These fears create relationships like the ‘bromance’ and cue laughter when situations deviate from the heteronormative hegemonic masculinity.

The bromantic relationships and behaviors in How I Met Your Mother are visible and relevant, but rarely the sole focus of an episode. Showing the bromance as an undercurrent or subplot for the show allows the audience to comfortably laugh at the situations that may straddle the dividing line between heterosexual and homosexual. When the men deviate from the heteronormative ideal, a laugh track cues the audience to relax and recognize the comedic quality of men engaging in behavior that digresses from Bird’s homosocial guidelines, the Bro Code, or normative masculine behavior. Not only does the laugh track cue the audience to relax, but the previously established masculinities of the male characters leave little room for doubt; the audience has nothing to be nervous about.

Homosexual characters make audiences nervous because they do not follow the same rules as Bird’s guidelines of homosocial behavior (and are sometimes considered incapable of homosocial relationships). When they are shown within a heteronormative setting their application of Butler’s performativity is altered because their masculinity is already challenged by their sexuality, and they do not hold themselves to the hegemonic ideal, regardless of whether it is biologically or culturally established. The presence of a homosexual couple, particularly a homosexual family, in Modern Family presents the sitcom audience with a concept that is still relatively new to television and its mere existence is a challenge to the standard heteronormative ideology.

However, on the other hand, Mitchell, Cameron, and Lily

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share the storylines with two straight, nuclear families and their obvious deviation from this norm is what is funny. When Cam is creating an ostentatious scrapbook for Lily or having a mural of himself and Mitchell painted on newly adopted Lily’s wall, or when Mitchell is obsessing over how to attend a Lady Gaga concert or over-dramatically trying to fight off a pigeon that found its way inside the house, these behaviors are funny to an audience because they are different from what “most men” would do, but not so different that they make an audience uncomfortable. When these moments are funny to an audience, are they funny because the show has created a new norm that Cam and Mitchell are held to because they are gay? Or do we laugh because they are a nontraditional family surrounded by traditional families?

Both Berman and Marc theorize that sitcoms can critique social standards and challenge social norms; however Newcomb and Grote argue that sitcoms are static perpetuators of the social context they are situated within.

What this cultural study aimed to do was examine how the television situation comedy is “produced within, inserted into, and operated in the everyday life of human beings and social formations, so as to reproduce, struggle against, and perhaps transform the existing structures of power.”[xxii] The contemporary sitcom carefully challenges heteronormativity with its introduction of bromances and homosexual families and simultaneously perpetuates the heternormative ideal by creating laughter where characters deviate from the norm.

Barney, Ted, Marshall, Phil, Jay, Mitchell, and Cameron are all held to impossible standards of hegemonic masculinity and when they fail to achieve the ideal, audiences find them laughable. When these men overcompensate for their (and our) masculinity insecurities, audience members laugh even harder. These men are the exaggerated representations of real-life men to whom audience members can relate; and even when they deviate from the “norms,” the characters are careful to align themselves with familiar heteronormative behaviors.

I find the ambiguity of television sitcoms frustrating because audiences today want a show that challenges the “old” heteronormative sitcoms and the ever-increasing presence of homosexuality creates opportunities for bromances and homosexual families to be featured on the small screen.

However, what are these shows challenging if characters and relationships are funny because they do not line up with the heteronormative ideal? Their mere presence may

be a challenge to the heteronormative, but is part of why they are amusing because the audience is laughing at them through a heteronormative lens? Can the sitcom transform the heteronormative ideal? This frustrating ambiguity does not originate in the sitcom but from the culture’s definitions of masculinity. Today’s society is struggling to determine what a “man” truly is; the minimizing of the biological definition of gender roles and the difficulty in defining hegemonic masculinity in multi-sexuality society creates a space for masculinity to be ambiguous. As noted by Feuer, sitcoms reflect changes in society; my research here suggests the same. Masculinities in sitcoms develop simultaneously with masculinities in the real world. Today they are amusingly ambiguous because today, in society, there is no true definition of masculinity.

NOTES [1]The ‘mockumentary’ style is seen in contemporary television shows such as The Office, Arrested Development, and Parks and Recreation.

The style uses cinematography elements of documentary films such as interviews, jumpy camera work, high resolution media, etc. Brett Mills and Ethan Thompson have both offered the term “comedy verite” as a label for this style of sitcom (Jeremy G.Butler, Television Style 214). This “comedy verite” branches away from the classic cinema verite style documentary because it includes talking heads, the filmmaker is not only observing the events that happen around them, but have an obvious physical presence within the set and interact with the actors via interviews, etc [2]Friends, season one, episode eight; “The One Where Nana Dies Twice”. November 10, 1994.

[3]“Legendary” is a recurring catchphrase of Barney’s; it epitomizes his character’s desires to live life with frequent adventures, sex with attractive women, and being well-dressed at all times.

[4]How I Met Your Mother, season one, episode one.

September 19, 2005.

[5]How I Met Your Mother, season one, episode six.

October 24, 2005.

[6]How I Met Your Mother, season three, episode thirteen.

March 24, 2008.

[7]How I Met Your Mother, season 6 episode 8.

November 8, 2010.

[8]In episode nine of season one Marshall and Lily travel to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with Marshall’s family. While they are there Marshall participates in an aggressive game of bask-ice-ball (a game invented by the Erikson’s that combines basketball and ice hockey) and it becomes generally understood that the family is used

to the “normal” boy aggression.

[9]Modern Family, season 2, episode 22.

May 11, 2011.

[10]Modern Family, season 1 episode 9.

November 25, 2009.

In Robert C Allen (Ed.): Channels of Discourse, Reassembled: Television and Contemporary Criticism. London: Routledge, pp. 138-5 [xii]David Bordwell , and Kirstin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, (McGraw Hill , 2010), 118-119.

[11]Modern Family, season 3, episode 1.

September 21, 2011.

[xiii]Matt Kuhn, The Playbook: Suit up. Score Chicks. Be awesome.

(New York, New York : Touchstone, 2010). [xiv]Matt Kuhn, The Bro Code, (New York : Fireside , 2008).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[xv]Tim Edwards, sex booze fags, 140

[i]””How I Met Your Mother” (2005) - Awards.”

IMDb - Movies, TV and Celebrities. http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0460649/awards.

[xvi]http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuclear%20family

[ii] “Complete List Of 2011-12 Season TV Show Viewership: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Tops, Followed By ‘American Idol,’ ‘NCIS’ & ‘Dancing With The Stars’ - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.” TV Ratings, TV Nielsen Ratings, Television Show Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.com. http:// tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/05/24/complete-list-of-2011-12-season-tv-show-viewership-sunday-night-football-tops-followed-by-american-idolncis-dancing-with-the-stars/135785/ [iii]” “Complete List Of 2011-12 Season TV Show Viewership: ‘Sunday Night Football’ Tops, Followed By ‘American Idol,’ ‘NCIS’ & ‘Dancing With The Stars’ - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.” TV Ratings, TV Nielsen Ratings, Television Show Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.com. http:// tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/05/24/complete-list-of-2011-12-season-tv-show-viewership-sunday-night-football-tops-followed-by-american-idolncis-dancing-with-the-stars/135785/ [iv]Tim Edwards. Cultures of masculinity.

London: Routledge, 2006. [v]P. Sexton, The Feminized Male (New York: Random House, 1969), 15. [vi]Mike Donaldson, “What is Hegemonic Masculinity?,” Theory and Society , 22, no. 5 (1993): 643-657, http://www.jstor.org. [vii]R.W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt . “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept .”

Gender and Society. 19. no. 6 (2005): 829-859. Jstor [viii]Judith Butler. Imitation and Gender Subordination.

In Storey, Cultural Theory, 224-238. [ix]Judith Butler. Imitation and Gender. [x]Sharon R. Bird . “Welcome to the Men’s Club: Homosociality and the Maintenance of Hegemonic Masculinity .”

Gender and Society. p. 121 [xi] Feuer, Jane (1992): ‘Genre study and television’.

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[xvii]Scott Coltrane, “Fathering: Paradoxes, Contradictions, and Dilemmas,” Men’s Lives , ed. Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner (Boston : Pearson, 2013), 394-410 [xviii]P. Sexton, The Feminized Male (New York: Random House, 1969), 15. [xix]Matthew Stern .”Dudes, Bros, Boyfriends and the Bugarrones: Redsitributing the Stigma of Same-Sex Desire .”

Trans. Array Sprinkle: A Journal of Sexual Diversity Studies. Elizabeth J. Meyer. . Montreal, Quebec, Canada: The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, 2010. 144-153. Web. [xx]”The Goat .” How I Met Your Mother.

CBS. 28 Apr. 2008. Television. [xxi]”Miracles .” How I Met Your Mother.

CBS. 19 May 2008. Television. [xxii]Lawrence Grossberg, “The circulation of cultural studies.”

Cloud Atlas

Eastern Maps to A Western World

By Cory Collins

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A circle has no end or beginning. It contains two equal halves, connected by the diameter and an invisible plane. David Mitchell’s novel emulates this eternal, undefined symmetry.

His story ends where it begins, connecting twelve half-lives at the book’s center and throughout with an invisible force that binds them together. The form can raise more questions than answers as readers circumnavigate the stories intertwined.

Nevertheless, Mitchell’s novel does more than resurrect and reincarnate characters, details, and narratives, it resurrects morality and storytelling from a distant past and distant land. And through that lens, clearly defines problems much closer to home.

Mitchell uses an Eastern lens through which to tell his story of Western rise and fall. Though the narrative notably shifts between various forms and genres of Western storytelling, it also closely aligns with components and endorsed moralities of quintessential Eastern stories, namely the jataka tales of Buddha (and the Brahman ideal of Hinduism). Through this lens, the wisdom of Eastern gods provide a cloud atlas –a map through which to find what connects these lives and to explain why this human history of suffering reincarnates.

These maps take on a form and morality very similar to Buddha’s jataka tales. When famed storyteller Rafe Martin explains the function of theses millennia old stories, his words could easily apply to Cloud Atlas. The jataka tales, Martin says, revolve around ideas of rebirth, “that every living thing, ourselves included, has been here in one form or another throughout beginning-less time, and that each of us has already taken every form” (214-15). Compare this with a novel in which not only the characters, but also the stories, take on drastically different forms, and yet, contain a certain essence that remains throughout. For the jataka tales, though endorsing reincarnation, do not fail to also endorse the idea of progress. But often, the tales show a progression of problems. Martin explains that the “tales affirm that what we experience now is causally related to our choices, thoughts and actions in the past… Past exertions give rise to present ones…The jatakas show him [Buddha] making efforts and failing, falling down, trying again” (215-216).

Mitchell makes the same moves. These characters, loosely connected, reveal a timeline in which the problems of the past compound in the present, until the novel’s most distant future almost mirrors its distant past. Similarly, Mitchell’s contemporary narrative mirrors stories written thousands of years before him. Yet, even for these stories of Western

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influence, conquest, rise, and fall, the Eastern stories of old are surprisingly relevant. As Martin says, “Old as the stories are, they offer some intriguingly modern perspectives…a fundamental continuity among all life-forms…the jatakas were already, 2500 years ago, saying that there are many worlds, many beings, and that all living things are deeply interconnected” (214).

–a concept that weighs heavily on all six worlds within the novel. In Buddha’s Cloud Atlas cameo, he has become a nearly-forgotten relic in the future corpocratic world. But his statue captivates Sonmi-451, and keeps the abbess coming back each morning to pray to the ideal he represents. The idea reveals itself in the statue’s description; “Weaponry and elements had strafed, ravaged, and cracked his features…the giant was a deity that offered salvation from Today, Cloud Atlas suggests the same. The boundaries a meaningless cycle of birth and rebirth” (Mitchell 329). He between the stories, the characters, even East and West offered salvation, something that Sonmi-451 and all of the become blurred by the narrative. Mitchell had spent years in interconnected characters of the novel desperately pined for Japan before writing the novel, which potentially influenced in one way or another –Ewing from his sickness, Frobisher the inclusion of such Eastern concepts into a story so from his newfound poverty, Luisa Rey from her forced silence, dominated by Western narrative (the title even comes from a Cavendish from the nursing home, Sonmi-451 from her Japanese composition). Much like Mitchell drifted East, the mental and physical enslavement, Zachary from the ghosts of stories have drifted West, brought to Europe through trade his past— and all of them from the inevitable cycles. Perhaps and conquest (Martin 214). Thousands of years later, Cloud the only one who succeeds is Adam Ewing, a character Atlas suggests the stories can apply to the human condition, notably sans comet birthmark, suggesting he may exist on no matter the hemisphere. Buddha’s journey to salvation and the periphery of these connected characters. This happens the ideas that permeate Eastern religion provide reasons only through a change of heart, and an ideal the Buddha why this circle has no end –why the human race fails, and would have heavily endorsed: compassion (Martin 213). falls, into these cycles.

“The savage was on a mission not of malice, but of mercy…I could thank my guardian angels and Autua, the last free Ultimately, followers of Buddhism seek liberation from these Moriori in this world, for my deliverance” (Mitchell 506). cycles. The jataka tales chronicle the Buddha’s own journey Ewing’s deliverance from ignorance, small-mindedness, and toward liberation amid cycles of fallings and failures. To break sickness only comes because of Autua’s compassion. Autua’s from the cyclical suffering is to become an arahant, to reach deliverance from slavery only happens because of Ewing’s a religious state of being which Asian philosophy expert (albeit half-hearted) compassion. Without these acts, these Soraj Hongladarom claims centers on this singular purpose. good works, neither character is free.

He says “The arahant is one who has totally vanquished all causes that would lead to further entanglement in the cycle of But these characters, like Buddha in the jatakas, seek a birth and rebirth or samsara…the only task that is assigned deliverance that coincides with verses of truth. At the novel’s him, the task of becoming liberated” (Hongladarom 58). center, the character of Meronym reveals truth’s importance to Zachary, saying, “true true is presher’n’rarer’n diamonds” The journey toward salvation, for Buddha in the jatakas and (Mitchell 274). To these characters, truth proves elusive, the aspiring arahant, also entails seeking another virtue: requiring great sacrifice to acquire. Even Sonmi-451 the truth. Martin underlies truth’s importance in the jatakas, acknowledges, “Truth is singular. Its versions are mistruths” citing one story in which Buddha willingly gives “his own (Mitchell 185). But their liberation from the cycles cannot blood to a starving demon in exchange for a verse of truth” come without truth and guidance, a theme that seems to (213). Selfless acts such as these permeate the jatakas in course throughout the entire narrative, succinctly wrapped the quest to obtain liberation from the endless cycles and to up in Timothy Cavendish’s spoken wish: “What wouldn’t discern the truth of one’s place in such a world. Cloud Atlas I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant operates similarly, featuring characters trying to escape the ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds” (Mitchell forces that bind them, trying to figure out the world that 373). The novel’s title appears, suggesting that finding the surrounds them. Often they fail. The cycles continue. truth to the seemingly inexplicable cycles and connections will lead to these characters’ liberation. This reveals the Liberation takes on great importance in Mitchell’s narrative ultimate goal, the endgame, of these stories. Obviously, the

stories compound, meaning the characters fall and fail in cycles, falling and failing beneath the moralities endorsed by both the ancient jataka tails and Mitchell’s new narrative.

The Buddhist jataka tales reveal selflessness and the importance of deconstructing the ego and sense of self as one such morality necessary for obtaining liberation.

As Hongladarom notes, one who has found salvation in Buddhist terms “has totally relinquished any attachment to the self” (53). Selflessness is necessary, he claims, because “The ego…that is the root cause of all sufferings because it sets the putative self…out of everything that functions as its object or content of its thoughts. Sufferings then ensue because there would then arise the need to cherish and protect this alleged self that is now believed to be real” (59). Selfishness betrays the most important tenets of the Eastern philosophy –“selflessness, emptiness, compassion, generosity, and wisdom –that is, Buddhism”—and causes the cycles of humanity to recur and progress to stall (Martin 213). More simply, in Adam Ewing’s own words, “For the human species, selfishness is extinction” (Mitchell 508).

The jataka tales support this worldview. “In these stories,” Martin explains, “the Buddha does not turn his back on the world and ignore the sufferings around him in order to attain his own peace” (217). Self-sacrifice and compassion become necessary to reach singular liberation. Injecting the self and the ego into the Eastern philosophy creates a dangerous blend of East and West –a blend from which arises not liberation for the self, but servitude for the “others.” For example, Nietzsche (heavily quoted in this novel) gleaned much influence from Eastern ideas, but added to it the very Western notions of a self and the will to power. Hongladarom notes that this led to a worldview that “For Nietzsche…has taken aristocratic values, the master morality as opposed to the more common values of the mass, i.e. the slave morality” (54). Such a mindset cannot help one escape the cycles. Grimaldi, in “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery,” regurgitates an almost identical message; “Yet how is it some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? … the will to power” (Mitchell 129). Grimaldi was not one of the good guys.

Much like the jataka tales, Cloud Atlas seems to suggest that such selfishness gives rise to the continued cycles of inhumanity, suffering, and rises and falls, that permeate

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Western history. Meronym blames civilization’s fall on that very idea, telling Zachary that “[Civilization] made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o’ humans, yay, a hunger for more…Now the Hole World is big, but it weren’t big ‘nuff for that hunger…”

(Mitchell 272). Many of the characters that preceded Meronym seemed ultimately to fail in reaching a complete selflessness and removing that Western mindset. For example, Frobisher, unlike Buddha, leaves the suffering world behind, though he tries to justify it. “People pontificate, suicide is selfishness…No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching” (Mitchell 470).

But the suicide represents a singular focus on himself that had revealed itself earlier in the way he used his maestro’s wife for sex, in the way he used Sixsmith for pity and funds, etc. Such examples permeate the novel and characters/ stories of all forms. Even Luisa Rey has her career in mind.

Cavendish obtains minimal empathy for anyone’s suffering but his own, despite his ghastly ordeal. And Sonmi-451 becomes temporarily transfixed by the notion that she could be granted a soul or that Hae-Joo Im would call her a person.

Perhaps this explains why these characters seemingly reenter the cycles, despite their efforts to obtain liberation and truth.

of suffering. Like Buddha (or even the Christian Jesus that she unknowingly invokes with Judas), her actions and sacrifices as a walking, living doer of good deeds ultimately leads to her godhood. Her morality becomes central to a world that undergoes drastic change, and she is at least rewarded with a liberation from enslavement to a position in which she garners respect and reverence.

The ancient deity of Buddha and the future deity of Sonmi also share the morality of inclusion. In Buddha’s time, such an idea shattered the status quo. Hongladarom explains that, “What was revolutionary about the Buddha’s teaching was that he set out to destroy the belief in the caste system…open to everyone” (55). The inclusivity of Buddhism subverted ideas of privilege, birthright, and class in favor of merit, measuring one’s worth on their good deeds, and quests to achieve salvation. Beyond that, the Buddha and his jataka tales devalued the notion of a soul, giving worth, emotion, and sentience to beings on all rungs of the hierarchal ladder.

Philosopher and psychologist Titus Rivas explains where this notion may arise, saying, “Most Buddhist views about personal identity can be summarized by the Pali term anatta, which literally means ‘no soul’” (226). The jataka tales find more tangible characteristics to be valued, and do not limit the capability to achieve them to high-ranking human Sonmi-451, though, does reveal the importance of beings. Animals also play vital roles. According to Martin, selflessness perhaps more than any character in the novel “Animals in jataka tales think, feel, have their own unique aside from Autua (and arguably Meronym). Sonmi proves views, and their own specialized realms” (214). Because willing to sacrifice her newly gained self for the betterment of this, he says, “These stories…regain a felt connection to of the future successors, an act worthy of arahant status. As animals as thinking, suffering, caring, aspiring beings, not Hongladarom explains, “The arahant works better for the machines in fur” (218). benefits of others without being burdened by the sense of self” (62). When Sonmi-451 sees the beauty of the ocean The tales of Cloud Atlas reveal a similar devaluation of and the world, she lets go of the self, proclaiming that “All the the soul, and a reevaluation of the hierarchies that plague woe of the words ‘I am’ seemed dissolved there, painlessly, these societies. “Others” within the narrative often receive peacefully” (Mitchell 339). She exemplifies selflessness when treatment or descriptors that render them animalistic or she reveals that her narrative was planned, that her demise without souls. For example, the natives in Adam Ewing’s was inevitable, but she endured for the good. She justifies journals constantly get compared to beasts, even by Ewing this seemingly unthinkable betrayal of her personal interest, himself, such as when he says, “She has a tinge of black saying, “Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? blood and I fancy her mother is not far removed from the … We see a game beyond the endgame…No matter how jungle breed” (Mitchell 6). Centuries later, Sonmi-451 and many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor. her fellow fabricants receive similar treatment. Of BoomNow, my narrative is over” (Mitchell 349). If Sonmi-451 Sook, she says, “He addressed me like purebloods speak fails to exit the cycle, it is not due to her selfishness. She to a cat” (Mitchell 208). These characters are considered only briefly knew that she had a self to give. But her story expendable. In Ewing’s tale, they are passively cast parallels the jataka tales in the sense that her narrative overboard or whipped in the streets. In Sonmi’s story, their endorses selflessness, action, and compassion in the midst death means little to those that rank higher; “Purebloods see

us often but look at us rarely…no one cared if an xperimental fabricant or two got dropped along the path of scientific enlitenment” (Mitchell 210). Connected across time, these characters (as well as examples in the other stories such as the savages in “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an Ev’rythin’ After”) exist on the lowest strata of their respective societies, rendered soulless and unimportant.

Like the jataka tales, however, Cloud Atlas bestows them worth. Cloud Atlas bestows them the ability to think, to feel, to show compassion, and ultimately, to rise above those that supposedly rank above them in society. Sonmi-451, for example, has no soul as her society defines it. “Catechism Seven,” she recites, “A soul’s value is the dollars therein” (Mitchell 325). Without one, in the corpocracy, Sonmi is literally worthless and without value, a cog in the machine.

The narrative, obviously, plays out much differently. First, she reveals that fabricants do indeed possess personalities and differences. She explains to the interviewer, “Because you cannot discern our differences, you believe we have none.

But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snow-flakes” (Mitchell 187). Second, Sonmi-451 reveals her sentience and her ability to be thinking, feeling, and compassionate. Hae-Joo Im notices this propensity within her, causing him to note, abandoning societal definitions, “These … existential qualms you suffer, they just mean you’re truly human” (Mitchell 232).

Third, Sonmi becomes a hero, a vehicle for change, and a being so transcendent that she rises to the status of god centuries later. She comes to recognize that the hierarchal ladder means nothing. She discovers she can rise above it.

The supposedly soulless “fabricant” overcomes those that devalue her; “If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them,” Sonmi says, “Losers can become winners in the long term” (Mitchell 225).

beyond a “something,” writing in his letter to Sixsmith, “Dhondt [the driver]…gave a ha! Of relief that he hadn’t killed someone that also expressed dismay at having killed something…It cried, Sixsmith, just like a two-day-old baby” (Mitchell 443).

In this way, Cloud Atlas mirrors the traditions of Eastern storytelling in which beings otherwise undervalued or lost in the categorization of soul and sans-soul receive a voice and perspective, therefore eliciting empathy and worth.

Martin claims that “The jatakas take this perception through the eyes of other lives and make it their foundation” (214).

Mitchell does the same. He provides his readership with a perspective that otherwise would go ignored by the societies these characters fall within. Even Cavendish relates a story that otherwise would be lost in the corridors and caged minds of a modern-day nursing home. Instead, Mitchell gives them a voice, and therefore feeling, and therefore a soul. This narrative device reveals an endorsed morality of inclusion that also permeates the jataka tales and teachings of Buddha, perhaps most succinctly wrapped up in the simple voice of Zachary; “Welcomin’ strangers was Sonmi’s way, yay, welcomin’ should be free or not at all” (Mitchell 251). The lesson: everyone and everything has value. Or as David Mitchell, himself, said in an interview, “Your own acts can have as much influence as anyone else’s.”

That very realization underlies the third morality that permeates both the jataka tales and the six narratives of Cloud Atlas. Both collections of stories feature characters that fight against nihilism and succumbing to the inevitable cycles. Both value the notion of life-affirmation –that the present moment matters. Hongladarom explains this Buddhist belief in life affirmation and not dwelling on the cycles/ reincarnations: “The arahant would also not care whether he will eventually return time and time again. That would not be a cause for worrying because all of the returns lie either in the past or the future…what matters is the now; only the now is real. The now is real no matter how many times it has happened in the past” (62). The task facing the arahant, Hongladarom claims, is to overcome the temptation to lose hope in the face of a past that constantly recurs, saying one must “become wholly anti-nihilistic (indeed, life affirming) types by overcoming the dire situation of the Eternal Recurrence” (64).

The narrative of Cloud Atlas bestows value on more characters than just Sonmi that otherwise would receive little value from their own societies. For example, Autua, a member of a tribal, lesser race in Ewing’s tale, ultimately saves Ewing’s life, changes Ewing’s perspective, and through his action, inspires Ewing’s telling change of heart: “If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a coliseum of confrontation, exploitation and bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being” (Mitchell 508). Even Robert Frobisher, not quick to see the suffering of others aside from himself, suggests a moment in which an animal seemed Much like characters in Cloud Atlas struggle to discard the self

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and the will to power, they also struggle to discard another Nietzsche ideal –nihilism. They face the same daunting task as Buddha once did in his own quest toward liberation; they must maintain their sense of a present purpose rather than dwell on the past or the future. Liberation cannot be reached if they believe it impossible. But the past’s everpresent presence threatens to make it seem so. Sonmi-451 refers to this eternal recurrence as “a cycle as old as tribalism” in which “ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only “rights,” the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful” (Mitchell 344). Similar thoughts pervade Robert Frobisher’s mind as he nears his suicidal death. He writes to Sixsmith : You find indelible truths at one’s core. Rome’ll decline and fall again, Cortes’ll lay Tenochtitlan to waste again, and later, Ewing will sail again. Adrian’ll be blown to pieces again, you and I’ll sleep under Corsican stars again, I’ll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you’ll read this letter again, the sun’ll grow cold again. Nietzsche’s gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities…We do not stay dead long (Mitchell 471).

His thoughts did not simply dwell on the past. He also found no hope, no purpose in how he could affect the future. He says of such an idea, “How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner” (Mitchell 82). Frobisher succumbs to this nihilism, dwells on his pointlessness, the past, the present, abandons the present, and perhaps for those reasons, his music and his birthmark re-enter the eternal recurrence.

Other characters face this obstacle of feeling pointless in the face of a cyclical past and inevitable future. For example, Timothy Cavendish seems to be talking about more than card games when he describes his hatred for Patience, remarking that “The outcome is decided not during the course of play but when the cards are shuffled, before the game even begins.

How pointless is that?” (Mitchell 368). Others overcome this pervasive notion, such as Sonmi-451, who displays a desire to lead a purposeful existence in her here and now. Like Buddha, she does not seek to avoid adversity; she seeks purpose. Sonmi attempts to define happiness in the face

of this, saying, “If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity, I and all fabricants are the happiest stratum in corpocracy. However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity, or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one’s will to power, then of all Nea So Copros’s slaves we surely are the most miserable” (Mitchell 188).

the last clock” (Mitchell 298). All at once, symbolically, there is no history or concept of time for these people to dwell on. Zachary finds himself in a world where only the present matters, reinforcing the Buddhist provision: only the now is real. The story defeats time with its hopeful ending. Because Meronym saves Zachary, he lives. Because he lives, Zachary passes on the true story of Sonmi-451 to a people that had In the face of this search for purpose, Mitchell’s narrative worshiped her but forgotten her. In this moment resides provides hope in characters who do overcome their nihilism. hope. The final pages of the story allow the chance that this They seem to embody a message (hinted at earlier) that civilization, armed with this single piece of their past, may Mitchell, himself, once gave in an interview about Cloud learn from the compassion of Sonmi (this Buddha-like cross Atlas. On feeling a part of life inevitable, Mitchell said, “I between human and deity) and start a new cycle. There is would hope that people might feel that although it can seem hope that the comet finally hit, destroyed, and wiped out that what happens to you is out of your hands, and that you that old world. don’t have any influence on the way life goes, certainly not on the way the life of the nation goes…everything that does Sonmi’s journey as a being both enslaved and deified happen to you is done by hands…your own acts can have follows the final morality of Buddhism and jataka tales that as much influence as anyone else’s.” The two characters Mitchell mirrors in his novel. Buddha strived to be both lord who presumably could evade failing and falling into the and servant. Hongladarom describes a Buddhist master as cycles that bind them –Adam Ewing and Meronym –carry one who “is a lord and a servant at the same time and the torch of this message. he is good and skillful at both, since from the standpoint of Emptiness, the master realizes there is no individual ego Ewing’s lack of a comet-shaped birthmark and his sudden and he does not find any essential differences between change in heart and purpose suggests he may not be as himself and others” (57-58). The abbess remembers this closely linked to the loosely connected reincarnations of quality of Buddha chiefly in “An Orison of Sonmi-451”; characters that follow. Obviously, there is significance to the “Siddhartha is a dead man and a living ideal. The man fact that his words end Mitchell’s narrative. He faces the taught about overcoming pain, and influencing one’s nihilistic thoughts of his father –that fear that his life would future reincarnations” (Mitchell 332). The characters most amount “to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean” closely linked to following the aforementioned moralities of (Mitchell 509). Ewing does not succumb. Instead, in life Buddhism also follow this dichotomous existence. affirmation, and in hope, he asks, “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?” (Mitchell 509).

Sonmi-451 literally begins her life as a servant at Papa Song’s before Zachary’s people make her a lord of their If those final words prove significant, so too does the land. Much as the abbess told Sonmi of Buddha, Meronym central story in Mitchell’s narrative –the looking glass on has to tell Zachary that his god also lived a mortal life. either side of the mirror’s reflections – “Sloosha’s Crossin’ She says to Zachary, “She was Sonmi, Zachry. Sonmi the an’ Ev’rythin’ After.” Meronym exists in the latest future to freakbirthed human what your ancestors b’lieved was your which Mitchell allows the reader perspective, leaving alive god” (Mitchell 277). Oddly enough, Meronym also seems the bleak (but present!) hope that her future will not require to embody something similar to this lord/servant paradigm. another reincarnation of the comet-carrying characters. Her Zachary believes her to belong to a race superior, even good deeds are numerous, from seemingly developing a leading him to ask, “Why’s a Prescient’s life worth more’n genuine sensibility with the natives to her selfless, fearless Valleysman’s?” (Mitchell 267). For the first time, Meronym act to save Zachary from a heinous life or death. Amidst loses her calm, replying, “I’m just human, Zachry, like you, uprising and turmoil, which feels like yet another inevitable like anyun!” (Mitchell 267). Despite her anger, she fulfills rise and fall of inhumanity, Meronym leads Zachary to both roles. Her “magic” medicine gives her power over life escape. Approaching shore, he notes, “I seen the school’ry and death and saves the life of Zachary’s sister. At the same was razed, yay, jus’ a black shell now, the last books an’ time, she does so at the will of the people around her, and

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out of compassion for the little girl.

Even Adam Ewing displays aspects of living this dichotomy.

On one hand, he forges an originally diminutive relationship with Autua that Henry Goose compares to a “loyal gundog and its master” (Mitchell 37). By the end of the narrative, however, Ewing is enslaved by Goose’s medicine, then indebted to Autua’s mercy. It forces a turnaround in which he pledges to become a public servant, saying, “I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave and because I must begin somewhere” (Mitchell 508).

In this realm of opposites, Buddhism meets another Eastern philosophy in Mitchell’s novel –the Hindu ideal of Brahman.

The jataka tales and teachings of Buddha avoided delineated definitions of good and evil, suggesting that he lived as simultaneously both. Seeking salvation, there is only purpose, meaning “that both good and evil are conceptual formations which are ultimately empty of their inherent characteristic. One thing is good (or bad) only to the extent that it serves some desired purpose” (Hongladarom 66). The notion correlates almost perfectly with Meronym’s attempt to define what makes one human. She implores to Zachary, “List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizedsim ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay…

Some savages what I knowed got a beatsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs” (Mitchell 303). Meronym purports the belief that humans are both good and evil. Her relaying of this very notion coincides with the discovery of her own comet birthmark, connecting her to the wisdom and dichotomy of Sonmi (Mitchell 303).

Mitchell parallels this Buddhist jataka trope, oddly enough, by evoking a central ideal of another Eastern religion – Hinduism’s Brahman. Hester Van Zandt reads Emerson’s poem “Brahma”, his personal re-creation of the Brahman ideal to the unconscious Margo Roker. Rivas describes this ideal as “Transpersonal…it amounts to the assumption that our real selves –which would go beyond our individual personalities –would all be identical and consist of one single divine spiritual essence or soul” (227). Rather than separating human beings into good and evil, or other dichotomies, Brahman suggests a singular essence that unites all beings. The speaker of Emerson’s poem, presumably the god Brahma, evokes this dualism, suggesting that the slayer is also slain, that shadow is also sunlight, that fame

and shame, hope and doubt, are simultaneous (Mitchell 433). In a moment that almost painfully suggests the poem’s significance to the themes of the novel, it literally reawakens Margo Roker (Mitchell 433).

These Brahman opposites, creating a single essence, help unify the characters otherwise so loosely connected by birthmarks and little else. Coupled with Meronym’s definition of humanity, Emerson’s “Brahma” reveals that the characters intertwine in their ability to coalesce into a singular definition of history and what it means to be human. The novel refuses to paint these terms black and white, as evident by the changing forms and range of experience, but also evident by the dichotomies they represent. Some characters, like the speaker of “Brahma”, embody hope and purpose, while others succumb to doubt and nihilism. Some perform good deeds, others more than questionable, and others do both.

There are slayers, such as when Zachary slits his enemy’s throat, when Sonmi destroys an ideology entrenched in her culture, when Frobisher ends his own life. And there are the slain, such as when the other tribe takes Zachary captive, when Sonmi faces her execution, and again, when Frobisher ends his own life. In these novel, “the artist”, and presumably the human, “lives in two worlds” (Mitchell 445).

As Zachary says, in such a “busted world”, “the right thing ain’t always possible” (Mitchell 301). Instead, both good and evil must exist.

This notion of the Buddhist good/evil paradigm, or the Brahman essence, awakens the reader just as it awakens Margo Roker. It reveals a through-line otherwise evasive that connects these half-lives and makes them singular. It makes the story whole. As mentioned before, the self is an illusion in these Eastern philosophies, but as Hongladarom notes, “it does not make sense to either affirm or deny that there is a self in the past and in the future that is one and the same as this present one…However, the similarities are no less important” (68). The jataka tales, and Cloud Atlas’s narrative, do not endorse dwelling on the past, but they do endorse learning from it. To know that others have come before, existed as both slayer and slain, have faced these cycles, fallen, and failed is to have a guide –a cloud atlas.

The jataka tales of old aspired to create such a guide, one that could navigate one through the despair of eternal recurrence and take them toward liberation. Through storytelling, the tales sought to provide “a vision of our

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actual place and role in the multileveled universe of all living beings, human and nonhuman alike” (Martin 214).

The stories of Buddha’s life as both man and god, seeking truth and liberation, endorsed the moralities of compassion, selflessness, inclusivity, and life-affirmation, in the hopes that one who follows this roadmap will find their own salvation.

Obviously, David Mitchell did not necessarily, or consciously, re-create the entirety of this myth in his writing of Cloud Atlas. But the novel’s Eastern influence cannot be ignored, and when used as a lens through which to view the cyclical, circular novel, provides a unifying essence to a scattered story of varying forms, genres, and beings. It provides a Brahman, a unifying essence, a connection to the fact that all of these characters sought what the jatakas once promised.

They sought a guide, a way to connect the disjointed, and an explanation for eternal recurrence. Zachary sought these answers in a god named Sonmi, Frobisher in self-composed music, and Cavendish in an invisible map of the ineffable.

Little did they know they lived within the very Cloud Atlas they sought –a work of fiction.

Perhaps this final connection between the jataka tales of Buddha and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas remains the most important: they do not try to re-create history and fact. Instead, they purposefully blend truth and fiction. Rafe Martin claims that the Buddha mythology never pretended to be fact, and because of that, remains very much true. “Myth, as I am using it,” he explains, “means, essentially, something so true it cannot be put into one final linguistic or imagistic form. It underlies all forms” (219). In creating a guide, a cloud atlas if you will, Mitchell replicated this formula. He could not write a history book; that would undermine the dualism and the gray areas. He could not give a single perspective in a single form, for this novel was a story of the world. He could not rely on the facts to tell the truth. As Isaac Sachs says moments before his death, “The actual past is brittle, everdimming…The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies and legitimacy to the imposition of will…the actual future and the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone” (Mitchell 392-393). So instead, Mitchell had to blend the boundaries of truth and fiction as he blended the boundaries of good and evil. Mitchell had to resurrect an Eastern tradition to tell this tragic Western story, so that his tales might inspire the same reaction that Rafe Martin claims the jataka tales elicit:

“These stories are so inexplicably strange, that they might just be…true!” (221).

References Hongladarom, Soraj. “The Overman and the Arahant: Models of Human Perfection in Nietzsche and Buddhism.” Asian Philosophy 21.1 (2011): 53-69 Martin, Rafe. “Past Lives: Entering the Buddhist Imagination.” Storytelling, Self, Society 6.3 (2010): 212-222.

Burrows. Print.

Mitchell, David. “An Interview with David Mitchell on Cloud Atlas, Murakami, Money and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.” The Big Issue in the North. 2 Mar. 2004. Interviewed by Wayne Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas: A Novel. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004.

Print.

Mitchell, David. “The Art of Fiction.” The Paris Review. Web interview.

Rivas, Titus. “Rebirth and Personal Identity: Is Reincarnation an Intrinsically Impersonal Concept?.” Journal of Religion and Psychical Research 28.4 (2005): 226-233.

Back to the Futurism

By Rosalind Fursland

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Introduction Mina Loy is primarily known as an early modernist poet, although she was also an admired creator in other spheres.

One of Loy’s most recognisable and insightful remarks in her essay “Modern Poetry” is that “Poetry is prose bewitched, a music made of visual thoughts, the sound of an idea” (Loy 157). This ‘sounding of an idea” undoubtedly has Futurist origins and is evident as much of Loy’s poetry is experimental representing the testing of a theory or idea. Futurism was introduced to Loy in her early twenties when she migrated to Florence, where, after the publication of his “Futurist Manifesto” in 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurism was emerging. Compared with the numerous renowned modernists Loy counted as contemporaries, friends, muses, and confidants (including Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Marcel Duchamp, H.D. and Djuna Barnes), Marinetti, contrary to Loy’s later desires, had an unequivocally intense and lasting influence on her, both positively and negatively as a woman and poet. His vision for Futurism was concerned with the dissolution of the “old” and welcoming of the “new” in almost every area of its followers” lives and particularly pervaded most aspects of painting, sculpting, architecture, music and literature. Futurism promoted destruction as much as it encouraged creation, and, as Marinetti’s Manifesto claims, “no work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man” (Apollonio 22). Marinetti also states that “Art… is a need to destroy and scatter oneself” (Nicholls 92) and espouses the extreme intention to “destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind” (Apollonio 22). These Futurist aphorisms exemplify the significant and central notion that Futurism endorsed: destruction in order to open a space for new ideas, new thinking, and ultimately the re-birth of art in multiple new forms.

Mina Loy and Futurism Despite a complex, ambiguous, and ultimately fleeting association with Futurism, much of Mina Loy’s poetry typifies Marinetti’s professions on Futurist literature, because it embodies a dissection and demolition of traditional principles of literature through the “destruction of syntax” (Apollonio 96) in order to allow for parole in libertà or “words in freedom” (Nicholls 92). In this context I refer to Futurism as the

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artistic movement which arose in 1909, largely proliferated by Marinetti’s tireless self-promotion, which harnessed the energy of newly emerging technology and industry to form a dynamic forward-thinking group of Florentine artists whose perceptions of art would become influential in many countries and to many people. Through this, Marinetti encouraged poets to explore the limitless mind without inhibition or rules. This item of Marinetti’s numerous proclamations is particularly visible in Loy’s poetry. Another offshoot of Futurism which is influential in some of Loy’s poetry is the mechanical, mathematical, and industrial elements of what was seen as a “modern” projection of the future. The Futurist Manifesto also eloquently dictates that Futurism will glorify “the vibrant nightly fervour of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons… greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents…factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke” (Apollonio 22).

Particular barriers for Loy included statements such as; “We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for women” (Apollonio 22). The rise of a politically fascist stance deterred Loy; the negative rhetoric associated with women offended her; and the emphasis on Italian supremacy and racial purity, herself being the product of a traditional English Victorian mother and a Hungarian Jew, distressed her.

As a key female modernist poet in her time, Loy has been relatively understudied and negated by critics until recent years. Despite Samuel French Morse campaigning for a reawakening to her poetry in his 1961 essay “The Rediscovery of Loy and the Avant-Garde,” a further twenty year delay elapsed, with little stirring of interest, during which time, Loy herself died in relative obscurity in 1966. It wasn”t until 1980, that the pioneering Virginia Kouidis published the influential Mina Loy: American Modernist Poet, which at last began to reignite critical interest in Mina Loy. Thus, in the short tradition of studying Loy, largely superficial and biographical details have been covered numerous times. In addition, particular poems and extracts have been acclaimed and studied. Moreover, Loy’s poetry has been subdivided into chronological biographically influenced periods of her life. For example, in Roger Conover’s editing of The Lost Lunar Baedeker;hence the reason why works from different periods of her life are often treated separately and differently, some parts, for example, her later poetry, are neglected more than others. Loy’s body of poetry is infrequently addressed as a whole, therefore, as constraints permit only one theme, the strand of Futurism often only discussed in Loy’s early poetry, will be examined throughout each era, beginning with the period 1913 to 1915.

Futurism can be seen as a bleaching of the mind, so as to prepare for the future layers of new colour; “HERE are the fallow-lands of mental spatiality that Futurism will clear-” (Loy 142). It is a yearning and attempt to embrace what lies just ahead; a reach into the Future to try to pull its influences into the present, rather than continuing the customs of the past. As Marinetti state, “Futurism is grounded in the complete renewal of human sensibility brought about by the great discoveries of science” (Apollonio 96). Marinetti asserts in his manifesto that “We intend to exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and slap” (Schiach 19). This is also prevalent in some of Loy’s poetry, as the existence of underlying mechanisms in the superficially fractured language and structure is irrefutable. Similarly, images of fecundity, re-birth, and renewal are frequently sown arbitrarily among the Futurist language of the machines, thus, emphasising the natural “going to seed” of old ideas and the fertilisation of the mind The Futurist Years 1913- 1915 and delivery of new ideas, this time in the form of factories, technology, and subsequent “new” art.

Aside from the charismatic appeal of Marinetti, Loy was drawn to Futurism because, like many, she was inspired by The persuasive influence of Marinetti and his radical re- the sentiments of the 1909 manifesto, as well as the literaryvision of the universe kick-started many artists into action, orientated manifesto of 1913 encouraging “Destruction of including Mina Loy. Nevertheless, Loy did not completely or Syntax,” “Imagination without Strings,” and “Words in Freeeternally conform to or abide by Futurism as there was an dom” (Apollonio 95). Loy was evidently excited by these “uglier” side to the movement. In a letter to Mabel Dodge in suggestions for the “Futurist sensibility” of poetry (Apollonio 1914, Loy wrote that she was “in the throes of conversion to 98), as in much of her early work (and arguably her later Futurism… [but] I shall never convince myself” (Galvin 64). work), she conforms to the complete obliteration of syntax

and punctuation, as well as freeing her thoughts from the confines of her mind, no matter how vulgar or unconventional, and writing them down in the form of poetry. This was encouraged by Marinetti who called it “the Imagination without Strings,” to clarify; “the absolute freedom of images or analogies, expressed with unhampered words and with no connecting strings of syntax with no punctuation” (Apollonio 99). Moreover, in the “Words in Freedom” section, Marinetti elaborates further on his wish that the poet “will begin by brutally destroying the syntax of his speech… together distant things with no connecting strings, by means of essential free words” (Apollonio 98). The Futurist sentiments most appealing to Loy are those which fall under the umbrella of Marinetti’s second item of advice for poets, that they should have a “Dread of the old and the known.

Love of the new, the unexpected.” (Apollonio 96). This was the notion which really seized Loy’s attention, captured her imagination, and pervaded her life and poetry, well beyond her Florentine days. For Carolyn Burke, Loy’s outstanding biographer, the persistent desire for change and reinvention, altering her name from Lowy to Loy to Lloyd, signifies “her attempts to resolve personal crises” (Burke vi). Loy’s rejection of the “old” and desire for the “new” in the early stages of her career, is embodied by her hasty escape from England and the Victorian tyranny of her traditionalist English mother.

Loy’s 1914 prose poem, “Aphorisms on Futurism” gush with eager enthusiasm, echoing the Futurist rhetoric she so admired. The piece is in the style of one of Marinetti’s manifestos using imperatives, with upper case letters for emphasis; the opening aphorism being; “DIE in the past/ Live in the Future” (Loy 149) thus, precisely illustrating Loy’s major area of identification with Futurist philosophy. The emphasis on “DIE” demonstrates Loy’s Futurist wish for all that is “past” and “old” to wilt away in order to allow the soil to be ploughed for regeneration and life in the future. This bold opening statement is an aggressive commandment designed to procure attention through the medium of instruction. A later aphorism, although still imperative, has a more sympathetic and reassuring tone for those doubting the advantages of Futurist thinking; “BUT the Future is only dark from the outside./ Leap into it—and it EXPLODES with Light” (Loy 149). The loaded meaning of “EXPLODES” urges sceptics to take a leap of faith into the “Light” of the future. The reference to explosion is also significant because it evokes the important bond between Futurism and industry, science, and

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technological discovery. Furthermore, several aphorisms refer to the future as stimulating the imagination “by inspiring people to expand to their fullest capacity” (Loy 150). This was one of the most cherished aspects of Futurism for Loy, that it sparked the inspiration for her satirically self-declared poetic genius (“Apology of Genius”) and caused a catalytic chain reaction, allowing the explosion of a great poet from the ashes of a mediocre artist. One poem followed another, and although the subject content and perspective altered, there is no doubt that Futurism was the initial stimulus which fuelled the unfulfilled poet in Loy. She postulates that “THE Future is limitless—the past a trail of insidious reactions” (Loy 150) and “THE Futurist can live a thousand years in one poem” (Loy 150). This unflinching and unanimous extolling of and devotion to Futurism with its promotion of the liberation of the mind, documents Loy’s staunch, overflowing enthusiasm for Marinetti’s movement. The aphorisms display no hint of the disfavour Loy would later associate with the Futurists, although interestingly, no mention is made of the more controversial and problematic ideals such as ‘scorn for woman” (Apollonio 22) and war as “the world’s only hygiene” (Apollonio 22). Loy instead focuses on the positive fertile images of regrowth and imagination which inspired her; “MAN is a slave only to his own mental lethargy” (Loy 151) and “YOU cannot restrict the mind’s capacity” (Loy 152). These aphorisms read like biblical commandments and exude a palpable fervour for Futurism.

“Italian Pictures” is one of Loy’s most neglected poems, and although it presents a challenge of comprehension, exhibits a series of fragmented vignettes of Florentine life. The poem juxtaposes the superficial vivacity of the Italian city with images of the city’s undercurrent of depravity, emotional paralysis, and death. It is very much an outsider’s portrayal of Italian life, wishing to partake but unable to integrate fully.

Although Loy was committed to the Futurist cause for a time, she could never fully immerse herself due to her expatriate status and already complex ethnic and cultural identity as a British Jew, her “impure” racial blood becoming a further cause for consternation in the light of extreme Futurist ideals. The following passage is from the section of “Italian Pictures”entitled “The Costa San Giorgio”. It demonstrates the nature of the narrator’s self-awareness as the product of English civility in the unkempt but stimulating country of Italy:

We English make a tepid blot On the messiness Of the passionate Italian life-traffic Throbbing the street up steep Up up to the porta Culminating In the stained frescoe of the dragon-slayer

(Loy 10)

This demonstrates Loy’s frustration that, although diluted, the influence of Loy’s mother and traditional upbringing in England will always resign her to being “tepid,” tame, and resigned in comparison to the “messiness” and “passion” of the “Italian life traffic” surrounding her. Although it is never asserted that the narrator in this poem is Loy herself, it is clear that she has written it from the perspective of her experience in Florence. Moreover, Loy’s reference alluding to the English as a “tepid blot” resonates as a personal and impossible struggle to cast off her tedious, rigid, and “old” British upbringing in favour of envelopment in the “new” and vigorous Italian experience and the Futurist’s desire for change and progression. Loy states in a recorded interview in 1965 with Paul Blackburn and Robert Vas Dias, that when she was pondering her identity and the idea of English identity as a whole, saying “we English… I was thinking, why do we call ourselves English in England?” (Pozorski 50). This exemplifies Loy’s exhaustive absorption with identity, both racial and cultural; perhaps an innate remnant from her days as the “outsider” in Futurism, as a woman and ethnic anomaly among the Futurists. Loy refers to herself as a “mongrel”, again highlighting this cultural, social, racial, and religious internal conflict. The significance of the passage from “The Costa San Giogio” is further emphasised by the destination of the weary uphill struggle to the porta. With Futurist influences (such as “Words in Freedom” and “Destruction of Syntax”) typical of Loy, including the lack of punctuation giving a sense of her formal liberation, and the long breaks between words aptly placed to accentuate the arduous uphill struggle, Loy arrives at a fresco. The importance here is that the fresco is of a dragon-slayer, namely St George, hence the Florentine name “The Costa San Giorgio”. Therefore, the passage describes the sight of the “tepid” English juxtaposed with the vibrant Italians as they make their patriotic pilgrimage to the fresco of St George. It is evident here that although it sits uncomfortably, Loy’s reflection on the identity of the English concludes that although having rejected

England at a young age, she can never fully escape her ancestry, as traces of it lie in everything. Thus, Loy could never fully adopt the Futurist shedding of the old or the emphasis on Italian racial “purity” and supremacy.

What Loy did acquire from Futurism was the freedom and fluidity of expression, the encouraged destruction of syntax and the emphasis on modern, urban concerns. As demonstrated by her “Aphorisms on Futurism”, Loy also adopted the idea of the limitlessness of the individual human mind.

This is emphasised in her musing, ‘sketch of a Man on a Platform.” Loy describes the physical attributes of a seemingly ordinary man in a poem full of oxymoronic paradoxes, for example, “you are more heavy/ And more light” (Loy 19), exemplifying the contradictions of humanity and the impossibility of defining the human experience. She states, “Your genius/ So much less in your brain/ Than in your body/ Reinforcing the hitherto negligible/ Qualities/ Of life” (Loy 19). Thus, Loy emphasises that the experience of the world lies not only in the mind but also in the body and that discovering genius is not just a mental journey but also a physical one. This echoes the Futurist ‘sensibility” of exploration internally and externally, permitted by the discoveries of science and technology. Marinetti calls for a “New tourist sensibility bred by ocean liners” (Apollonio 97) and as Loy imitates, inspires faith in the capacity mentally and physically of the individual. He states, “The single man, therefore, must communicate with every people on earth. He must feel himself to be the axis, judge, and motor of the explored and unexplored infinite” (Apollonio 97). The following passage from Loy’s ‘sketch of a Man on a Platform” reiterates these sentiments: Concentrating On stretching the theoretic elastic of your conceptions Till the extent is adequate To the hooking on Of any—or all Forms of creative idiosyncracy While the occasional snap Of actual production Stings the face of the public.

(Loy 20) The extract alludes to the broadening of the human experience and the seeming infinite knowledge one man can

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acquire. Loy likens the human mind’s conceptions to a piece of “elastic” able to stretch and distort in order to “hang” unbounded knowledge, memories, and experience upon it.

This thirst for wisdom was perhaps one of the most valuable Futurist concepts for Loy, as it invigorated her to stretch the elastic of her conceptions, encouraging her creativity and encompassing every area of her life. Loy lived her life variously, eclectically and eccentrically, eternally driven by the desire for learning and searching.

The style and form of Loy’s poetry from this early era is highly representative of Futurist influences, although, there are signs from early on that the movement had also given rise to objections from Loy about the treatment of women.

Marinetti later clarified and expanded upon his initial distain for women, by explaining his real qualm about what he saw as the prison of marriage due to men’s lust for woman and female desire for material possessions, saying “today’s woman loves luxury more than love” (Apollonio 97). Despite this, it is evident that Loy’s growing early “feminist” feeling of oppression was evidently one of the issues which prevented her total commitment to Futurism. Loy and Valentine Saint-Point who published the “Futurist Manifesto of Lust” (Apollonio 70) in 1913 were some of the minority female Futurist supporters. Deborah Longworth, an authority on modernist women writers, states that Loy and Saint-Point co-founded a pro-feminist approach to Futurism which incorporated the positive ideas of modern femininity and rejection of domesticity-centred marriage, while simultaneously reworking the “misogynistic rhetoric into an ideal of strong, sexual womanhood” (Longworth 165). Saint-Point asserted in her “Manifesto of Futurist Women” that “instead of scorning her [womankind], we should address her” (Longworth 165). It is sentiments like these that, while following a large proportion of “positive” Futurist discourse, Loy clearly reiterates in some of her early poems. “Parturition,” one of Loy’s most commonly examined poems for example, exposes these feminist persuasions. The poem examines the then controversial subject of the female experience of giving birth and the pain and feeling of negation experienced in comparison with male euphoria. It “refuses the traditional happiness that accompanies the birth of a child” (Pozorski 60).

The following example exposes this oblivious abandonment on the part of the male:

At the back of the thoughts to which I permit crystallization The conception Brute Why? The irresponsibility of the male Leaves the women her superior Inferiority He is running up-stairs I am climbing a distorted mountain of agony Incidentally with the exhaustion of control I reach the summit

(Loy 5)

The reference to the female’s ‘superior Inferiority” expresses Loy’s belief in the supremacy or at least equality of women, despite the unfair subordination of women as the naturally “disadvantaged” child bearer. The comparison between the male experience of “running upstairs” with the female ordeal of “climbing a distorted mountain of agony” further accentuates this unjust disparity. The narrator later likens this hazardous process of giving birth to being like “A dead white feathered moth/ Laying eggs” (Loy 6). Galvin comments on the inspiration and style of “Parturition” saying that it “reflects the influence of both the language experiments of Gertrude Stein and the dictates of the Futurist technical manifesto. Loy also goes beyond the techniques learned from her mentors to suit her own poetic vision and needs. With this poem, Loy becomes an innovator of techniques” (Galvin 61). It is with this hybridity consisting of the partial acceptance and rejection of Futurism, and the amalgamation of this stimulus with the introduction of Loy’s own musings that the transition period in her poetry between 1915 and 1920 becomes relevant.

A Transition 1915 - 1920 Following a respite in Loy’s initial drive towards Futurism, a period not of total rejection but criticism through satirical poetry occurred. Joshua Weiner notes that the poems “demonstrate throughout how Loy adapted, not so much the specific techniques of Futurism, but the general energy of revolt and criticism that Futurism inspired in her” (Weiner 154). It is clear that Loy does incorporate more Futurist poetic techniques than Weiner accredits her with, but his inference of Futurism as an “energy”, although no longer a poetic “Bible” for Loy, is entirely perceptive. One of the first poems of

this “mongrel” nature was “The Effectual Marriage or The Insipid Narrative of Gina and Miovanni” published in 1915.

“Gina” and “Miovanni” are clearly aliases for Mina and Giovanni, although this is just a technique of satire, rather than being an accurate account on the relationship between Loy and Papini. The poem is a feminist commentary on an “effectual” marriage with the male and female assigned and confined to their respective gendered domains; the woman in the kitchen and the man in the library. This piece, in particular, was greatly admired by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, the latter of whom coined the term logopoeia in 1917, defined as “the dance of the intellect among words” (Burke v) and was specifically designed to describe Loy’s poetry. The most tragic aspect of the poem is that Gina (it is never clarified whether she is the narrator or not) believes herself to be content in the female social ideal, until finally in parentheses it transpires “this narrative halted when I learned that the house which inspired it was the home of a mad woman” (Loy 39). The following passage demonstrates the disparity of the pair, “annexed” in their separate spheres: Of what their peace consisted We cannot say Only that he was magnificently man She insignificantly a woman who understood Understanding what is that To Each his entity to others Their idiosyncrasies to the free expansion To the annexed their liberty To man his work To woman her love Succulent meals and an occasional caress So be it It so seldom is

(Loy 38)

“The Effectual Marriage” is a prime example of Loy’s development of an individual poetic fusion of Futurism, feminism and her own interpretations from 1915, which Carolyn Burke refers to as “a kind of dialogue with Futurism” (Burke 142). Typographically and formally, the Futurist influence remains prevalent, with “white spaces” (Gillespie 125) again appearing frequently, evoking a tension between the two juxtaposed eponymous subjects. This allowed Loy to intervene in the masculine discourses at work in the literary world, including Futurism, while also distancing herself by allowing greater satirical objectivity.

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clarifies a pause, thus, going against the Futurist call for A further poem which lightly ridicules Futurism is “Giovan- the eradication of punctuation. “Lions” Jaws” spans humorni Franchi” which contains interactions between the naïve ous satire and serious vendetta, and leads the way for Loy’s eponymous character “the minor Giovanni” (Loy 29) and complete conscious attempt at remodelling herself and her an older man of wisdom, experience and philosophy, “the poetry from the 1920s onwards. major Giovanni” (Loy 29) aptly named “Giovanni Bapini.”

“Lions” Jaws” is by far the most overt mockery of Futurism 1920s Onwards as it contains “Raminetti”, “Bapini” and “Nima Lyo”, “Anim Yol” and “Imna Oly” and documents the rise of a move- Loy’s absolute turn against Futurism was marked by a new ment called “flabbergastism.” Loy also references the role attitude in her poetry which still reflected some of the origiof women in the movement, probably reflecting on what by nal Futurist impetus for writing but with a new approach free 1920 was a much firmer belief that Futurism was fundamen- of the burden of explicit agendas. Some ghostly inflections tally flawed: of Futurism unconsciously and fleetingly appear throughout much of Loy’s later body of poetry. However, when addressed directly, the influence of Futurism is implied as These amusing men positive in terms of its spark but as a negative overall mesdiscover in their mail sage. Thus, her connection with the Futurists was merely the duplicate petitions springboard for the rest of Loy’s poetry, rather than defining to be the lurid mother of “their” flabbergast child her writings. Loy and her poetry are often thought to have from Nima Lyo, alias Anim Yol, alias been defined by her Futurism, although, in reality this is just Imna Oly one of the multifaceted components of which it is comprised. (secret service buffoon to the Women’s Cause) (Loy 49) This rejection of Futurism in Loy’s later life is further emphasised by the observation in Laura Scuriatti’s PhD thesis that These amusing men of “lewd precocity” (Loy 50), Raminetti one of the manuscripts of “Aphorisms on Futurism” which and Bapini are presented as erudite but manipulative. Ra- was published later, had been altered by the author. “Fuminetti is likened to a “circus-master” and a street salesman ture” and “Futurism” had been replaced by “Modern” and selling his imported “novelties” as ‘souvenirs for his disciples “Modernism” demonstrating her determination to eradicate to flaunt at his dynamic carnival” (Loy 48). The criticism in all blatant traces of the movement from her work (Scuriatti this poem is far less lighthearted mockery than in previous 116). Loy searched elsewhere amongst her contemporaries pieces, as it comments on the superficial façade of “flabber- and found many other writers, mediums, and subjects which gastism” and the slippery “used car salesman” character of inspired her, although still retaining some faint suggestions its leader. As demonstrated in the extract, Loy also displays of Futurism. Loy’s tribute to Gertrude Stein for example still an incarnation of herself, Nima Lyo as being so absorbed retains the fragmented juxtapositions, the sporadic typograby the showmanship that she desires to be the bearer of a phy, and allusion to science and technology typical of Futur“flabbergast” child. Alex Goody reports an article written ism. The following poem “Gertrude Stein” displays this:

by Cram Cook of the Chicago Evening Post in 1914 stating that Loy wished to bear Marinetti’s Futurist child and Curie ““preserve the seed” of valued men” (Goody 96). Whether of the laboratory there is any truth in this tenuous assertion is another matter, of vocabulary although, there is certainly a clear allusion to this as Nima she crushed Lyo’s wish. With this character, Loy is clearly implying that the tonnage reflecting on her position as one of the few token women in of consciousness Marinetti’s movement gives rise to the realisation of herself congealed to phrases as a “buffoon to the Women’s Cause.” In terms of form, the to extract “white spaces” technique is here, for the first time, transa radium of the word formed into regular ellipsis which, although similar in effect, (Loy 94)

The likening of Stein to a scientist or doctor of words is emblematic of the Futurist worship of science and technology and the desire for it to pervade all spheres of society. However, it must also be counter-conjectured that these aspects were additionally partial components of Modernism and, to some extent, markers of their time as much as a lingering spectre of Futurism.

“a loathing of curved lines” (Apollonio 97) Loy’s poetry has come full circle in several senses. Although Loy once declared “I was never a poet” (Conover xii), this was the artistic medium she was most renowned and acclaimed for during her time, as well as the aspect of her work which has been most studied in recent years. Moreover, by tracing the accepted and rejected elements of Futurism in Loy’s poetry it is clear that she moved from embracing Futurism, to satirising its extremism, then being repulsed by the sordidness of modern urban life. Throughout these stages, Loy developed her own unique style, which, without the initial glimmer of Futurist inspiration, followed by her resolved rejection of it, would not have been so intrinsically individual or eclectic.

Loy was an innovator and a non-conformist, and despite her dabbling in movements, occupations, and cultures, her time never fully belonged to anything, anywhere, or anyone, thus her poems deserve not to be studied as a body in a generalised sweep, but treated as independent visions or incandescent sparks of inspiration; “the sound of an idea.”

Longworth, Deborah (2010) “Gendering the Modernist Text,” in Brooker, P., Gasiorek, A., Longworth, D. and Thacker, A. (eds.) (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 156-177.

“You should have disappeared years ago”—

Works Cited

so disappear on Third Avenue to share the heedless incognito

Apollonio, Umbro (ed.) (1973) Futurist Manifestos.

New York: The Viking Press.

Shiach, Morag (2010) “Periodizing Modernism,” in Brooker, P., Gasiorek, A., Longworth, D. and Thacker, A. (eds.) (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 17-30.

Loy’s late poetry, for example, “On Third Avenue” focuses on city life, again which could be construed as Futurist, echoing Marinetti’s cry of “Passion for the city” (Apollonio 97). Conversely, Loy focuses on the underworld of city life (she was by then an American citizen) and the “bums” she had befriended in times of adversity. Loy writes observations of desolation, disillusionment, and poverty in cities, in many ways comparable to T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations. She writes of urban poverty and the paradoxical anonymity and loneliness in cities overflowing with people.

For example in “On Third Avenue” she writes:

of shuffling shadow-bodies animate with frustration …

Here and there saturnine neon-signs set afire a feature on their hueless overcast of down-cast countenances.

Burke, Carolyn (1996) Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Conover, Roger L. (1997) “Introduction,” in R.L. Conover (ed.) The Lost Lunar Baedeker. Manchester: Carcanet Press.

French Morse, Samuel (1961) “The Rediscovery of Mina Loy and the Avant Garde.” Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, 2 (2): 12-19.

(Loy 109)

Still retaining the “white spaces” characteristic of Loy’s hybrid of influences as well as maintaining the stark juxtapositions and fervour for striking language, Loy’s poetry by 1942 is reminiscent of a patchwork quilt of the stages of her life.

Conclusion For a poet who was once a member of a movement with

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Bronstein, Hilda (2002) Mina Loy and the Problematic of Gender for Women Poets of the Avant-Garde. PhD these, University of London.

Galvin, Mary E. (1999). Queer Poetics: five modernist women writers.

London: Praeger.

Gillespie, Nancy E. (2008) The Ecstatic Woman and the Grotesque: A New Lacanian Subject in the work of Djuna Barnes and Mina Loy. PhD thesis, University of Sussex.

Goody, Alex (2007) Modernist articulations : a cultural study of Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy and Gertrude Stein.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kouidis, Virginia M. (1980) Mina Loy: American Modernist Poet. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.

Loy, Mina (1997) The Lost Lunar Baedeker (Ed.) Roger L. Conover. Manchester: Carcanet Press.

Nicholls, Peter (1995) Modernisms: A Literary Guide.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Potter, Rachel and Hobson, Suzanne (2010) “Introduction,” in Potter, R. and Hobson, S. (eds.) The Salt Companion to Mina Loy. London: Salt Publishing.

Pozorski, Aimee L. (2005) “Eugenicist Mistress & Ethnic Mother: Mina Loy and Futurism, 1913-1917.”

The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 30 (3): 41-69.

Scuriatti, Laura (2002) Negotiating Boundaries. Architectural Thresholds and Gender in the Works of Virginia Woolf and Mina Loy. PhD thesis, University of Reading.

Weiner, Joshua (1998) “Rediscovering Mina Loy.” The American Scholar, 67 (1): 151-158.

Erasing the Grotesque An Analysis of Djuna Barnes’ Detestation for The Book of Repulsive Women

By Quinn Gilman-Forlini

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The Book of Repulsive Women is a collection of eight poems and five drawings by Djuna Barnes first published in 1915.

Despite the fact that this was Barnes’ first publication of what she considered to be her “serious” work, she later hated the book and wished to repress the fact that she had written it at all. Barnes left the book off of lists of her collected works, consistently referred to it incorrectly as “‘that book of repulsive women,’” and when Oscar Baron sought to republish it in 1949 she wrote him: “‘I categorically forbid you to make such publication, and […] if you proceed with such publication it will be at your own risk and peril’” (Hardie 120, 119).

The book was republished by Baron despite Barnes’ disapproval, and has been republished three times more since her death. Contrary to what the title may suggest, The Book of Repulsive Women is an intriguing work; Barnes uses the visual and textual to function as one cohesive narrative and the book as a whole engages the reader in its striking imagery. By merging poetry and illustrations, Barnes attempts to create a new space for feminine discourse. While many critics have maintained that the poetry in this book is simple and even “thin,” in actuality the language holds many complex layers of meaning regarding the marginalization of minorities suffering within the controlling dominant American culture (Benstock 240). Yet Barnes’ adamant detestation for her own work implies issues greater than merely tiring of an early style. In order to further investigate the possibilities for Barnes’ self-hatred, I will first examine how the visual and textual function together in The Book of Repulsive Women as well as provide a close reading of some of Barnes’ poetry and images, including Barnes’ interesting use of pronouns. I will then discuss the ambivalent position between attraction and repulsion that the reader is placed in when engaging with the book, and use this to examine Barnes’ own ambivalence regarding her work and her bohemian image.

Finally, I will place The Book of Repulsive Women within the historical context and cultural climate during its first publication, which lead to misinterpreted readings that provide insight into the disconnect between Barnes’ intentions and the book’s reception.

supplementing the text or even representing it; rather, merging the visual and textual should be taken seriously as an alternative feminine discourse to provide space for otherwise silenced women. It is neither Barnes’ poetry nor her drawings separately that creates this space, but “the combination that makes them disquieting” and the work as a whole “an unconventional book” (Martyniuk 2). It is difficult, however, to genuinely read Barnes’ work in this way because of our culture’s general conception that any visual image serves to supplement a text. While it may be true that The Book of Repulsive Women attempts to “break the binarism of word/ image” and thus provide a defamiliarizing effect in interaction of the two traditionally opposing mediums, it is important to keep in mind the traditional function of images within books as less than words, meant to enhance the message of the text rather than produce its own message (Martyniuk 2).

The binary between word and image interestingly echoes the binary between masculine and feminine, in which patriarchal discourse (and all discourse is patriarchal) eclipses the visual discourse that might be considered more abstract, supplemental, and feminine. These parallels between the two binaries demonstrate what The Book of Repulsive Women seems to try to deconstruct, and the issues that arise in this attempt are caused by the very eclipsing nature of the word and the masculine. In other words, there is little space for mobility between visual and textual when placed within a reader’s perspective coming from a historical context embedded in the textual as primary.

The function of text and image is especially problematic when considering that Barnes’ physical intentions for the images within the book are not completely known and their placement changes from publication to publication. In the original publication in 1915, the In examining the book as a whole, it is important to anillustrations were sepaalyze the function of both Barnes’ poetry and her illustrarate from the poetry by tions because “[a]s both a visual and verbal artist, Djuna their placement at the end Barnes demands a dual literacy” (Martyniuk 1). Ideally one of the book “in a curious medium would not stand out more than the other, and the re-enactment of the powFig. 1 two would join together to form a cohesive narrative. The erful dichotomy of the implications of illustration extend much further than simply visual and verbal words” (Martyniuk 3). This format has

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been changed throughout the book’s history of republications, most recently in the 1994 Sun & Moon edition, which matches the images with certain texts differently than the same attempt done by the 1989 Bern Boyle Books edition (Martyniuk 3). It is difficult to truly view The Book of Repulsive Women as an incorporation of simultaneous image and text partly because of these contradicting layouts. This confusion can be traced back to Barnes’ original intentions for incorporating the visual. While her placement of the illustrations at the end of the book may have been trying to achieve a sense of separation so that the visual and textual could stand to represent themselves without overshadowing one or the other, the result is a disconnect between the two and the perception of the illustrations as an afterthought to the text. The issue is not solved, however, when the images are interspersed throughout the book. By associating certain illustrations with certain poems, the idea of each representing its own story to complete a whole is lost (see fig. 1).

Since text is more valued as a representation of narrative in our culture, this layout also ends up undermining the illustrations as mere complements to the poetry.

The ultimate outcome is a failure to communicate the dual nature of the visual and textual appropriately in order to “create a mode of expression that is more inclusive and thus more able to articulate women’s experiences” (Martyniuk 4). The problem, then, is the paradox of intention versus the reader’s inevitable perception; no matter how the poems and illustrations are placed within the book, the desired message of their cohesion is impossible to attain.

Whether or not the attempts of Barnes’ eight ‘rhythms’ and five drawings in The Book of Repulsive Women were successful in their endeavor to function as a distinct discourse, their individual presence offer narratives that we should closely examine. While “[b]oth the verses and the illustrations that accompany them are clearly derivative of fin-desiècle styles,” the irregular rhythms and imagery subvert this style and offer something strangely crossed within the spheres of traditional and modern (Hardie 121). Each poem delves into a different world of feminine repulsion, all told from the perspective of an outside observer. The use of pronouns is one of the most intriguing aspects of the collection because they function to position the subject of the poem and the reader at juxtaposing points within the world of the book. For example, Barnes’ use of “we” in the first poem, “From Fifth Avenue Up,” places the reader in direct relation

to the woman in the poem, who is addressed as “you.”

This relationship between “we” and “you” creates a barrier separating the repulsive woman in the poem from the outside world, thus emphasizing her marginalization from the normative culture. Yet it also makes the “we” a perpetrator of this marginalization, thus engaging the reader in the creation of the woman’s repulsive qualities. The repulsion is created in the fact that “We see your arms grow humid / In the heat” and “We see your damp chemise lie / Pulsing in the beat” (Barnes 14). In other words, the poem seems to suggest that the observer is the cause of the woman’s displacement because it is only because we “[s]ee [her] sagging” that she sags (Barnes 14). At the same time, placing the reader in the position of “we” attracts the reader through inclusion. What is created, then, is a realm of ambivalence for the reader who simultaneously participates in the repulsive nature of the woman, thus excluding her from the reader’s “we,” while also being attracted to these repulsive qualities that caused her separation. As Hardie proposes in her speculation regarding why a book of repulsion was attractive to publishers decades later, “repulsion, irrespective of its valence, does suggest the positionality of reader; it is an orienting term even in its antipathy” (126).

While this tug and pull between attraction and repulsion may have been a reason for the book’s popularity, perhaps it also contributed to Barnes’ eventual hatred for it. That is, perhaps Barnes’ audience was attracted and repulsed for the wrong reasons—reasons opposed to her authorial intentions. While her precise intentions for The Book of Repulsive Women are uncertain, it is likely that the literary world and her readers misconstrued its meaning at the time of its first publication. Critics at the time devoted attention to Barnes’ archaic style and skirted around the content or message of her poems, but “[r]ather than being a tactic intended to divert attention away from the subversive subject matter… this critical move suggests that readers did not understand the subject matter” (Benstock 244). There are several possibilities for this disconnect between Barnes and her readers.

First, she was writing explicitly about lesbianism to the point where it was impossible for a reader to ignore or misinterpret the imagery, unlike other modernist writing that tackled such subjects more covertly. Since Barnes’ homosexual themes had to be acknowledged, the literary world avoided embracing them by “reading Barnes’s texts as confirmation of the degradation and innate depravity of homosexuality, turning these texts against themselves” (Benstock 244). They

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refused to connect Barnes’ writing with her personal sexuality, viewing her as a heterosexual because “it was inconceivable that a woman as beautiful as Barnes might be lesbian” (Benstock 244).

journalism “was rare in that time and was virtually unheard of for women” (Benstock 237). Her reputation as a daring, amusing, fun-loving bohemian became her public persona because of these experimental articles. In light of this, it was not a big step for readers to assume that the publication of her first book of poetry, The Book of Repulsive Women, came from the same persona and was meant to be read in in the same way as these commercialized pieces. Barnes, however, most likely did not want or anticipate that kind of reaction despite her journalism. The disconnect here lies in the fact that “for Barnes, journalism was only a means of maintaining herself in order to write poetry and plays of a more demanding and less compromising nature” (Benstock 237). Unlike many of her contemporary Greenwich Village writers and artists, and unlike her public image led one to believe, Barnes “never experienced financial security” and struggled to get by as she “managed to give the impression of elegance and financial stability” (Benstock 237-238). In other words, after moving to Greenwich Village Barnes took on the task of radical journalism not because this was her style or how she wanted to be perceived, but because she needed to pay rent. And so while Barnes considered her work to be “divided between the professional and public (journalism) and the private and creative (poetry and painting),” the public would not have necessarily been able to make this same divide between work Barnes did to make a living and work Barnes took seriously (Benstock 238). While it seems that Barnes certainly wanted the public to take The Book of Repulsive Women seriously, especially because it was her first collection of poetry and illustrations, instead it was treated as a commodity like her other early pieces. It seems that this disconnect was unavoidable given Barnes’ image and the impossibility of controlling a public’s perception, but it certainly helps to explain some of Barnes’ resentment for the book.

This reading is clearly problematic in light of the fact that Barnes was a lesbian, despite her later denial of this (she is famously quoted as saying “‘I’m not a lesbian. I just loved Thelma’” [Benstock 245]). Or perhaps she denied her own sexuality because of this reaction from the public; after all, Barnes had a difficult time being accepted into the ranks of other modernist writers like Eliot and Pound, and being perceived as heterosexual would have been an easier platform from which to gain notoriety. To explore this, it is necessary to examine Barnes’ image as a writer in Greenwich Village during the early years of her career. She was seen as glamorous and exotic, and the climate of Greenwich Village as a getaway for Manhattanites to visit and exploit the lifestyle of the art world contributed to Barnes’ image as a romanticized bohemian. Barnes’ use of grotesque images in The Book of Repulsive Women was most likely not an attempt to commercialize the Village, as will be discussed shortly.

Howeverit seems that since that was the reading Barnes’ audience desired it would be difficult for these readers to conceive of Unger’s contemporary interpretation that “Barnes’s portraits of bohemia…betray her disillusionment with the Village under the influence of mass consumerism” (22). With the insight of this argument, however, we are able to better understand the disconnect between Barnes’ intentions and the public’s reception. This divide was made wider by the fact that the book was first produced as a cheap chapbook, and coupled with its appealing images of the grotesque, it “was the perfect trinket of the bizarre lifestyle [outsiders] fantasized about and ultimately patronized” (Unger 28). Thus, in the hands of the public, her book became a souvenir for readers, and not the space for silenced women’s voices that feminist criticisms label it as today.

There are parallels between the ambivalence a reader of The Book of Repulsive Women is placed in as an involved Perhaps the most important disconnect between Barnes and “we” in the text, and Barnes’ ambivalence regarding her bothe public came from her reputation as a journalist during hemian image and her “serious” work as an early modernist this time. Barnes’ early writing before The Book of Repulsive (and lesbian) writer. Barnes seemed to resent her public imWomen most came in the form of “‘participatory’ journal- age, especially later in her career as she continued to try to ism,” in which she wrote pieces for newspapers after involv- be taken seriously and ebb her way further into the higher ing herself directly with the public (Benstock 237). Some ranks of the literary world and “[t]he desperation behind of her stunts included being force-fed, jumping from a sky- this public persona and the irritation with the superficiality of scraper, and putting herself in a gorilla’s cage. These acts social popularity” frustrated her (Benstock 238). At the same and articles brought attention to Barnes because this kind of time, the extent to which Barnes was personally affected by

how others regarded her is unclear. On the one hand, Hardie states that “her manipulation of old genres and styles… led to her perception as an oddity within modernism” and “haunted her career” (122). But since Barnes’ use of this style was intentional, impressing or fitting in with the modernists might not have been her priority. Rather, it seems that whatever statements Barnes was trying to make through her more serious work were for her own benefit as an artist, and not to gain clout in the art world and among the public.

That she deliberately chose a style and subject matter that would not have been well received in the mainstream during this time speaks to her purposes in publishing works like The Book of Repulsive Women and her priorities as a young writer in the early modernist period. After all, “Barnes rarely spoke of her writing, did nothing to increase her literary reputation, and made no compromises in either her subject matter or her style to attract a reading audience” (Benstock 236). Nevertheless, The Book of Repulsive Women was exceedingly popular, and remained so in the first republication and in the later ones after Barnes’ death.

Perhaps, then, Barnes’ hatred for the book and attempt to erase its existence was in part due to this mainstream popularity and the public’s misguided interpretations. If The Book of Repulsive Women is Barnes’ first publication that she herself took seriously and she chose to write about the marginalization of women in American society using explicit lesbian images and themes, then it would appear that her intentions for the book—her audience, criticisms, and the effect on the public—failed. Barnes knew how to give the people what they wanted, as seen by her skill at writing journalism she knew she would be paid for in her times of financial need.

It appears that Barnes did not write The Book of Repulsive Women with the intention of providing the same effect as her earlier pieces and of other art and writing “produced in the Village’s bohemian culture [that] fueled a greedy, exploitative, and ultimately destructive consumerism” (Unger 27-28). She probably would not have chosen to overtly write about homosexuality if these were her intentions, yet the public nevertheless turned Barnes’ work against her in order to see what they wanted. It is here that the derivation of Barnes’ self-hatred seems to fit; why she “seemed apprehensive about the efficacy of her own writing”; why she fought against the book’s republication (Unger 28). It is also here that Barnes’ personal ambivalence about her sexuality and about her (lack of) power as a woman writer echoes the images and voices of the women she draws and writes

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about in The Book of Repulsive Women.

traction and repulsion. One illustrated woman who appears to be walking pets along a street is literally confined within Returning to the content of the book, we see throughout it a black box that creates a border around her (see Fig. 2). how Barnes defines the parameters placed around her sub- Although she looks as though she is just about to step bejects by outside forces and then describes how they suffer yond this border, the stillness of the image does not allow us within them. As the first poem in the collection, “From Fifth to see what will happen to her when (or if) she does indeed Avenue Up” sets the tone for the rest of book and exempli- cross the barrier. fies the lack of freedom provided for the repulsive women within the space allotted them. The poem “is typically cited Another illustration for a bold suggestion of lesbian love-making,” and the imagshows a woman who ery in the poem suggests that the space for this is incredibly has no border around limited; that the woman is literally pushed to the boundarher, but exists within ies and is spilling over past them (Scott 2). Since she does the white space of the not fit within the space constructed for her, she is left “oozpage (see fig 3). In ing” and “bulging” beyond these confines (Barnes 14). The this case, the woman woman’s ambivalence about her identity is seen from the herself creates the contrasts of the world she was “hurled” into with her “legs borders that she exFig. 2 half strangled / In [her] lace” and her resulting struggle reists within; the lines of leased in “short sharp modern / Babylonic cries” (Barnes her body and clothes are her limitations.

13, 14). Her body is grotesque because there is no place for it, and this coupled with Barnes’ imagery of birth and Each of these examples are again complicated when placed fertility throughout this poem demonstrates the impossibility within the physical book. The drawings cannot exist without for reconciliation between nature and culture’s construction. being a part of a page, another barrier and construction, The result is pieces of her escaping, such as her “soft saliva, and must then exist physically in the hands of a reader. loosed / With orgy” dripping and her “belly bulging stately / Into space” (Barnes 14, 15). On the one hand, that this In both Barnes’ poetry and her drawings, the women she woman is restricted due to the realms of culture, the imagery tries to represent can only exist as a text to be examined by supports Scott’s argument that Barnes “breaks with binary a reader, and this is why Barnes’ attempts with this book are tradition by calling attention to impositions of culture, includ- impossible to attain. According to Unger, “for Barnes, poing its rules of gender upon nature” (1). However, when this etry serves as a space in which her Repulsive Women—or poem and the others are placed in the physical culture as a any disabled or non-normative subject—can exist without published piece in the hands of the public, the woman and the pressures of a standardizing American System” (16). the message of the poem are problematized further. The re- Ironically, and detrimentally, the physical book can only exist strictions that Barnes sets up for the woman in the poem are within the same pressures and standardization that Barnes pitted against the real-world restrictions of American culture, was trying to escape. Regrettably, it seems as though Barnes and the result is an erasure of space altogether. herself was also unable to exist without the pressures that Unger describes. While the conflicts Barnes faced regardThe same result occurs in Barnes’ use of visual pieces, which ing her first book existed because of outside forces and not try to function within the collection as a creation of space because of shortcomings in her work, this was perhaps more for these women and also illustrate this idea individually. frustrating for Barnes as a writer early in her career. Her The drawings interestingly act by providing a literal visual hatred of the book, then, while never articulated by Barnes, space for women while simultaneously creating borders seems to stem most likely from the book’s failure as her first for the women in the very fact that drawing within a space experimentation involving silenced women and combining highlights the limits of that space. In this sense, Barnes’ il- the visual and textual. It makes sense that the very existence lustrations function similarly to her text in that each medium of the book unnerved her, and that she so adamantly rereflects the same ambivalence between confinement and ex- gretted her initial attempt and did not want it to re-exist in pansion, as well as paralleling the tug and pull between at- another edition.

Barnes’ self-hatred for this work most likely came from her perception of it as a failure, and this is because her intended audience was the homosexual community.

As someone who in early years “refused to make concessions to either publishers or the public in the choice of subject matter or style of her serious writing,” she must have anticipated The Book of Repulsive Women Fig. 3 to be her first step into the art world beyond her superficial image as a journalist (Benstock 238). Instead the book was graciously welcomed into the heterosexual community, used to further exploit homosexuality, and in the end became silencing for the very people she was trying to provide with voices. Her use of the fin-de-siècle style must have been intended to represent her adamancy against the culture she was criticizing, and the desired effect may have been a “code: available to those who ‘know,’ unavailable to those who do not” (Benstock 245). Unfortunately, those who did not know controlled the reputation of the work, as well as its message. According to Benstock, “[t]he text has been likened to a woman’s body whose envelope (style or code) must be broke in order for the substance to be recovered and explained. Reading is rape, a submission of the text (woman) to patriarchal (critical) priorities” (246). And so Barnes’ presentation of these women was doomed to be ridiculed by the heteronormative patriarchy in its very creation and publication. Interestingly, Barnes seems to allude to this self-destruction in the final poem of the collection, “Suicide.”

In this poem, the reader is removed from direct participation with the subjects as the pronoun shifts to “they” for the first time. The descriptions of the treatments of Corpse A and Corpse B, in which “They brought her in, a shattered small / Cocoon” and “They gave her hurried shoves this way / And that,” respectively, seem to perfectly fit the result of the book in the hands of the public (Barnes 35-36). It is as though this final poem tells the readers what they have always already done to destroy the space Barnes created.

just for The Book of Repulsive Women, but for women writers in general. There was nothing Barnes could have done to prevent the misconstrued reception of her work, and so in the work’s creation its self-destruction was also born. Indeed, “Suicide” seems to be speaking about the book itself in a somewhat strange prediction of how the book is treated when presented to the public—the people represented by “they” in the poem. This collective “they” seems to shift perspective from the earlier “you” that was involved in the marginalization process. As the last poem in the book, “Suicide” speaks to the actions the reader has just completed when engaged as the previous “you.” With the shift to “they,” the book’s code is disguised once again as it passively resigns to its fate, no longer concerned with including the reader in its final demise. Yet in this passivity the reader still remains a perpetrator, having already finished engaging with the rest of the book and now forced to witness the results. Those who “don’t know” the code believe they are truly removed from these suicides when in reality the “they” consists of precisely these people. By believing themselves separated, those who “don’t know” are simultaneously involved in that separation and fail to recognize their role in this process. What remains is a book “[w]ith a little bruised body like / A startled moon” (Barnes 35). In Corpse A, “all the subtle symphonies of her” are “A twilight rune,” indicating that the book’s quiet and veiled messages should be able to speak powerfully within their code, but instead remain as cryptic as a “rune” to the average reader and thus are stifled to the point of death (Barnes 35). Corpse B’s demise is even colder, as it results in her body “lay[ing] out listlessly like some small mug / Of beer gone flat” (Barnes 36). In this case, the beauty beneath the code is not even acknowledged; the way they “shove” her suggests that they do not respect her death, just as they did not respect her when she lived.

If The Book of Repulsive Women is destined to suffer the fate of Corpse B, and Barnes is perhaps acknowledging her awareness of this through “Suicide,” then it seems as though there is no space for this work or similar works by women.

Once published, the work must suffer by its very existence within the climate of the public. Since there is nowhere else for the work to exist, creating the work in the first place may have seemed futile to Barnes in retrospect. Just as other women authors and artists have similarly regretted creating their work, Barnes wished the book’s presence could be physically erased because she was unable to reconcile its “Suicide” represents the inevitability of this situation—not existence in the tortured middle space it was forced to occu-

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py. While Barnes’ motivation for her frustrations is certainly understandable, simple nonexistence seems just as unavoidable as the book’s fate. The fact is that Barnes did write and illustrate The Book of Repulsive Women, and ignoring this is playing into the patriarchal culture’s desire. As the word “suicide” implies, the book’s death is blamed as its own fault, when it is actually the result of this culture. These poems and illustrations need to be preserved because beneath the pain and death, or within it, Barnes’ work contains “the subtle symphonies” that do give voice to those silenced and marginalized who would otherwise not be heard.

WORKS CITED Barnes, Djuna. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings. 4th ed. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994. Print.

Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940. Seventh Paperback Printing. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. 239-246. eBook.

Hardie, Melissa . “Repulsive Modernism: Djuna Barnes.” Journal of Modern Literature. 29. (2005): 118-132. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

Martyniuk, Irene. “Troubling the ‘master’s voice’: Djuna Barnes’s pictorialstrategies.” Mosaic [Winnipeg] 31.3 (1998): 61+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

Scott, Bonnie Kime. “Barnes being ‘beast familiar’: representation on the margins of modernism.” The Review of Contemporary Fiction13.3 (1993): 41+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Apr. 2013.

Unger, Mary. “Dropping crooked into rhyme: Djuna Barnes’s Disable Poetics in The Book of Repulsive Women .” Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers. 30.1 (2013) Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

CAPTIONS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1.

This drawing was paired with Barnes’ poem “From Fifth Avenue Up” in the 1994 Sun & Moon edition, problematizing Barnes’ intention for the visual and textual to stand separately. Barnes, Djuna. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings. 1915. Drawing. UPenn Digital Library. Web. 30 Nov 2013.

Fig. 2.

This drawing illustrates the confinement of Barnes’ repulsive women through the visual representation of a border. Barnes, Djuna. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings . 1915. Drawing.

UPenn Digital Library. Web. 30 Nov 2013.

Fig. 3.

Since Barnes surrounds the woman depicted here with white space, the woman’s clothes and skin become her border. Barnes, Djuna. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings. 1915. Drawing.

UPenn Digital Library. Web. 30 Nov 2013.

Perspectives in Music

By Helena Gandra

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The difference between art and non-art is merely one of perception and we can control how we organize our perceptions- Kyle Gann in “No Such Thing as Silence” The 21st century is an era characterised by diversity. By looking at the 19th and 20thcenturies, one can better understand the music of their own time. The Present is shaped by both a past and a future. Wagner (1813-1883) and John Cage (1912-1992) are key figures in music history and have had a fundamental impact on the music of today. Both composers enjoyed fierce support as well as a fierce opposition. They are hardly ever associated, due to the perceived diversity in their approach; however I will claim that they share many features in common. I will be looking in particular at their use of silence in two pieces. All the information acquired was resultant of previous research and my own analytical view of two particular works of two different composers that have an equally but very distinct importance to what silence is and how it can be utilized in musical composition: Tristan and Isolde’s overture (1857-1859) by Wagner and 4”33”“ (1952) by Cage.

was very useful and easy to find since there are so many writings on the subject. However, gathering information on Wagner and silence was a harder task, as it is not a usual topic in the studies of his work. I, therefore, tried to combine facts with my critical response to the information obtained.

Chapter 1. Silence in Music Silence…

What is silence? The answer appears simple, but it has actually generated very complex answers, especially in music.

Indeed, the ontology of silence has been profoundly questioned in 20th century music. As I see it, such a question is on a par with “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why does the sun shine?”; why should one wonder such matters when they are understood to be unavoidable facts? Why question a notion such as silence in music, which is so ingrained in tradition?

From childhood, human beings are inculcated with several notions that accompany them throughout their lives without ever stopping to question them. When one does though, it In fact, silence and music are in a very tight relationship, to may be seen as a provocation, the act of a mad man. The the point that silence can be considered a musical tool as fact is that such questioning is vital to create the grounds for well as sound. Silence has always been a very important change and progress. Inspired by such spirit of inquiry and characteristic in music, however; only recently it acquired a embracing my own madness I decided to investigate more fundamental role in the musical context. on the fascinating subject of silence in music.

This paper is divided into three parts: in chapter 1, I will be exploring the definition of silence, the difference between silence, sound and music and how is it represented in music tradition; in chapter 2, I will be defining Wagner’s musical aesthetics and the role that silence plays in Wagner’s work Tristan and Isolde’s overture; finally in chapter 3, I will determine Cage’s musical aesthetics and the role that silence plays in his piece 4”33”“. Relationships and comparisons will be established between the two composers and their philosophy of music, as well as their social and political context. In more general terms, I will raise questions regarding the ontology of silence and music. Indeed I will be reflecting on the role of silence in reshaping a new understanding of music.

Silence is an extremely difficult word to define, and therefore challenging it produces new and engaging ways to think about music. The Oxford Dictionary defines silence as the “complete absence of sound.” This definition immediately leads to the question of whether it is possible to ever achieve “complete absence of sound.” The answer seems to be no. Indeed absence of sound could only exist in a vacuum. Therefore, one could never fully experience the absence of sound. Even though, if one managed to be in a vacuum, which would mean there would be no sounds, there are always the sounds of our body and the ones of our imagination, that are not necessarily exteriorized. Would it constitute music, if not exteriorized? Bearing this is mind; I believe that such a definition is overly simplistic. In music, silence is featured most prominently as a rest. According to the Oxford The methodology utilized in this thesis is qualitative and Concise Dictionary of Music, a rest can be designated as therefore, I will approach the study of musical works and a “musical silence” or as “notation of absence of sound in their comparison from a musical, philosophical, historical, the performer’s part for a length of time corresponding to and socio-political perspective. In terms of literature review, a given number of beats or measures.” This seems to imply the information acquired in relation to Cage and silence that, although there is an absence of sounds, a sense of

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beat is still present. Therefore music, although inaudible, is still occurring. Indeed, one could go as far as saying that a performer is “playing” a rest; thus, at a conceptual level, silence is musical material as much as sound. Furthermore, a rest does not mean that there is complete absence of sound around the performer. As discussed above, there is always sound, however some of these sounds, such as contingent sounds – so called “ambient noise” – as they are not fruit of the work of the composer, are considered inferior, and therefore unwanted. In my opinion, a better definition of silence is given by David Toop that explains it as “a withdrawal from action.”[i] This signifies that if sound consists in a reaction to action, for silence to exist it would have to be an abolished action, the non-existence of a human action.

Nevertheless one can try to be even more accurate and add to Toop’s definition. I propose the definition of silence as a “withdrawal of intentional sound based on human action”.

In my opinion, however, sound is based on human intention that is externalized by way of actions; therefore, if there is no intention, there is no action, which means no sound, and ultimately, silence.

Since ‘silence is conterminous with sound”[ii] what is sound after all? What does Toop mean by this? In my opinion it means that silence and sound constitute the same field, they are just in an ambivalent position, where they oppose and support each other. There are many different interpretations for this question. I think the most interesting one is “(…) the sound is a thin high acupuncture needle of a note, held for some time; sometimes nothing happens at all, for more than some time.”[iii] In this definition sound is already envisaged as music, as tone, but contingent sounds and background noise, although being sound, are not traditionally considered music. What makes a difference between sound and a musical composition? Is there a distinction at all? According to Cooper “a musical composition is basically an organization of sounds. Sounds as physical phenomena fall mainly in two classes: tone and noise.”[iv] It is quite an interesting point as it raises the question of whether silence can be a musical composition. If a musical composition is constituted by an organization of sounds, and in fact silence is sound, then silence is effectively a musical composition.

Furthermore there is always going to be a problem of definition related to the distinction between tone and noise, since it is such a subjective matter. In my view the problem is the human tendency of trying to find a closed and fixed mean-

ing to concepts such as “music” and ‘silence.” One must accept that there are certain aspects that are just open to interpretation and re-interpretation, and silence, such as love or hate, is easily felt but not precisely definable. “Hearing more like feeling: a multiplicity of impressions at the edge of perception.”[v] Silence therefore is not only a physical activity but it is also cultural.

It is interesting how all things can be made to relate to each other. Silence is such a broad area of study: it includes physical, psychological, political, social, and even historical aspects. When did silence in music start? It is difficult to tell when it started, perhaps as difficult as saying when music started, since they seem to be so intimately bound. It certainly had a fundamental importance in medieval music, especially in Gregorian chant, where in the end of each sentence there was silence (e.g. Ego Sum Alpha; Expurgate Vetus Fermentum) and throughout the years became of greater importance due to the increase on diversity of significances that silence obtained.

works I will explore further their relationship to this philosophy in the next chapters.

Chapter 2. Silence in Wagner The importance of silence in Wagner’s work may not be immediately apparent. Wagner’s music has often been thought of as dense, heavy and loud, that he ‘shouts when he should whisper.”[viii] Wagner’s music is considerably loud in the dynamics sense, due mostly to the use of many brass instruments. The full orchestration of Tristan and Isolde is immense (3 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 1 English Horn, 2 Clarinets, 1 Bass clarinet, 3 Bassoons, 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, 1 Bass Tuba, 1 Pair of Kettledrums, Triangle, 1 pair of Cymbals, Harp, Violins, Violas, Cellos, Basses) and new developments in terms of performance were required with Wagner’s operas and dramas, since singers were not used to dealing with such an enormous orchestra and large scale operas, both in size and duration.

Another important feature in Wagner’s aesthetics is the “unIt is interesting how much importance has been attributed endlich melodie” (unending melody), which David McCleery to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde because of its chromatic defines as “a continuous entity: not only there is absence of passages that dissolved tonal music, but what is often over- individual musical numbers, but there are virtually no breaks looked is the significance of silence in such a work, which in between musical phrases throughout the work.”[ix] my view is as important as its chromaticism. It is silence that, consciously and subconsciously, affects the way we perceive Are not these ideas conflicting with the notion of silence, and the way we feel in relation to the story. Silence became then? The fact is even though Wagner’s music seems not to more and more a conscious feature in music, especially have any breaks or silence (in the traditional term) Tristan in the works of Claude Debussy (1866 – 1918) Erik Satie and Isolde’s prelude is actually based on the contrast of (1866–1925), Anton Webern (1883–1945), Luigi Russolo extremes such as silence versus sound, and this is, in my (1885 – 1947), Morton Feldman (1926 – 1987) and John opinion, a strategy Wagner employs to manipulate the audiCage (1912 – 1992). However silence is not only an im- ence’s emotions. In fact, that was Wagner’s main objective, portant musical feature, but also extremely important in a to control the audience’s reaction and to lead them to feel social context, for instance in religious worship. Buddhism is something. Wagner seems to have been successful in his probably one of the religions[vi] that gives more importance aims as his music usually generates strong feelings, either in to the meaning of silence. While Wagner was composing favour of or against it. Barry Millington said that “what can Tristan and Isolde he was reading Schopenhauer’s philoso- be expressed in the language of music is only feelings and phy, which was in part an interpretation about Buddhism. emotions (…) What remains inexpressible in the language of music by itself is an exact definition of the object of feelCage composed 4”33”“ while also being interested in Bud- ing and emotion.” [x] The notion that music has the power dhism, and in particular Zen Buddhism. This is obvious in the to communicate something beyond language, beyond what treatment of his music where characteristics of showing that is possible to be rationalised, has been the premise for Nihuman logical reasoning can never obtain enlightenment, etzsche’s philosophy of music. but enlightenment can be obtained by the sudden flash of insight resulting from the bringing into conjunction of illogical Indeed Nietzsche believed that Attic tragedy was the art sequences.[vii] Given the importance of Buddhism in both form that was able more than any other to communicate

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this irrational aspect, which he believe to be the truth about life. Tragedy was a fusion of all arts, in which music is more important than anything else because of its ability to deal with a metaphysical dimension, which Nietzsche called the Dionysian, ­opposed to the rationality of the Apollonian. Nietzsche championed the music of Wagner as an example of an incarnation of Attic tragedy. Indeed in Tristan and Isolde, more than in any other work by Wagner, the music is more important than the words. According to Nietzsche music should be itself. There is no mediation in expressing music, and that is why it is the only way one could have direct access to the Dionysian force. If so, would it be possible that Cage’s way of understanding music was directly connected with this Dionysian side? Since 4”33”“ is not controlled by the composer, and therefore is not an expression of the individual, but it is music in itself and celebrates nature, and since the sounds come from nature itself, could it be that this work is the most truthful one could experience while living?

If so, could it be that ‘silence” is the key to the Dionysian truth?

All the bibliography related to Tristan and Isolde, references the musical phrases with the silence in between them as the sighs of the intense yearning of the two lovers, which only accomplish unity in the transfiguration. Although, there is much more to it than this simple explanation of why Wagner composed this prelude in the way he did. First of all, Wagner at this stage was very influenced by Schopenhauer and Buddhist philosophies, as confirmed by Barry Millington[xi].

Renunciation in the Buddhist philosophies is the path that leads to enlightenment, which in Tristan and Isolde means the renunciation of sensual pleasure leading to the climax of the opera and true love. In these philosophies, entering the deepest field of Zen ideologies, one can only acquire enlightenment by the use of meditation, in which silence and environmental sounds are most important. It is quite interesting that Cage was influenced by the same philosophy, but as a result composed 4”33”, a work that in appearance is very different fromTristan. Would it be possible to consider that Wagner wrote Tristan and Isolde’s opening phrases with so much ‘silence” because he was under the influence of these philosophies? I believe there is evidence that he did so. Therefore, in this case, silence acquires an ambivalent form: silence as the traditional sense of “no preprogrammed music” and “rests” and silence as sound and environmental sound. It is the contrast between sound and

silence that lends Wagner’s work power. If those rests were not there and it was just a quick succession of chords, in which the “Tristan chord” was included, it would not have had the same effect in the opera, and certainly not the same importance. For the reader to have a better understanding I will give an example: in Schindler’s List the entire film is shot in black and white, except for the dress of a little girl which appears in red. It is obvious that what brings attention upon the girl is the fact that the rest of the picture is in black and white. This is a very similar idea to the function of silence in Wagner’s music and in fact, to most German music from the late 19th century.

Tristan and Isolde is also the work in which listeners experienced for the first time an ambiguous use of tonality: the famous “Tristan chord” that led to the dissolution of tonality.

The musical language of Tristan is characterized by its dislocation of tonality and extreme chromaticism in both line and harmony. Never before had the Classical tonal system been so stretched: dominant sevenths and other discords are constantly left unresolved, cadences remain uncompleted and both melodies and harmonies are consistently heightened by chromatic alteration. All these devices are geared to the generation and intensification of tension – the tension of promised but evaded fulfilment [xii] I believe that the Tristan chord gave way to Cage’s aesthetics. It is interesting to understand that for Nietzsche dissonance and chromaticism were seen to be more close to reality and in reality “dissonance (in effect, any chord other than the basic major or minor triads) had more powerful expressive potential than any consonance (…)”[xiii] and indeed Wagner used these dissonances to expressive results.

The twelve-tone music and serialism developed by the Second Viennese School signalled the dissolution of tonality.

Composers such as Schoenberg and Webern created a system where they had almost complete control over the work of art, culminating in the works of Pierre Boulez (such as Piano Sonata no.1(1946)). In apparent opposition to this type of music we have Cage’s music, whose main objective was to give total freedom to the work of art. In Cage’s philosophy silence is not the opposite of music. In Cage’s view music is sound and sound is music and silence is sound, so silence does not exist. This notion will be further explored in chapter 3.

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Wagner not only authored some of the most important music writings and made reformations in relation to public performances[xiv], but he also made way for new types of music to develop, such as Spectral music[xv], Serialism and Twelve-tone music [xvi] and in my opinion, he influenced also the development of the study of silence and therefore, Cage. In fact, “the language of music changed so rapidly after Wagner as much because of the impossibility of surpassing his supreme balancing act between integrative and disruptive forces within the language of tonality, as from the conscious and positive desire of composers go beyond the Wagnerian style.”[xvii]

process of creation what makes it art? Since the result is almost the same to the listener, but the score is completely distinct, it has to be the process of creation. Or maybe, there is no difference at all…

Indeed, Wagner’s obsession in creating the Gesamtkunstwerk (“total artwork”) where all the arts (poetry, dance and music) were connected to create the “perfect” work of art (drama), on a conceptual level does give the impression to be very different from Cage’s approach to the happenings, where there was dance, painting and music all connected to create a final product. Once again, the goal was the same, that of uniting all art forms into one work, however very difChapter 3. Silence in Cage ferent approaches and distinct processes of creation were implemented and utilized by the two composers. It is in this As noted in the previous chapter, Wagner had a profound process that the greatest difference seems to lay: Wagner influence on the way music was developed throughout the wished to control the work of art, while Cage did not. Cage 19th and 20th century. believed in chance and nature; these were the components that in the end would “control” the work of art.

With Tristan and Isolde tonality and music were pushed to the limit and what was traditional and conventional was ques- So, what is the purpose of the work of art? Once again, simtioned for the first time. The dissolution of tonality brought ilarities between the two composers are very explicit. In a new techniques and styles in music, bringing variety to the time where Germany was divided into states and there was 20th century. political and social unrest, the main objectives of Wagner’s art were the renewal of art, and eventually of the renewal of The main question is: how did the dissolution of tonality ulti- the nation. The unity of the artwork thus, would have engenmately give way to the dissolution of “music”? To answer this dered social, ethical, and religious unity.[xviii] Cage could question one needs to understand how did Cage “compose” be said to have lived in a similar context, as he lived in the 4”33” and the aesthetic philosophy that informed him.

United States, a country where different cultures coexisted and which was developing a national and artistic identity.

Cage studied with Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold How can a country distinguish itself from others, if there is Schonberg. Influenced by these composers he was immedi- nothing original or individual about it? Therefore it was imately interested in chromatic counterpoint and his aim was portant for American composers to find their own voice in to develop dodecaphonism to a 25-note series. Serialism music. However, Kyle Gann stated that “for American comand dodecaphonism are extremely rational and complex posers the path to national authenticity was not so obvious. systems, where the composer is highly in control of the piece Formal models were inherited from Europe, and there was of art. However, ultimately, for someone that does not anal- no clear American auditory model to learn from.”[xix] What yse the score and only listens to the piece, this controlled is would be the best way to find a sound for America, other not possible to be perceived, but sounds appear to be in than using the sound of America? Indeed, nothing could be a non-particular order. Cage progressively moved towards proved to be more authentic than the sound of America’s more indeterminate forms of composition, where the result- nature and environment. Kyle Gann understands 4”33” as ing sound could not have been predicted by the score. “a beginning point, or perhaps the final beginning point from a series, of a particularly American process: the imitaIf the final product is quite the same, what is the difference tion of nature as a way of locating an indigenous American between Cage’s approach in “freeing” sound and the con- aesthetic.”[xx] trol exerted by the serialist composers? What is the difference between a work of art and not? Is the control of the

However, not everybody agreed to Cage’s approach of what American music (and music in general) was supposed to sound like. Some thought that 4”33”“ took no musical skill to perform, or that it was a joke. However, even if it had indeed been a joke, this would not discredit its significance. It is understandable that for audiences, the first experience of 4”33”would have been extremely shocking, but ultimately, few years from that first performance, the powerful emotions caused by it, have subdued and the piece has slowly been accepted as part of the Western art music repertoire. It was not the first time that a piece was not very well received by an audience, in fact, its initial divided reception has been a recurrent pattern in the history of music, and especially that of the 20th century.

The following quote relates to one of the negative reactions to Cage’s music in the 20thcentury: True the composer has played some shameless games with the public. His idiotic composition 4”33”“ – which consists simply raising the piano lid for that duration of time and then closing it again – seems to have no other object than getting the audience to listen to the random sounds that might emanate from the hall. [xxi] This sort of reaction can be compared to the negative reactions to Wagner’s music in the 19th century: Edmund Pfuhl, refuses to play excerpts from Tristan for Hanno’s sister, Gerda, with the comments: “That is not music – believe me! I have always flattered myself I knew something about music – but this is chaos. [xxii] The main question remains: what is music?

Listeners accept Wagner’s music in the 21st century very well. It “only” took two centuries for this change in musical taste. How long will it take for 4”33”“ to be accepted?

There are signs that it is gaining more and more relevance in more conservative environments, for instance an orchestra performed this work recently Maybe it will take another century until this piece becomes “traditional”…

Many elements were touched with 4”33”“, including the role of music, score, audience and performer. If the environmental sound is music, then obviously, the performer is “nature” and the everyday life. The “tradition” of performance

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is therefore questioned. The same approach was taken by Wagner years before. The composer required specific aspects from musicians (especially singers) that were too advanced for his time and therefore he expanded the performer’s role. With time, there was an evolution of the role of the performer in terms of skills and techniques, musicality and tastes, and what was an “impossible” job at that time, is a very “normal” process nowadays. Singing Wagner is still not easy, however, there are many professionals qualified to do so, many more than when the opera was first composed.

of the 19th century is filtered by our 21st century sensibility, so it is always biased in some way. The same happens with silence: silence in the 19th century was not the same as silence in the 21st century. With the Industrial Revolution and all the technological advances that evolved from it, silence started to include different sounds. Russolo said:

Ancient life was all silence (…) The loudest of noises that interrupted this silence was neither intense, nor prolonged, nor varied. After all, if we overlook exceptional movements of the earth’s crust, hurricanes, storms, avalanches and waCage’s 4”33”“, is not technically difficult to perform, but it is terfalls, nature is silent.[xxiii] very difficult to be in the position of the performer, especially with an audience that does not understand the implications Although Cage was very influenced by Russolo [xxiv] and of such a piece. Possibly in a few years this will be the nor- his theory about noise and music, there are some differencmal approach to performance, only time will say so. es to consider, Russolo lived in the early 20th century, in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution and for him, because 4”33”“ has a traditional score. The piece is programmed all technical and mechanical advances were very new, he to have 3 movements but the only performance instruction considered that music and sound were represented by these reading “tacet,” which means that the musician is not sup- progresses and nature was silence. For Cage nature is also posed to play. If the musician does not play and the “music” silence, but silence is sound, so nature is music. comes generally from the audience that means that there is an inversion of roles. The performer is now the audience In the 21st century we live in constant noise and sound, and the audience is the performer. However, the performer especially in the big cities. I consider therefore, that Cage is the one that has the score, so technically, everybody in the composed 4”33”“ as an invitation to pay attention to their room is a performer and also the audience at the same time. surroundings which they may have never really considered The first time the piece was performed it was at the piano, or reflected about – such as silence. That there may be just although Cage does not specify which instrument should sound, no stops, no breaks, no rests. Sound was very much be used. Another important characteristic of this music is pushed to the limit by Wagner, however, the importance of that it will never be performed in the same way, because a silence in Tristan and Isolde, as I have explained in the preperformance consists not only in the piece of music, score, vious chapter, is not to be underestimated. This is a lesson performer and audience, but also in the contextualization, for composers, musicians and listeners, to stop and listen, venue, and circumstances that are many times determined because there is sound and music everywhere, even if one is by elements of chance and indeterminacy, very typical in not intentionally creating music. People’s lives already have Cage. Music is past, present, and future. We can have ac- a very big soundtrack with background music, even though cess to the path of music by recordings, the present and the one does not realize it. However, even if one does not realfuture through performances. The way we listen to it will ize what is around himself or herself, it does not mean it always be different, depending on cultural, political, philo- does not exist. In Russolo’s words “every manifestation of sophical, psychological and social implications. Two listen- life is accompanied by noise. Noise is thus familiar to our ers can have two very notable different experiences listen- ear and has the power of immediately recalling life itself.” ing to the same piece of music and 4”33”“ reflects about [xxv] these characteristics as well.

Conclusion In fact music and silence have changed its value and characteristics throughout the centuries. What was typical music of The objective of this project was to gain an understanding of the 19th century for example is very different from the typi- different approaches in using silence in music; demonstratcal music of the 21st century, and our interpretation of music ing the relevance of thinking about silence when composing

music; the development of a fresh perspective on the philosophy of music in the 19th and 20th century, and ultimately answering the question “How can composers use effectively silence as a composition tool?”

Changes occur every day, and we live in a society that does not stop to observe and listen, because there is no time to lose. As the saying goes “time is money” and when money is involved there is no time to think. That is the problem that the 21st century faces, the fact that everybody wants everything Based on my research I claim that silence as defined in the immediately, but in the end they do not want it anymore. Mudictionaries and used in the everyday life does not exist. I sic is consumed as a commodity it has no value. That is why believe that silence is sound, after Cage’s definition. How- Wagner and Cage’s relevance goes beyond music; it could ever this does not mean that silence as sound is any less be interpreted as a warning of what is happening in society. difficult to define. Because of the contingent nature of sound Music should be more than just entertainment, even though and silence one cannot give an entirely satisfying answer to entertainment is necessary as well, sometimes. Music should what silence is. communicate, and silence is one of the most important ways of communication. Not saying anything sometimes means The music tradition has also taught us that sound is music more than saying a lot. In the words of Ghandi (1868 – and, since sound is everywhere, music is everywhere. One 1948) “In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in does not need a composer and score to have music, be- a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves cause it is in every sound that we hear, we just need to listen itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous carefully. There is no clarifying aspect of what art is, but I quest after Truth.” am inclined to believe that art is based on our perception and subjectivity of taste. This can be developed with study NOTES and cultural, philosophical, political, and social awareness. [i] Toop, David – Haunted Memory: Music Silence and Memory (pg.257)

There is nothing that distinguishes silence, sound and music, apart from the process of creation. Intention is what I believe to be the key of music. However, not personal or individual intention, but nature’s intention, which is also constituted by the composer’s will. The human being is part of nature, as sound and ‘silence” are.

Even though Wagner and Cage have many differences, the more I researched into the works of the two composers, the more I discovered similarities. They were under the same philosophical influences, had a very similar approach in political terms and the conception of a musical work was quite alike, however the final product and process of creation are very dissimilar, but again the reactions to them were quite similar. Both utilized silence in a very different context, and this is what is interesting about silence, the fact that it has so much significance and possibilities in the way it can be explored. In fact, I believe that according to Nietzsche’s theory of music in itself to discover enlightenment, Cage’s 4”33”“ have what Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde did not have, which is the fact that it is not controlled by the will of the composer but by nature itself, and therefore is the best way to the truth.

This could not be developed in itself, and the Tristan chord was, in my belief, an important step for the developments that would lead to Cage’s work.

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[ii] Ibid. (pg.46) [iii] Ibid. (pg. 247) [iv] Cooper – Learning to Listen, (pg. 46) [v] Toop, David – Haunted Memory:Music Silence and Memory (pg.46) [vi] The Oxford Dictionary describes Buddhism as being a “widespread Asian religion or philosophy” [vii] Keown, Damien, A very short introduction to Buddhism (pg.80) [viii] Millington, Barry – The Wagner Compendium (pg. 301) [ix] McCleery, David - Music of The Romantic Era (pg.78) [x] Millington, Barry – The Wagner Compendium (pg. 300) [xi] Millington, Barry – The Wagner Compendium (pg. 300) [xii] Millington, Barry - The Wagner Compendium (pg. 300) [xiii] Ibid. (Pg.301) [xiv] Wagner was the first to forbid conventional boxes in the theatre, discouraging applause during acts and turning down lights at the start of performances. [xv] Spectral music - Music composed using analysis of the frequency content of sound as a basis for harmonic work. Wagner is said to have been the first spectral composer, with the opening of “Lohengrin” (1845-1848).

[xvi] Serialism - a compositional technique in which the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, are used to generate the harmonic and melodic basis of a piece. The revolutionary “Tristan chord” from Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde’s overture” led to the dissolution of tonality, which led naturally to other systems such as the twelve tone and Serialism. [xvii] Millington, Barry - The Wagner Compendium (pg. 301) [xviii] Millington, Barry - The Wagner Compendium (pg.232) [xix] Gann, Kyle - No Such Thing as Silence (pg. 23) [xx] Ibid. (pg.22 ) [xxi] Davies, Laurence - Paths to Modern Music (pg.313) [xxii] Ibid. (Pg. 7) [xxiii] Russolo - The Art of Noises (pg. 23) [xxv] Ibid. (Pg. 27)

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Kania, A. (2010) ‘silent Music”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68: 343-53 McClary, S. (1985) “The Politics of Silence and Sound” (149-58) afterword to Attali, J. The Political Economy of Music; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Toop, David. (2004) “Haunted memory: Music, Silence and Memory” London: Serpent’s Tail.

Adorno, Theodor. (1974) “In Search of Wagner” Edited by Verso. London 1952.

McCleery, David. (2007) “Music of the Romantic Era” Edited by Naxos Books.

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Cage, John. (1961) ‘silence: Lectures and writings”: Wesleyan University Press Davies, S. (1997) “John Cage’s 4”33”: Is It Music?” in Themes in the Philosophy of Music (11-29) McCleery, David. (2008) “Classical music of the 20thcentury” Edited by Naxos Books.

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