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EXPLORATIONS? cover/essay
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"The Liminal Group is dedicated to exploring the terra incognita
of the cultural map."
In our recent collection of manifestos, we used these words to describe, at
least in part, the purpose of LIMINAL. We stand by our words. However, the
reputation of explorers isn't what it used to be--with good reason--and, in the
aftermath of the Columbus Day Anniversary and the controversy that
surrounded it, some careful examination of "cultural exploration" seems to be
in order. Exploration, as a prelude to commercial exploitation or military
conquest, has been the cutting edge of Western History. And it has been one of
the dominant metaphors of progress-obsessed modernity--a metaphor
powerful enough to unite pioneers, Indian fighters, conquistadors and LRRPs
with scientists, entrepreneurs and philosophers in a grand movement toward
"truth." That modernist narrative has taken a beating lately, but consider
the current vogue of "mapping" in postmodern discourse. Consider the
independent use of the exploring metaphor by several members of this group.
One of the keys elements in postmodern experience is the "melting" of that
comfortably mapped, well-explored and -exploited modernist terrain, and the
result in a profound disorientation. And this comes at a time when the
repercussions of modernity run amok demand that we develop some way of
orienting ourselves to the world around us, so that we can intervene.
Can we live without exploration? Can we function as intellectually and
politically active scholar/citizens without at least attempting to survey the
land around us? I suspect that we cannot not map. But must our explorations
be intrusive, disruptive, possessive, colonizing? Are there some "lands" that
should simply remain unknown, or unthought, for the good of all? We can
only wait and see. In the meantime, we must realize that if we are to carry on
with a project of cultural exploration then we must take responsibility for our
actions, intrusion, colonizations. And we must come to terms with mapping a
landscape that is constantly changing, contingent, shifting beneath our feet.
Difficult, exciting work. May we engage in it with more wisdom and humanity
than we have shown thus far.
Shawn P. Wilbur
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LIMINAL Statement of Purpose
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LIMINAL seeks to apply new inter and transdisciplinary methods, theories,
ideas, concepts, and approaches to the study of cultural phenomena as well as
the inventive application of existing approaches.
Submissions should be exploratory and questioning in attitude and may take
the form of verse, cartoon, photography, collage, etc. in addition to research
monographs and essays.
The term "cultural phenomena" is taken to mean, but not limited to meaning:
1) an activity engaged in by humans as members of a social network, 2) the
product(s) of such engagement(s), 3) the motivators of such activities or
engagements, 4) the functioning of such social networks themselves.
Editorializing is encouraged, pontification is not.
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PERFORMANCE/THEORY
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In "Re/Search #13: Angry Women," Andrea Juno and V. Vale write of
gender bending by gays and lesbians: "The very act of subverting something
so primal and fixed in society as one's gender role can unleash a creativity
that is truly needed by society--like a shamanistic act" (4) [my emphasis].
Interviews with the women performance artists in the book refer to the
ritualistic power of performance as transformation. The performer becomes
someone or something else through her performance, like the participants in
a voodoo ritual trance. But performance can also change more than the
performer. Like a type of social alchemy, a performance or a series of
performances can transform audiences as well as media and representational
conventions and formulas. Performances of any type can become group
rituals which transcend the immediate environment of the venue. The power
of these performances can reach beyond the time and space of the
performance itself. And if utilized properly, this power of transformation can
change societies, cultures, the world. Think of the power of Hitler's Nazi
rallies and his own performances at those rallies and elsewhere. Think of the
power of performance (as one part of the total presentation) in presidential
campaigns in the United States. Think of potential that power possesses to
enact positive social change rather than to manipulate the masses.
Performance as transformation and as an agent of social change warrants
suitable theories with which to be explore it academically. I suggest that
theory itself become a process, a series of actions--theorizing--rather than an
object--theory. Theory as process can illuminate subjects such as live
performance in a new and perhaps more appropriate light. The potential for
change inherent within a performance becomes clearer if the theory used to
analyze it is capable of revealing that potential. Also, theory as process is
more appropriate to a perspective which seeks social change, such as feminism.
The characteristics which make theory a process are those valued by feminism.
Theory as process--feminist theorizing--is much more inclusive than traditional
theory. Not only can feminist theorizing analyze a performance by Karen
Finley in a more dynamic manner, a performance by Karen Finley can
potentially be feminist theorizing. Theory and its subjects become united in
the goal of social change, activism and theory are melded through public
performance.
In defining feminist theory or feminist theorizing, the humanist
standards of consistency and comprehensiveness often used to judge
theory should be discarded. I propose that feminist theory should be a
process which eschews rather than values mastery, closure, and totality.
By disregarding humanist standards of what theory should be, feminist
theory can avoid the sometimes static, monolithic, restrictive nature of
traditional theory by becoming a process. Each instance of feminist
theorizing, each action, is one in a series over time which accumulates
power--power to change institutions, practices, and perceptions. Feminist
theorizing is in part a process of meaning production in which women are
constituted with their own subjectivity recognized and represented.
As a process, feminist theorizing, theory as process, reconciles and/or
negates the usual dichotomies of thought/action and theory/practice.
Also, feminist theorizing strives to simultaneously illuminate the past,
evaluate the present, and expand the options for and point the way into
the future. To paraphrase Juno and Vale, to subvert something so
fundamental to academia as theory is to unleash a creativity that is truly
needed by academics who are working for social change. Perhaps it is
one step in descending from the isolation of the ivory tower and toward
making our work useful in the struggles of everyday life.
Torey L. King
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THE AFFECTATIONS OF ENTROPY
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I: IN WHICH DARWIN IS WRONG AGAIN.
Recently television's THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL (a dangerous misnomer in
this case) presented a limited series titled BRAIN SEX, based on a popular
book of the same name. (Please note: the following is all in reference to the
show and not the book.) Before you leap to wild thoughts about LBJ and JFK
be forewarned: the topic here is the inherent sexual dimorphism of the
human brain and not political cogito interruptus.
Quite simply the series is an excuse to pass off long discarded views of
biological determinism as cutting edge science. Recent revelations about
human brain physiognomy are incorrigably declared "proofs" for all
manner of social behaviors.
There's no denying that human brains are sexually distinct and that certain
behavioral differences between males and females of a given population may
have their root in those differences. But BRAIN SEX exceeds the grounds of
reasonable scientific inquiry as matter of course.
Particular examples are virtually endless, but major concerns should suffice
here. Viewers are frequently exposed to people having the amount of blood in
certain areas of their brains measured as they solve problems. Since men and
women differ in this, it is "proved" that the behaviors measured are functions
of biology, not sociocultural indoctrination. It actually proves nothing of the
kind. The things tested (face recognition, determining emotional states, etc.)
are clearly all culturally induced gender differences, not biological
imperatives.
We are then subjected to declarations that sexuality is also completely induced
through brain morphology. We are told this determination is good, since
"moralists" will now have to reevaluate their positions. What!?! Without going
into the tentative nature of the studies quoted, there is no reason to believe
that "moralists" will have to do any reevaluating about their positions at all
except to now declare that homosexual activity is a function of genetic
failure. In short, gays/lesbians are freaks with messed up brains. Hardly a
step toward tolerance, I would think. And I can't help but think of the
morphological determinism of centuries past which had societies locking people
up because of eyebrow hair and crooked noses, the obvious biological
manifestations of twisted criminal brains. Our science is perhaps more
sophisticated (perhaps) but it seems that, sadly, we are not.
Another disagreeable aspect of the series is the cloying narration, written and
delivered in a puerile sickeningly-sweet style that had me reaching for
insulin. Picture a series of happy-faces saying "Vive le Differance " and you
get the general idea of the omnipresent, overly smug voice.
Boys are seen playing sports and girls enact a domestic crises, all because of
our sexed brains, no process of enculturation at work here. Passing reference
is made to the few who don't fit the paradigm---they had some pre-natal
hormone problem which accounts for their aberrant socializing. Again, this
reeks of the old "His mother was scared by an elephant while she (the mother)
was pregnant" explanation.
What's really obnoxious about all this is that the whole show mixes legitimate
scientific discoveries with wild extremist sociobiology towards an end which
reifies the dominant paradigms involving masculinity and femininity in
Western culture. Women want and need to be "domestic" (culturally defined,
but the makers of BRAIN SEX will never tell you that) because their brain
morphology makes them be that way, and men--well, just fill in the dictatorial,
dogmatic sociocultural stereotype of your choice. It is very telling that BRAIN
SEX never deals with peoples of other cultures. Speculation: if they had, they
would have had to explain the differences they found by declaring then to be
racial variations, since to admit the importance of cultural determinants (in
all but the most shallow way they do) would cast doubt on the broader
interpretations made throughout the series.
Regrettably, the series will be endlessly repeated and can be purchased on
video. So students and the interested public at large will be subjected to this
series of reprehensibly simplistic explanations. The misinformation age
continues to swamp us, and it appears that Franz Boas was guilty of severe
optimism when he declared that this century would see the end of the nature
versus nurture debate. BRAIN SEX is brain dead, and watching it will give you
a headache.
II: IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER A DIFFERENT STAMP ACT.
One interesting thing about the brouhaha over which Elvis stamp our nation
would spit on has been that it got some people to thinking about what Elvis, or
more properly his image/icon, means to this cultural system.
After all these years it still never fails to jolt me when I happen to see
footage of Mr. Presley from his final few concerts. Here, quite obviously, is
a very sick and a most assuredly dying man. I want to scream (and often have)
"Stop it! Don't do it for me! Stay home eating fried banana sandwiches if you
like, but don't kill yourself for my enjoyment!" But he still sweats and
strains his way through the songs, turning a little paler each second until
the wall of flesh he built to protect himself collapses on him and he's gone,
smothered and crushed by his image. Too much for anyone to survive.
The "Vegas Elvis" stamp was labeled the "Fat Elvis" stamp, but it wasn't. He
got a lot worse after 1973, the last four years of his life were Mr. Presley's
treadmill to oblivion, a nightmarish hell by all accounts.
Why did it happen? One explanation is that the simple country boy just got too
big for his "britches" and drowned in his own bumpkin excesses. But it doesn't
ring true. The Elvis story may be a cultural cautionary tale, but not in that
way.
When told "Elvis died," John Lennon supposedly remarked "Yeah, when he
joined the Army," a cold and inaccurate witticism--Mr. Presley didn't join, he
was, after all, conscripted against his will.
But it does mark an important event. With Mr. Presley himself unavailable to
make new recordings, films, and appearances, a system was set up to sell Elvis
without Mr. Presley needing to participate. The genius (evil, but genius
nonetheless) of Tom Parker (the real-life blueprint for GREEN ACRES' Mr.
Haney) was his early ability to totally commodify his product.
Corporate America used the two years Mr. Presley was in the Army to
domesticate the Elvis as rebel image ( Clift-Brando-Dean format, with music
added) in full. Gone is the troubled, disenfranchised youth of LOVING YOU (a
great and eerily prescient film which, in his later years, Elvis could not bear
to watch--its about a trusting rural singer who is manipulated by his
managers and the music industry until it almost kills him) and in his place is
the fun-loving maladroit of DOUBLE TROUBLE. No threat there, and easy to mass
market. The process once begun would intensify, despite Mr. Presley's valiant
(near heroic) attempts to counter it (the 1968 "Comeback" televised special
being the most obvious). By the way, it seems more than mere coincidence that
1958-1961 was also a bad time for Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry,
Little Richard, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran. What was going on?
Probably not conspiracy, but clearly no advantage was left unused or
unmanipulated.
Mr. Presley found himself surrounded by sycophants masked as confidants and
criminal opportunists disguised as close friends. He lost his personhood in the
avalanching spew of publicity which fueled and fuels the corporate machine.
From the perspective of Mr. Presley's life, shooting televisions was a rational
and restrained act. Though it hardly pays to kill the messenger, he'd probably
tried about everything else.
Clearly Mr. Presley had a range of personal troubles and made some poor
judgments--like any human. His biggest guilt was his innocence.
Mr. Presley died as mortals must, but Elvis lives on as a corporate commodity,
a consumer good, a product. Mr. Presley was killed by the consumer culture of
greed, he was mythically iconized out of existence. Even his final resting
place has become a shrine to the manufactured image, a paeon to consumptive
excess and not to the real man. Mr. Presley died from excessive and prolonged
exposure to the sins of corporate capitalism. Participants in that culture
suffer a guilt by association.
Elvis Presley, the young, vibrant, cheerful Rockabilly who was bludgeoned to
death from 1958 to 1977 calls out to us. Our culture has spit on him enough. I,
for one, choose to honor the man by boycotting the image, coming soon to a
government sanctioned United States Post Office near you.
Ben Urish
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Married ... With S/Laughter
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"So you think I'm a loser. Just because I have a stinking job that I hate, a
family that doesn't respect me, a whole city that curses the day I was born?
Well, that may mean loser to you but let me tell you something. Every morning
when I wake up I know it's not going to get any better until I go back to sleep
again. So I get up, have my watered-down Tang and still-frozen Pop Tart, get
in my car--with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments--to fight traffic
just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes on the cloven hooves of people
like you. I'll never play football like I thought I would. I'll never know
the touch of a beautiful woman. And I'll never again know the joy of driving
without a bag on my head. But I'm not a loser. 'Cause despite it all, me
and every other guy who'll never be what he wanted to be are still out there
being what we don't want to be, forty hours a week for life. And the fact that
I haven't put a gun in my mouth, you pudding of a woman, makes me a winner."
--Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill)
Married ... With Children
After thirty years, disgruntled shoe seller Al Bundy returns "The Little
Engine That Could" and pays a $2190.20 late fine to an evil, abusive librarian.
He does this after having radio editorialists--including Paul Harvey ("I used
to like him," says Al) --condemn him and hateful television newscasters show a
hidden-camera videotape of his attempt to surreptitiously return the book
without paying the fine. "Does this mean you'll be on America's Most Wanted,
Al?" asks wife Peggy Wanker Bundy.[2] Al tells the child-hating
hegemon(ster)y/librarian--and thus us--in the above speech that choosing
not to commit suicide and ending his--and thus our--years of suffering and
disappointment on earth is an act of courage. The studio audience cheers
wildly, applauding his intrepidity, laughing, sharing his mockery and
contempt for a nearly universal symbol of childhood terror, the wicked
librarian. And we do it even if we're not wholly convinced he's right; indeed,
perhaps even because we know he may not be right.[3]
On one hand, Al Bundy maintains the working class sitcom husband's
tradition of trying to "tough out the hard times" and "better his lot," even
though he knows he is as forever doomed to failure as were Jackie Gleason's
Honeymooners of the mid-1950s. On the other hand, quite unlike Ralph
Kramden, this is a postmodern Sisyphus who fully recognizes he is locked into
the TV hell of the dominant American metanarratives centering around his
despised service-oriented, postindustrial, postNuclear Family and marriage--
and thus so do we.[4] Al, like Sisyphus, is the absurd hero who refuses to
suicide.[5] Once again we see that if, indeed, you cannot know happiness
without knowing pain, most certainly the powerful reverse is equally true.
I would submit that this is perhaps the primary reason Married ... With
Children was once the most popular sitcom in syndicated television history.[6]
This includes the syndication of M*A*S*H, which was nominated for ninety-
nine Emmies. Such a phenomenon would seem to suggest not just a fondness
for, say, sordid laughs at "dumb blonde" jokes--the somber failure of, for
example, Bosom Buddies tells us that--or even a semi-cerebral celebration of
cultural burnout. Instead, Al, his family, and their neighbors recognize,
indeed revel in, the meaningless absurdity of their very lives in this
existential situation comedy of t/errors. We, the audience, love them,
since, as we recognize ourselves in them, we fear (for) them for the ultimate
truths they convey through their electronic whimpering. As they try to cope
with current problems ranging from the mundane (concerning holiday traffic
jams of no interest to the transportation department, the fetishization of
women, the traditional work ethic, PMS, Oprah Winfrey's alleged mesmerizing
effect upon bored viewers, inadequate secondary education, postcapitalist class
awareness, and the intense drudgery of "housekeeping") to the extraordinary
(space alien invaders, local celebrities who double as ax murderers, and
ancient Celtic curses on the family name), the pathetic Bundys and their
yuppie-bourgeois neighbors[7] are laugh-tracked stand-up tragedians for the
fin-de-millennium. These characters are enacting a spectacle of playful sign-
slide between aestheticized, nihilistic kitsch and the pure horror of the
dominant signs concerning the (half-life) "decay" of "traditional (nuclear)
family values" at a time when they are being (spuriously) (re)defined by a
poorly spelling Vice-President who condemns a fictional character for having
a child after its father-to-be runs out on its mother-to-be; as has been
feared, some people clearly do have trouble distinguishing between television
f(r)iction and reality.[8] Nevertheless, as a result of the Bundy's astonishing
popularity we may see that the characters of Married ... With Children--and
thus we--can be Very Funny in a Very Sick Way.[9]
In January of 1991, America's President George Bush, lagging in the
polls likely for desperate want of a domestic policy, embarked upon what could
easily be thought of as the first postmodern war, the "war against Iraq,"
perhaps best known as its "code name," Operation Desert Storm. Desert Storm
was the first war of pure images, of ardent appearances and twenty-four hour
coverage, of CNN and Smart Bombs; the first war of all light and no heat, for
the television audience, at least. Indeed, it had all the appearances of a hot
video game being played by somebody else's kid. With characterizations of
operatives either so broadly drawn they were either somehow almost less real
than even the cartoonish Bundy family [10] or so inconsequential and
insignificant as to be capable of producing no more human
empathy/sympathy/ pathos than a pixel-sized blip on a VDT. Other wars had
media coverage, to be sure; that is, after all, how the West learned of Homer
and his accounts of the Trojan Wars. And certainly no one may forget the
images of Vietnamese children running naked from a napalmed sanctuary or
of a bound Viet Cong prisoner grimacing as his brains are blown from his
head. Nor, most certainly, may we forget the images of the horrors of the Nazi
death camps.[11] But not until this decade's instant global communications
through a virtual spider web matrix of post-New Frontier satellites above the
earth could we watch the live progress of the horrors of killing from start to
finish.[12] By the end of the war, with his approval rating at around ninety-
one percent, it seemed--at that time--George Bush could replace Vice-President
J. Danforth Quayle with Willie Horton as his running mate in 1992.[13]
I mention the war for this reason: the postmodern nature of that event-
-its being so Elegant, so Efficient, so deadly-Mechanical, so Progressive, so
Technical, so Very Very Expensive; that is, so "dry" both as a series of images
and as a cause for emotion--is antithetical to the nature of (what I call)
s/laughter--which is so very "wet" in practically every sense. Though both are
ostensibly about suffering, about the taking of human life, about ritualized
primordial vision quests, about testings-in-fire,[14] we recall that while war
is hell, TV is fun.[15]
Like the Bundys, we recognize that we revel in the meaningless
absurdity of our lives in our own existential sitcoms of t/errors. But it is
first essential to cut far more deeply into the matter of violent humor in
the context of the family. It is, as we "winners" shall see, a most viscous
psychic fluid matter indeed.
-------
NOTES:
1 "Anything in Latin Appears More Important."
2 That the Fox Network broadcasts original episodes of both Married ...
With Children and America's Most Wanted should surprise no one.
3 However, even that may not truly matter as the series is what may be
termed a Virtual Cartoon with humans taking the place of anthropomorphic
animal characters. Indeed, in an attempt to kill a bunny rabbit which had
been plucking carrots from his garden one by one (making the appropriate
cork-popping sound as each entered the earth), Al inadvertently dynamited a
city gas main; Chicago was next seen as ground zero for a mushroom cloud.
The characters were, of course, a moment later seen as okay, save for their
exaggerated, cartoon-style splints and bandages.
4 See Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" from the book of the same
title.
5 Ed O'Neill said this on Into the Night the second week of Married ...
With Children's run in syndication (clearly, the operational word here is
syndication).
6 The latter so "normal-foil" and all-American they were divorced at
the end of the third season.
7 On 3 June 1992, Vice-President J. Danforth Quayle criticized the
previous night's episode of Murphy Brown, claiming that the title character's
choice to have a child "out of wedlock" contributed to the "decline" of "the
values of the traditional family. "Criticisms of the Vice-President were swift
David Letterman, for example, simply said the following during his opening
monologue that very evening: "Mister Vice-President, I don't know how to tell
you this, but Murphy Brown is a fictional character." Newsweek writer Joe
Klein said this, however: "... Dan Quayle--flawed, callow vehicle that he may
be--seems to have nudged presidential politics perilously close to something
that really matters...," the question of what or whom is to serve as national
arbiter/manipulator for Official American Values (Joe Klein, "Whose Values?
Whose Families? Whose Standards?" Newsweek 8 June 1992: 19). Less than two
weeks later, Mr. Quayle misspelled the word "potato." Letterman had this
question for Trenton, NJ, sixth-grader William Figueroa, the child who
corrected the Vice-President: "Do you think he knows how to spell the word
?re-elected'?" All this calls to mind a quote from a speech Quayle made to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors in April of 1991: "The American people
would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not
make" (Mother Jones 17.4 [July/August 1992] 15).
8 It was, according to Tony Hendra, cartoonist Jules Feiffer who coined
the term "sick" in its current, ironic, sense. See Hendra's Going Too Far: The
Rise and Demise of Sick, Gross, Black, Sophomoric, Weirdo, Pinko, Anarchist,
Underground, Anti-Establishment Humor (New York: Doubleday, 1987) 92.
9 One need only think back to the jingoistic media presentations
during the operation of Brigadier General "Stormin'" Norman Schwartzkopf,
Dick "Ice-Man" Cheney, "All-American Negro" Colin Powell, et al.
10 Though there is clearly a movement to try to make us forget just
those images. For a detailed discussion, see Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard, The
Differend: Phrases in Dispute.
11 I am not really so na?ve as to suggest the war in the Middle East is
actually over; the current lull, however, signals the end of that operation.
12 Willie Horton was a parolee in Massachusetts while 1988 Democratic
Presidential challenger Michael Dukakis was governor of the state. Horton, a
black man with a singularly uncomplimentary arrest photo (very frequently
shown by Bush's re-election committee during the campaign), was on work
furlough release when he raped a white woman.
13 One need only think of how applicable the "men's movement"
mytho-poetics of Joseph Campbell is to this argument, especially The Hero
With A Thousand Faces (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1949). Additionally,
"men's movement" author Robert Bly has made some marks of this in his
writings about militaristic "male-bonding" events. See, for example, his Iron
John (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990).
14 I am not na?ve about TV just being for fun either, dammit.
John A. Dowell
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Making a Mythic Mountaineer:
The Creation of Junior Johnson
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When Tom Wolfe went to North Carolina in 1964, he was prepared to write
about Junior Johnson, the area's most popular stock car driver. What he
discovered was an individual undergoing a period of folkloristic transition.
Junior Johnson was more than a "good ol' boy" who could muscle a 1963
Chevy around a banked clay oval. He was becoming the Junior Johnson, an
icon of the rural South, the American Dream incarnate.
Wolfe knew Johnson was raised amongst the harshness of poverty-
stricken Wilkes County, an area where making and bootlegging moonshine
was an occupation of choice during the Great Depression. Those days have
become a part of history deeply rooted in our national mythology. For the
origins of this cottage industry, one must look to the eighteenth century,
when Scotch-Irish settlers populated the Appalachian range and made corn
whisky out of necessity. Crop yields were low, transportation was difficult,
and whisky more profitable. Junior Johnson was born into this tradition,
and carried his cultural inheritance to new levels of national recognition.
This national recognition came through Detroit automakers, who were
utilizing Johnson's abilities to win on the NASCAR Grand National circuit
during the early 1960s.
Junior Johnson's driving career spanned 13 years from 1953 through 1966.
He won 50 Grand National races as well as numerous local events. If Johnson's
bootlegging career was known throughout Wilkes County folklore, his driving
career elevated him to a national folk legend. His Driving career reads like a
collection of North Carolina folk tales. These tales would have been long
forgotten had it not been for the Detroit automobile companies, who
recognized the sales power of a winning stock car team.
These manufacturers were selling two distinct products. As certain makes of
cars would win Grand National events, their sales would increase sharply. As
the teams traveled the circuit and won races, the reputations of the drivers
and mechanics would be used as a means of adding human interest to news
reports. These "good ol' boys" were of interest to people outside the
Southeast. It was entertaining to see bootleggers battle on a dirt oval at the
fairgrounds. The sport's "hillbilly" image was its drawing power, thanks to
the stories spread by the media as the circuit wound its way across the country.
This made drivers like Junior Johnson more than just wild men on wheels; it
made them national personalities.
Johnson's racing career is the stuff of folklore. Legend has it that Junior's
brother, L.P., approached him in the fields where Junior was working with a
mule-drawn plow. L.P. had a pretty fast whisky car, and he asked Junior to run
it at the North Wilkesboro track. Junior was plowing barefooted, with no shirt
and a pair of dirty overalls, and L.P.'s offer sounded like more fun than
plowing behind a mule. Junior drive his brother's car and finished in second
place behind Gwyn Staley, a neighbor of the Johnson family who farmed
nearby. Ironically enough, when Tom Wolfe visits North Wilkesboro to see
Junior race in 1964, the race he sees is the "Gwyn Staley Memorial."
Junior Johnson's driving career, which began around 1947 with his second-
place finish to Staley, went "national" on September 7, 1953, when he managed
to finish in 38th place in the Southern 500 at Darlington, South Carolina. From
that moment, his legend grew.
People heard about the young driver. They knew he was in jail (eleven months
in Chillicothe) for his involvement as a moonshiner--although some people
said he was standing by the family still when the federal agents finally caught
him. People talked about his famous "bootleg turn," which Johnson executed
when he found himself facing an Alcohol Tax agent roadblock. Fans shook
with delight as they gossiped about Junior throwing his supercharged
Oldsmobile into second gear, locking the steering wheel at its maximum point
of movement, then mashing the gas pedal to the floor, at which point the Feds
would get sprayed with gravel as Johnson's Olds spun 180 degrees and roared
off in the opposite direction. This was great history, the stuff they never
read in school. What fun the Depression must have been in North Carolina, the
racing fans exclaimed.
It was Wolfe's 1965 article in Esquire magazine about Junior Johnson that
really shifted the folklore mill into high gear. All throughout his story,
Tom Wolfe inserted tale after tale about the driver as told to him by rabid
fans. "I wasn't in the South five minutes," Wolfe wrote, "before people
started making oaths, having visions, telling these hulking great stories,
all on the subject of Junior Johnson." Junior Johnson, to people of the rural
South, was their redeemer--a savior who drove the paint off a 1964 Dodge to
save his followers' souls. Here he was--the man who beat a federal roadblock
by installing a siren and flashing red light in the grill of his Oldsmobile
to resemble a lawman--out on Sundays giving 175 MPH novenas to the devout
who gathered at Our Lady of the High-Banked One-and-a-Half Mile Paved oval.
Wherever two or more have gathered in Junior's name, mouths will open and a
Rebel Yell will be heard, singing the praises of the New South. It will rise
again because of the powerful car makers in Michigan who worship rural heroes.
The Ford Motor Company, who Junior Johnson drove for in 1965, admitted
years ago it spent almost five million dollars trying to beat Johnson and his
Chevrolet in 1963. That year Junior put his car on the front row in 17 of 33
races (10 were pole positions). That year Johnson won seven races and took
home over $65,000. The bootlegger could beat Detroit at its own game, the
Southern fans shouted; this man from the mountains didn't need big dollar
sponsorship from General Motors. He was a legend, a man greater than mere
corporations, a man who was the South. As Tom Wolfe wrote in 1965, "Junior
Johnson has followers who need to keep him, symbolically, riding through the
nighttime like a demon.... [He is] a hero a whole people or class of
people can identify with."
Mark Howell
==================================================================
COOL IS UNCOOL: THE "IN GROUP" ATTEMPTS OF THE 1992 MTV MUSIC AWARDS
==================================================================
MTV attempts to posit itself as a "non-corporation," a group of media
pirates who happened to get control of a network and turn it into ?garage TV,"
when in fact MTV is a multi-national corporation whose conglomerates form a
billion-dollar industry, the Home Shopping Network for disaffected youth.
The current MTV corporate image mumbles, "Hey, man, I don't know how
I got invited to this party, but look, I'm having fun." This, of course, is
just so much electronic bullshit. The station spends millions of dollars to
affect a self-mocking moniker wherein the (male) veejays are sloppy (Ricky ?I
have enough tattoos on my right arm alone to be a metal dude"), the
commercial spokesmen are self-mocking (Denis Leary), and the best music is
seemingly raw (MTV Unplugged). MTV tries desperately hard to forget its
commercial history (and current purpose for being) by creating other
programming, and legitimizing its own art (while actually selling to the
industry again) by developing and airing its own awards show.
In response to industry criticism that past awards shows have been too
serious (imagine the Sony boardroom: "Son - we ain't makin' art here; we're
selling CD's. Cut the shit or we'll cut your funding"), came the 1992 MTV Music
Awards. Matter of fact, it's still coming: MTV sells so much ad revenue for
this program that you will probably still be able to watch it when Anthony's
"I'm a a Pepper" tits ('scuse me, pecs) hang past his balls.
So, what did they do to "lite-en" the show? Let's start with the host,
Dana Carvey. Carvey was chosen primarily for his role of Garth in "Wayne's
World." So we begin with a host chosen for fictional capabilities. Carvey
further pulls away from reality by not appearing as his self (if indeed there
does exist a self within this actor), but as different characters from another
network's program, "Saturday Night Live." The beginning of the awards show
is even more unreal, with Carvey as Bush as Jack Palance doing MTV Awards as
Academys.
Confused? No problem. Remember, the goal here is being cool,
appealing to the youth market (as seen not through this target market's gaze
but through the ideals of corporate owners from the US and Japan). So we
have Garth playing drums for U2 via video - and threatening to "hurl"
because he's so excited, you have Kurt Loder claiming to do a first in
interactive interviewing by interviewing U2 via Zoo TV video (come on, MTV
boys, you don't do interactive video conferences?)
That's not cool enough for you? Well, the boys at MTV really know how
to appeal to the youthful masses - through bodily function humor. Presenting
for the metal category (because those corporate whizzes certainly understand
that all metal listeners are dudes who enjoy lying around in their fecal
matter) was FARTMAN, a stunning "humorous" creation by Howard Stern. The
writers let no gaseous joke slip by, from exploding podiums and stereo sound
effects to Carvey's follow-up with "silent-but-deadlies" and "pull my
finger" as his Carson/McMahan incarnation. In the most significant display
of corporate humor, Stern was paired with Luke Perry, for the rock-n-roll
Beauty and the Beast innuendo. (Get it, dude?)
In effect, by attempting to appropriate standards and attitudes of a
subgroup the corporate leaders have never been part of, MTV undermines its
attempts at in-group humor and identification, mocks corporate standards
rather than succeeding in self-parody, and becomes in fact duller than all it
attempts to ascend from.
Another example of this is the wearing by hosts and presenters of
leather and sequined red ribbons. By taking what is a cool symbol of protest-
simple red ribbon and safety pins (via ACT-UP) - and garnishing it with gaudy
expense, MTV "kitches" what once was a true "in" symbol, rather like when
older men drive sports cars or wear cowboy boots, or your home-ec teacher
wears a "clip-on" nose ring. The power, the in-group identification is lost,
usually not even known, so what finally exists is a non-realized self-parody,
done not through being cool, but woefully stupid. In the end, what matters in
the MTV Awards is not who won, but who bought these nominations and
awards. Certainly you'll find this is not the "in-group" nor anyone
affiliated with the group.
Molly Merryman
==================================================================
Bilateral/Tripartite
==================================================================
I propose the investigation of the performance of folk music in bars,
clubs, and recording studios to determine the impact of technology and the
mass media on the performance of traditional materials and to establish a link
(and separation) between popular music and folk music. Moses Asch, who
founded and ran Folkways Records, admits to shortening songs and texts to
accommodate the necessary limitations inherent in the recording process. My
speculation is that the theories of oral-formulaic composition, developed by
Milman Parry and Albert Lord, provide a useful methodology for examining
the separation between the popular arts/media and the folk performance. That
is, the music performed in small group settings, generally consider "Popular
Music" can be profitably understood as extensions of the traditional processes
of lengthening and shortening of musical texts that occur organically in the
traditional "Folk" performance.
The line between classic folk culture and modern popular culture is one
of the tremendous gray areas for the popular culture scholar. It is my
contention that a simple model might be constructed which would enable the
scholar to examine the artifacts and texts collected to understand the
interrelationship between these forms of folk music and popular music. The
model also would be helpful to distinguish between genres and formulas
present in these artifacts.
I would suggest the following Bilateral-Tripartite system of observation;
a Contextual approach:
Context Tradition
Business
Audience
Aesthetics
context = synchronic tradition = diachronic
(specific place) (place over time)
Here I would study the context of a performance by examining the business,
audience, and aesthetics and the tradition of a performance by examining the
business, audience, and aesthetics. This would enable me to explore the entire
sphere of the artifact. By changing any one of these factors, the artifact
would either change genres or cross over the line from folk music to popular
music. My speculation is that the theories of oral-formulaic composition,
developed by Milman Parry and Albert Lord, provide a useful methodology for
examining the recorded traditional materials. That is, the changes required
during the recording process can be profitably understood as extensions of the
traditional processes of lengthening and shortening of musical texts that occur
organically in a performance.
Moses Asch was a leader in keeping oral formulaic songs intact while
working with artists to "...edit and think about time and everything else."
He said that while recording Woody Guthrie, he was "...interested in the
content, not in the engineering."[1] Asch's passion was for folk music.
Folkways boasts of ethnic, country and bluegrass, spoken word, classical,
children's, and sea chantey recordings. His theory of recording was
preserving "... what intellectual knowledge...we get from a record, rather
than...super high fidelity..." [2] At first he recorded directly on wax, then
acetate, and, finally, after World War II, tape. His practice was to record
texts as they organically existed to document culture. Starting with Asch
Records, evolving into Disc Records, and finally into Folkways, Moses Asch
made an important contribution to the recording industry, while preserving
cultural texts. Nevertheless, he did require folk artists to adapt their
material so that he could include much of it on commercially available
recordings.
The Parry-Lord thesis has been presented in Albert Lord's The Singer of
Tales According to it, oral-formulaic composition identifies a folk performance
as an interactive process in which the audience and performer influence and
alter the performer's text according to various aspects of the social context.
The performance of folk music to small group audiences involves the use of
formula: i.e. groups of words used to express concepts under specific
conditions. The audience will respond to the performer and the performer will
change ? lengthen and shorten ? the song to meet the desires of the
audience.[3] In performances which involve instrumental music along with
vocals, the theory can be applied to the music as well. I have come to use the
phrase aural-formulaic composition in place of oral-formulaic to assist in the
distinction made with the different spelling and implied meaning. Aural is
used to describe the musical notes and chords found in a folk music
performance rather than the words and linguistics of speech.
The emergence of the technology to permanently record a musical
performance permitted the collection of sung words and performed music
rather than purely verbatim transcriptions. When this technology began, the
length of a recording was limited to two-and-half minutes. This, as Moses Asch
has stated, lead the artist and producer to sometimes lengthen, but most often
shorten, the performance. The intersection of the traditional act of folk
performance with the act of recorded documentation changed the method by
which oral forms were transmitted and received by an audience. This
intersection of traditional performance with technology requires different
approaches to its understanding.
Recording is, in itself, not a traditional act and requires additional
perspectives, including the awareness of the impact of technology upon
culture. This dissertation, then, will involve both the use of folklore
methodology for the purpose of understanding the impact of technology on
folk culture and the impact of folk culture on technology and a new definition
of folk music in an era of mass media distribution of traditional folk texts.
The recording process involves the act of shortening and lengthening the
text to fit the technological time span on a ten-inch, 78 r.p.m. or 75 minute
Compact Disc record is a reaction to context. Unlike the natural context in the
field, however, the context of the performance is a technological content. The
technology is an element which must be studied to understand the culture
which produced the artifact. The technology and the text combine to make a
statement about the culture that produced it. The folk songs changed to meet
the requirements of a changing technological world. Asch managed to shorten
traditional material for publication on ten-inch records while at the same time
remaining true to those materials. The Folkways records appear to be faithful
representations of the traditions they document. It was through an instinctive
understanding of what can be deleted and how that Asch was able to do this.
The exploration of the musical notes and chords will be used as data to support
the project's basic assumption?that the performance of folk music in clubs
can best be understood as extensions of the traditional processes of
lengthening and shortening of musical texts that occur organically in
traditional folk tale performances.
Oral formulaic composition. defines formula as groups of words used to
express a concept under specific conditions. This results in a performer
knowing the story, but not the exact words. The words change during each
performance to meet the needs, expectations, and reactions of the audience. In
this way, a folk performance is an interactive process in which the audience
and performer influence and change the performance to fit the social context.
Lord anticipates Dan Ben-Amos[4] who presents the idea of folklore as any
event, or thing, which holds as its root audience and performer interaction.
The same can be said of rock and popular music.
-------
NOTES:
1 Scherman, Tony. ?This Man Captured the True Sounds of a Whole World."
Smithsonian.
2 Dunson, Josh. Anthology of American Folk Music. New York: Oak
Publications, 1973. Interviews with Moses Asch.
3 Ben-Amos, Dan. Sweet Words: Storytelling Events in Benin. Philadelphia:
Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1975.
4 Ben-Amos, Dan . Sweet Words: Storytelling Events in Benin.
Michael Leo McHugh
American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University
Associate Editor, Rock & Rap Confidential/
==================================================================
CHARTING THE RHETORICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL JACKSON'S FACE
AND NOTES ON THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
==================================================================
"take a look at yourself, and then make a change"
- "Man in the Mirror" Bad
"I'm not going to spend my life being a color"
- "Black or White" Dangerous
"The map is not the terrain"
- Alfred Korzybski
In the supermarket, the tabloids scream: MICHAEL JACKSON SLEEPS IN
HYPERBARIC CHAMBER! MICHAEL JACKSON TO BUY ELEPHANT MAN'S BONES!
MICHAEL ATTENDS LIZ'S WEDDING WITH (Choose one or more: BUBBLES THE
CHIMP, BROOKE SHIELDS, EMMANUELLE LEWIS, MARIO CUOMO)! JACKSON TO
WED SPACE ALIEN! MICHAEL HAS (Choose one or more: NOSE, CHIN, CHEEKS,
EYES, MOUTH, TOES) SURGICALLY ALTERED! Michael Jackson's eccentric
behavior and numerous plastic surgeries have been not only fuel for tabloid
stories, but also for standup comedy routines and endless popular and academic
discussion. Much of the discussion attempts to explain Jackson's actions; to
map the terrain of a seemingly inconsistent and erratic personality. In spite
of all the speculation, Michael Jackson remains an enigma, a land largely
unknown and uncharted.
As a member of American popular culture I have been appalled and fascinated
by Jackson's behavior and joined in the popular speculation by offering
explanations of stunted childhood in pop psychobabble. As a scholar of
rhetoric and an academic explorer I have become interested increasingly in
the suasory aspects Jackson's behavior, and especially his plastic surgery.
Michael is manipulating his image to such an extent that it alters our
perceptions of him; he is trying to persuade us to view his facial landscape in
certain manner. To explore this landscape and critique Michael Jackson's
effectiveness as a rhetor (in a neo-Aristotlean sense) we need to chart the
intent behind his actions and the goals he hopes to achieve. What is Michael
Jackson trying to persuade us about himself and the world? What does he want
from us? What lands does he want us to discover?
Jackson's songs, especially on Bad and Dangerous reflect, on a global scale,
concern with a variety of social issues including justice, racial equality, and
the environment. One of Jackson's goals seems to be to save us and our planet.
"Man in the Mirror" asks us to "make the world a better place" (Bad) and
"Planet Earth" shows the inseparable relationship between human beings and
their world (Dangerous). Given a messianic goal, Jackson's plastic surgery
can be seen as an attempt to influence his source credibility, or in
Aristotlean terms, his ethos. Part of the reason for the surgery seems
consonant with Jackson's pan-humanistic empathetic message. Jackson is
attempting to be aracial and nongendered or, at the least, be racially
indeterminate and gender nonspecific. To become aracial Jackson has had his
nose altered and his skin lightened, which gives him a Caucasian appearance.
This appearance, however, must be constantly realigned with our past
perceptions of a blacker Jackson and his image as an African American
entertainer. Jackson's thin physique, high cheekbones, mascaraed eyes, and
high-pitched voice contrast with the perception of Michael Jackson the male
and the patriarchal/ heterosexual content of many of his songs and videos.
Thus by creating dissonance between appearance and "reality" Jackson creates
an image that lacks racial or gender specificity to create an archetypal
"everyperson."
Jackson's intent as a pan-humanistic spokesman may be reinforced by the
psychobiological concept of neoteny. As Elizabeth A. Lawrence points out,
neoteny is a condition in which there is retention of youthful attributes into
adulthood. Human beings represent a neotenous species because they retain
into maturity certain characteristics that were originally juvenile traits of
other primates. Physical attributes of neoteny include a high and slightly
bulging forehead, large eyes, and rounded cheeks. According to Lorenz,
human infants and other creatures with these traits may initiate a parenting
or nurturing response in human adults. Lawrence points out that Mickey and
Minnie Mouse, many dolls, and most domesticated animals have neotenous
features .
Neoteny may explain partly Michael Jackson's intent as a public pan-
humanistic spokesman. Jackson is creating a face that stirs primal instincts in
humans. In addition, neoteny may explain some of Jackson's personal reasons
for surgery. Since neoteny is so tied to our perceptions of youth and aging,
Jackson's plastic surgery may represent an attempt to remain eternally
youthful. Although cosmetic surgery has been used for years to provide a
more youthful appearance by removing wrinkles or lifting sagging jowls,
Jackson is actively working to reconform his face to neotenous proportions.
Jackson's surgery goes beyond surgery that removes wrinkles and allows an
adult to look more youthful. Jackson's surgery allows him to look like a
juvenile or infant. This use of plastic surgery may help stave off the reality
of mortality for Jackson that is evidenced in his often morbid fascination
with death (e.g., purchasing John Merrick's bones, sleeping in a hyperbaric
chamber, paying for several people's funerals).
While one of Jackson's intents seems to be to recontour his facial topography
to a universally acceptable appearance residing in some liminal landscape
between male/female, and black/white, he is creating a face that is danger of
becoming unrecognizable as human. Jackson may have a face soon that is
alien and otherworldly terrain to all. Jackson's face is becoming similar to
E.T., the space child in 2001, the aliens of Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
and the "real" aliens of Whitley Streiber's Communion. Perhaps this is
Michael Jackson's main intent: to become the universal other. With
appearance and behavior strange to all Jackson would continue to be
infinitely readable, open to conjecture and the objectifying gaze of all, the
ultimate open text. This goal is also consonant with Jackson's messianic
intent. Instead of becoming the pan-humanistic savior, however, Jackson becomes
the alien savior from science fiction novels, films, and UFO encounter stories.
Jackson nikt barata Gort.
Jackson's creation of himself as ultimate other may have another intent: the
numerous plastic surgeries and bizarre behavior may be nothing more than
clever ploys to keep Jackson in the limelight so that he may sell more albums
and videos and increase his stock as a celebrity spokesperson. Indeed it is
said that Jackson created the hyperbaric chamber rumor and allowed it to be
spread. If Jackson's only motivations are recognition and monetary gain, his
pan-humanistic messages may be nothing but cynical devices to increase the
bottom line.
Jackson's effectiveness as a rhetor rests on his ability to remain in the
public eye. Up to this point his transforming facial landscape and eccentric
lifestyle have kept his pan-humanistic message before the public and assured
commercial success for his various creative projects. Several critics have
observed, however, a tenuous note to Dangerous that indicates that Jackson
may becoming uncertain of the direction to proceed with his music. If
Michael Jackson becomes less adept at manipulating the public discussion of
his persona, or if the public loses interest in constantly remapping the
terrain of Jackson's intent and meaning, he may be forced to abdicate the
title of "King of Pop."
Notes on the Columbian Exchange
How valuable is an exploration of the rhetorical topography of Michael
Jackson's face, or for that matter, any cultural exploration? Explorers after
Columbus brought disease and pestilence and destroyed civilizations. In
attempting to map meaning and explore culture, do I impoverish the culture I
explore? Do explorations of intent and meaning denigrate or reduce a culture?
Even explorations that posit positive aspects of culture, such as ethnographies
of dominant ideology resistant readers may have negative consequences.
Some critics have argued that reader response theory may reinforce passivity
in social action.
Do I give anything to the culture I explore? I may be able to say that
Jackson's potentially manipulative use of the media would have caused Aristotle
to call into question Jackson's good will, or his ethical motivational
relationship with his audience, and thus the ethics of his persuasion.
Observations of ethical intent, however, seem naive or simplistic to critics
of late capitalism and may not be useful or utilized by members of the popular
audience. I might argue that good will provides a means for evaluating action
in a postmodern society, but who do those empty words benefit?
Explorations into culture and meaning must not impoverish or destroy the
worlds they explore. They must be pragmatically applicable and beneficial, in
some way, to the larger culture beyond the explorer's club of the academy.
James T. Coon
==================================================================
FUTURE LIMINAL
==================================================================
SPECIAL ISSUES/PROJECTS
The Liminal Group is seeking submissions for special issues on the
following subjects:
THE HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACE: Cyberpunk SF, Netculture, virtual reality,
teledildonics, technoculture, artificial intelligence, computer culture,
cyborg politics, information anxiety, (post-)industrial culture,
xerography, etc. . .
Editor: Shawn P. Wilbur
AUTO-MANIA: Automobile culture, roadside culture and/or architecture,
social implications of the automobile, fast food and other drive-thru
business, cars in music and film, etc. . .
Editor: Mark D. Howell
Send submissions to
THE LIMINAL GROUP, BOX 154, BGSU, BOWLING GREEN, OH 43403.
Submissions for special issues should be directed to the project editor,
in care of The Liminal Group.
==================================================================
LIMINAL 1.1 is dedicated to:
Franklin Rosemont, Sinead O'Conner, Jerry Mander, Richard Kadrey,
Matt & Andrew & Jay & Christian (& Gordon), Mason Williams, Neal
Stephenson, Neue Slowenische Kunst, F.T. Marinetti, & Eddie Vedder.
==================================================================
The LIMINAL GROUP is:
Christine J. Catanzarite, James T. Coon, Philip Dickinson, John A. Dowell,
Mark D. Howell, Matthew Johnson, Crystal Kile, Torey King, Molly Merryman,
Michael Leo McHugh, Ginny Schwartz, Ben Urish & Shawn P. Wilbur.
==================================================================
?1992 The Liminal Group
==================================================================
ONLINE: swilbur@andy.bgsu.edu <aka Bookish>
==================================================================