In this article I will explore Sylvia Harvey’s ‘Women’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’. Harvey believes that film noir is an ‘echo chamber’ which ‘captures and magnifies’ the shift in the foundations of the West. (1.) Harvey asserts:
film noir offers us again and again examples of abnormal or monstrous behaviour, which defy the patterns established for human social interaction, and which hint at a series of radical and irresolvable contradictions buried deep within the total system of economic and social interactions that constitute the known world. (2.)
Harvey is arguing that film noir mirrors the gender issues suppressed by western society. Film noir reproduces sites of tension in exaggerated terms. The faultline cracks, that started to appear along gender issues post-WWI and WWII and were covered deep within normal social interactions, are exposed and examined in film noir. Harvey concedes that the narrative and story structure of film noir is explicitly repressive – they often end with rule-breakers dead or imprisoned – but argues that the visual style of film noir indicates an irrepressible element of contradiction and in relation to the family, the representation of the domestic sphere, film noir’s ‘portrayal of the family… suggest[s] the beginnings of an attack on the dominant social values normally expressed’ through film and literature. (3.)
To Harvey, film noir’s portrayal of the domestic sphere mirrors an underlying sense of decay and complication in the validity of traditional gender roles. Harvey explains:
It is the representation of the institution of the family, which in so many films serves as the mechanism whereby desire is fulfilled, or at least ideological equilibrium established, that in film noir serves as the vehicle for the expression of frustration. (4.)
In many classic Hollywood films the domestic sphere is a realm of desire fulfilment – where the hero gets the girl, marriage etc. – or a place within which stability is found – as in The FBI Story (1959) where John Michael Hardesty’s domestic sphere becomes a bedrock of support – however in film noir this traditional sphere of desire fulfilment and stability is often the site of tension, lust and murder. Harvey asserts that this alternative representation of the family sphere is ‘an attack on the dominant social values normally expressed through the representation of the family’. (5.)
Harvey continues that, in classic Hollywood films, the family commonly entails a ‘metamorphosis’, a transference of a man to a father and a woman to wife. (6.) To Harvey ‘this magic circle of transformation is broken in film noir’. (7.) In film noir, family relations are represented as ‘broken, perverted, peripheral or impossible’ rather than as life-affirming, uniting and spiritually enriching. (8.) Harvey identities the film Mildred Pierce (1945) as a good example of the ‘disruption and displacement of the values of family life’. (9.) Mildred Pierce is a woman of the world and business and lastly a mother. Harvey argues that Mildred Pierce coincided with:
the rise and fall of nationalistic ideologies generated by the period of total war. It may be argued that the ideology of national unity which was characteristic of the war period, and which tended to gloss over and conceal class divisions, began to falter and decay, to lose its credibility, once the war was over. (10.)
Harvey is explaining that the feeling of unity over having a common goal and common enemy had dissipated and old class and gender issues reappeared and found expression in film noirs such as Mildred Pierce.
To Harvey the domestic sphere, often a site of emotional support and unity, is represented as corrupted in film noir. Harvey cites a recurring theme of film noir: the concern ‘with the loss of those satisfactions normally obtained through the possession of wife and presence of a family’. (11.) In Double Indemnity (1944) the Dietrichson home is poisoned, all three family members are at each others throats. The husband, named only Mr. Dietrichson, ignores his second-wife physically [symbolically on crutches to indicate his inability to engage physically with his wife], the daughter, Lola, fights with her father over the choice of her lover and the second-wife, the femme fatal Phyllis Dietrichson, invites insurance salesman Walter Neff into her home in order to kill Mr. Dietrichson for money. Double Indemnity seems indicative of the loss of satisfaction that the possession of a wife family affords the husband in film noir.
Harvey also asserts that the traditional desire fulfilment function of women is inverted in film noir. Although women are still desired, the satisfaction is either short-lived or non-existent. In Double Indemnity Walter Neff kills for Phyllis but neither gets her or survives unpunished for his efforts. In Murder, My Sweet (1944) when Moose finally tracks down, with the help of Marlowe, the woman he remembers is not the idol of love and compassion but a femme fatal who Moose dies rather cheaply for. Moose’s journey for his past-love, his symbol of desire fulfilment, is met with death as is Neff’s journey in Double Indemnity. Harvey asserts ‘the ideological safety value device that operates in the offering of women as sexual commodities, breaks down in probably most of these films, because the woman are not, finally, possessed’. (12.)
Harvey concludes the essay by arguing that:
The absence or disfigurement of the family [in film noir] both calls attention to its own lack and of its own deformity, and may be seen to encourage the consideration of alternative institutions for the reproduction of social life. (13.)
Harvey believes that the treatment of the family in film noir highlights the issues and contradictions inherent in the domestic sphere. Harvey sees film noirs’ treatment of family as encouraging and enabling contemplation of alternative approaches to the issue of family and the domestic sphere. Harvey goes on to assert ‘despite the ritual punishment of acts of transgression, the vitality with which these acts are endowed produces an excess of meaning which cannot finally be contained’. (14.) Although many film noir narratives end with the destruction of the femme fatal, and often the man who sought her company, Harvey believes that the acts of transgression cannot be suppressed totally and that film noir remains subversive in its portrayal of family and the domestic sphere.
Harvey’s short essay argues that film noirs’ representation of the family and domestic sphere is converse to traditional representations of family – which posit the domestic sphere as a stabilising force and family as a mechanism where desires are satisfied. Harvey asserts that this representation highlights the issues and contradictions inherent in the domestic sphere as currently imagined. According to Harvey, the repressive conclusion to many film noir narratives doesn’t inhibit this subversive portrayal of the domestic sphere. Harvey’s essay does accurately describe certain traits of film noir however, the essay is far from conclusive. There are two major roles of women in film noir, the first being the striking femme fatal. The second being the redeemer, the woman who offers a chance at domesticity, love, union and a happy[ier] resolution. This secondary trait is much less overt but still important and a classic example of the redeemer role can be found in Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950). Harvey’s scant exploration of the mise-en-scene of film noir is also a strong critique because film noir is a visually striking genre (and I assert strongly that it is a genre) and cinema as a whole is an art form that confers meaning as much through its composition of light and shape than narrative event or dialogue. Harvey also seems to over-estimate the subversive nature of film noir as the representation appears to be that trespassing against traditional gender roles and expectations should and will be met with a violent and destructive end for all parties involved. In fact film noir is certainly interesting as a genre because it follows the French-European narrative structure – and not the Classic Hollywood structure – whereby people are determined by, and stuck within, their boundaries and limitations [I will explore this issue further at a later date].
1. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’, in E Ann Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir, London: BFI, (1980), pp. 22-33, p. 22.
2. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 22.
3. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 23.
4. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 23.
5. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 23.
6. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 25.
7. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 25.
8. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 25.
9. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 25.
10. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 25.
11. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 27.
12. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 27.
13. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 33.
14. Sylvia Harvey, ‘Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir’ p. 33.
Vladimir Kozlinsky’s Then and Now was a window poster produced in 1920. The poster was produced post-Russian revolution and is a perfect example of early socialist propaganda art. Lenin asserted, writing about Party-Literature and art, that:
Literature must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, “a cog and a screw” of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire politically-conscious vanguard of the entire working-class. (1.)
Lenin is arguing that art must be part of the revolution, and must convey the feeling and aims of the mechanism of revolution. Lenin explains ‘Literature [and art] must become a component of organised, planned and integrated Social-Democratic Party work’. (2.) Lenin believes that art should become the overt tool of the revolution and central party.
Kozlinsky’s artwork is a component of the party with its attempt to illustrate the differences between pre- and post-revolutionary Russia. Kozlinksy creates this interesting dialectic by producing two opposing scenes of then and now. In the left-hand frame three large figures dominate the scene. The medals they are wearing indicate that they are apart of the old-guard. Their size dominates the scene and the stick-like figures below (which look like Lowry’s representations of workers). The workers are also faceless; they are completely dominated by the symbols of the old Imperial system of government.
In the right-hand scene, the “now”, the large singular figures have disappeared and been replaced by workers of the Social-Democratic Party marching in full colours. The faces of the workers are plainly seen and seem to be chanting or singing songs. The upbeat, strong vision of the crowd is a marked difference to the down-trodden appearance of the workers in the first scene. The common man is invigorated, empowered by the revolution. The introduction of a prior scene ensures the difference between then and now is clearly indicated ensuring Kozlinsky’s work communicates its political message clearly and distinctly. Kozlinsky’s work is an interesting and distinct example of overtly political art – in line with Lenin’s assertion that all art must serve the party.
1. Vladimir Llyich Lenin, ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’ in Maynard Soloman (ed.), Marxism and Art, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, (1979), pp.179-183, p. 180.
2. Vladimir Llyich Lenin, ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’, p. 180.
Commonly the construction of a compelling narrative utilizes a “signposting” device in order to draw-in or hook the audience. One signposting technique entails offering a glimpse of the difficulties a character will encounter in their forthcoming narrative. In French Connection II (1975), “Popeye” Doyle’s fish out of water status is alluded to in the first few scenes after his arrival in Marseilles. As this is a sequel, and in its narrative style character-driven rather than action-driven, the foregrounding of the ensuring difficulties overtly allude to the first film’s story. On the streets of New York, Doyle understands the language, culture and customs of the people he encountered on the streets. However, in Marseilles he doesn’t speak the language, nor understand the way things are done.
In French Connection (1971) Doyle, shaking a club down, drags a suspect violently through the bar into the toilets. The suspect is in fact an undercover cop and the display performed to ensure the verisimilitude of the undercover cop’s cover. This elaborate scene indicates the knowledge and savvy Doyle, and his fellow agents, have in breaching the inner-ring of criminal associations. This scene, and Doyle’s general street smarts, is alluded to in French Connection IIbut inverted to communicate that Doyle is currently out of his depth and, in the upcoming narrative, will have to learn fast to adapt to the surrounding culture – So that he can succeed in his mission in bringing back Alain Charnier (Frog One) to American shores and American justice.
The most important early contrasting scene, which alludes to both Doyle’s former street smarts and current cultural alienation, comes after an explosion. The suspect, who easily evades the French police, is chased after frantically by Doyle. The foot chase ends with Doyle catching up to the suspect and attempting to wrestle him to the ground. However, the suspect, and the reason why the French police made no real effort to apprehend him, is a undercover police officer. Doyle’s chase exposes the undercover police officer to a criminal boss and the undercover police officer is killed. This scene comes very close to the beginning, similar to the contrasting one in French Connection, and is utilized to indicate how Doyle is currently out of his depth, it also facilitates and signposts the forthcoming narratives direction – that of Doyle’s growth and adaptation to Marseilles’ cultural climate in order to finally bring down Charnier.
We didn’t really go here but i liked the shopfront.
On a side note, a lost notepad has been found so i can continue with my look at the auteur theory (though another has been lost recently containing my notes on The Seven-Ups 1973).
This video is an interesting inside look at the construction of the car chase in The Seven-Ups(1973). Something to note is that the car-chase took four weeks to complete and that the editor takes four hours of raw footage and only selects ten minutes for the finished film.
In A Bout de Souffle (1960) a brief cameo from the director Jean-Luc Godard highlights the constructed nature of the films narrative through the mental process of the director. Godard physically points out to the police Michel Poiccard’s location (the wanted protagonist). This direction is rather comically overt, highlighting the constructed and at times convulated systems that the director uses to progress a film’s narrative. Godard’s cameo is also important in relation to his position on the auteur theory. Godard is highlighting the explicate control the director has on the progress and resolution of a film’s construction; its tempo and final polished narrative.
Here is a clip from the film The Seven-Ups (1973), a classic cop film featuring a good car chase, styled somewhat similar to Bullitt (1968). I am writing an article about this film, therefore I thought I would share a video of the film – I can’t say how easy this film is to get but if you can borrow it I would recommend it. Enjoy:
Roland Barthes published Mythologies in 1957, it was a collection of articles he wrote for ‘Les Lettres Nouvelles’. The articles covered contemporary commodities of cultural significance. In this article I will concentrate on ‘Myth Today’. I will explore Barthes conception and understanding of myth. I will argue that Barthes’ myth is a metalanguage through which the dominant power communicates its ideological standpoint and attempts to naturalise it. Barthes sees myth as the system through which the historical has become perceived as the universal. In this article I will argue that advertising is a prime example of ‘the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature’.(1.) I will use Baudrillard to augment this position. I will then examine a text, an iPod advert, and explore the values the advert communicates.(2.) I will explain that the advert offers individualisation and happiness through the purchase of the iPod. Using Barthes’ theory of myth I will indicate how the advert attempts to naturalise it’s inherent values; the values of the dominant commercial culture.
Barthes explains that ‘myth is a type of speech’.(3.) What Barthes means by this is that myth is a system of communication. Myth is not a particular object but rather the ‘the way in which [an object] utters [a] message’.(4.) Barthes explains that myth ‘is a second-order semiological system‘.(5.) Barthes is arguing that myth is a metalanguage; an overarching language which rationalises and organises thought and perception. Myth is the system of communication which naturalises the political nature of a products’ consumption and production; myth is a system of communication which naturalises dominant cultural and historical values and attitudes. Barthes explains ‘myth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification’.(6.) The dominant power, to Barthes the petit-bourgeois, naturalises its outlook by making its message, or ideology, seem self-evident and true; myth is the system used to communicate that which the power wishes to be accepted as common-sense and universal. Just like Gramsci’s hegemony, myth produces ‘an internalised form of social control which makes certain views seem natural or invisible so that they hardly seem like views at all, just the way things are‘.(7.) If we take “dog” as an example of mythic speech in-action we would note that at the most basic representative level dog denotes a four-legged animal (Canis lupus familiaris). A connotation of dog is loyalty: communicated in the maxim “Man’s best friend”. The myth that this maxim augments is of patriarchal or masculine power. Man, and not woman, is that which loyalty to is seen as natural.(8.) The denotation, the basic representative level of dog, becomes implicitly linked to the mythic connotation.(9.) The sign dog, and the maxim “Man’s best friend”, comes to communicate the values of a patriarchal ideology: simultaneously naturalising the position of patriarchal dominance as universal.
Barthes asserts that myth is a system of signification and connotation which circulates the dominant powers’ values. This system of signification is found in everyday objects and signs. Adverts are an important discourse and an important vehicle in the communication of a contemporary cultures’ myth. As Jean Baudrillard notes in The System of Objects ‘Advertising… is pure connotation’: and connotation is the realm of myth.(10.) Baudrillard explains that advertising ‘contributes nothing to production or to the direct practical application of things, [advertising] becomes an object to be consumed’.(11.) Advertising is not an attempted sale of products – evidence shows that consumers are able to resist ‘advertising in the imperative’(12.) – but a ‘clear expression of a culture’ and cultural beliefs.(13.) Baudrillard, influenced by Barthes, comes to the conclusion that advertising is a system of signification and connotation; advertising is a discourse on objects and a discourse which speaks in myth.(14.)
The iPod is an internationally known product from the Apple company. A portable media player capable of playing music files, video files, and the new iPod Touch, video games [New at the original time of writing this paper]. The text I have chosen to analyse is an advert for the iPod Classic. The Apple website explains ‘iTunes automatically fills up your iPod classic with everything you need to be entertained’.(15.) The iPod is a personal portable entertainment machine – the iTunes programme is the organising system which allows to download and personalise your track choice. Barthes explained, in his exposition of soap-powders and detergents, that adverts ‘involve the consumer in a kind of direct experience of the substance… [the object] is endowed with value-bearing states’.(16.) The iPod poster is a representation of euphoric dancing, simulating the experience you gain from possession of an iPod. The poster refers back to the televised adverts. The televised adverts, sharing the same aesthetic design as the poster, are assigned popular songs. The black figure dances in time with the music in several distinctive styles. The poster, and television advert, attribute the state of happiness and euphoria to ownership of the iPod. The form of the black figure is set against a homogeneous singularly-coloured mass of pea-green. Only the black figure, activated by the white iPod, can move – the figure is individualised by ownership of the, and interaction with, the iPod.
The iPod does not individualise you; your experience may be different from others indicated by a different selection of music, but you plug yourself into the same interface as others. An interface of a homogeneous mass which retains a consistent form and style: the electrical goods market. The myth of the iPod communicates and naturalises the stance that only through the consumption of commodities can you achieve happiness; a state of simulated ecstasy. While “individualising” oneself through the iPod you plug yourself into another homogeneous mass; the culture industry. With a potential “10,000” songs in your pocket the ability for individualisation of your hard drive is immense. You can download any song you want and therefore represent any personality you wish; as long as it is from and through the culture industry. This amounts to the mythic discourse saying “you can have any song you want as long you choose it from our library of songs”. Exploring the structure of advertising discourse we realise that the iPod myth attempts to naturalise the ideological position which asserts that we construct we construct our individuality through commercial culture and that happiness is achievable through the consumption of commodities.
Myth is a type of speech, a form of connotation. Myth is not a particular object – though it can be any object – it is rather an utterance above and beyond the representative level of things. Barthes argues that myth is a language-structure which transforms the historical into the natural or timeless; myth transforms ideology into the common-sense. As I indicated which the phrase “Man’s best friend” myth transforms a certain set of beliefs and world-views into the timeless and self-evident; myth naturalises the historical. Baudrillard noted that advertising is an expression of a dominant culture’s beliefs. Advertising is the discourse of commodities; a discourse which speaks in mythological terms. I looked at an advert for the iPod classic. I noted that through connection with the iPod the black figure is individualised and separated from the single-toned background. The iPod is also endowed with the expression and attainment of happiness and ecstasy. The iPod is endowed with value beyond its physical elements. I argued that the iPod, rather than produce individuals, asserts the market economies dominance over the personal sphere; the discourse of the iPod naturalises a capitalist ideology by asserting that individualism is brought and obtained through the market and through commodities. The iPod myth naturalises both the position that we construct our personality through commercial culture – pop music – and the position that happiness is achievable through the consumption of commodities. Barthes theory of myth provides a framework through which to analyse contemporary connotation. The study of myth is concerned with the precisely contemporary and does not need to concern itself with eternal truths; in fact it exposes the ideological motives behind common-sense and the natural. Barthes’ myth is particularly well suited to analysing advertising and commercial culture as they are, as Baudrillard noted, purely connotative. Advertising becomes something above and beyond the physical object they promote; advertising is a metalanguage – advertising is purely mythological.
1. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, London: Vintage, (2000), p. 9.
2. Advert displayed in the bibliography section.
3. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 109.
4. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 109.
5. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 114.
6. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 142.
7. Peter Barry, Beginning Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press, (1995), pp. 164-165.
8. The tamed beast that is dog locates the site of power – the provider – and is loyal to it: masculinity. And as the dog is nature then it’s perception cannot be anything other than natural.
9. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 131.
10. Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects, London: Verso, (2005), p. 178.
11. Baudrillard, The System of Objects, p. 178.
12. Resistance to ‘Advertising in the imperative’ means resistance to the commands that advertising makes such as; “buy this particular product”.
13. Baudrillard, The System of Objects, pp. 179-180.
14. Baudrillard, The System of Objects, p. 179. p. 214.
15. Apple United Kingdom, http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodclassic/itunes.html, [Accessed 23rd November 2008]
16. Barthes, Mythologies, p. 37.
Architecture is important in the understanding of postmodernist thought, Jameson notes ‘of all the arts, architecture is the closest constitutively to the economic, with which, in the form of commissions and land values, it has a virtually unmediated relationship’.(1.) He continues to state that it is ‘not surprising to find the extraordinary flowering of the new postmodern architecture grounded in the patronage of multinational business, whose expansion and development is strictly contemporaneous with it’.(2.) According to Jameson postmodernist architecture has a symbiotic relationship with multinational corporations. Postmodernist architecture arose due to the loss of faith and the end of the governmental post-war funding for housing projects. Significant modernist projects are the Park Hill flats in Sheffield, and Robin Hood Gardens, a council housing complex in London, both projects were inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation. These projects failed significantly in their humanitarian, rationalist aim and this is argued to be a contributing factor to the style of the postmodernist architecture. Lyotard notes ‘the disappearance of this idea of progress within rationality and freedom would explain a certain tone, style or modus… a sort of bricolage’ [bricolage means tinkering].(3.) Charles Jencks, a highly influential postmodern architectural theorist, proposed the “double coding” style of architecture, which ‘entails a return to the past as much as a movement forward… tradition with a difference’ in essence a history and a locality, treated with irony.(4.) This style, similar to Kenneth Frampton’s “Critical Regionalism”, can be found in Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia in New Orleans which replicates the local Italian community by referring to ‘the Trevi fountain, Roman classical arches, even the geographical shape of the country itself, transcoding their historical forms into contemporary materials [Steel rather than marble] as befits a symbolic representation of Italian-American society’.(5.) Postmodernist architecture is a “popularist” doctrine, which aims to bring the sublime into social environments, refusing to attempt to transform the inhabitants of a city to fit in ‘pre-decided rational schemes’ it aims for organic growth which transforms itself to fit the inhabitants of a city.(6.)
For all the rhetoric of popularism architectural postmodernism suffers from the same elitism of style it accuses Modernism of exhibiting. As Hal Foster notes postmodernism ‘far from [being] populist (as is so commonly claimed) is alternately elitist in its allusions and manipulative in its clichés’.(7.) The ironic treatment of history is evidently a treatment only understood by those with architectural training however it could be argued that the fusion of highbrow allusions and lowbrow clichés is the degeneration of the high/low cultural divide that is seen as an important positive democratic aspect of postmodernism. Hal Foster continues to explain that ‘architectural postmodernism exploits the fragmentary nature of late-capitalist urban life; we are conditioned to its delirium even as its causes are concealed from us’.(8.) What this means is that postmodernism is but a ‘gratuitous veil drawn over the face of social instrumentality’.(9.) The local identity and history referred to in Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia are but a cynical reference to the local culture, and traditions of that distinct area. The “Italian heritage” the Piazza refers to is a flat, arbitrary, almost racist version of what it is to be Italian. Rather than simulate and reflect the local culture postmodernist architecture reveals – unintentionally – that multinational corporations exploit the image and history of a neighbourhood without considerate understanding or care for the people. By reducing the neighbourhood into a flat image of “Italianness” the community is commodified, reduced into an image. “Italianness” is idolised; the problem with idolisation is that it reduces a Being into an image, an image that can be brought and sold: slavery. History warns us of the dangers of commodifying, idolising individuals with the suicides of “icons” Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain who broke underneath the weight of their extreme commodification or as it is often named “fame”.
Postmodern architecture, theorised by Jencks and Frampton, styled itself by a returning to the past ironically and with a regionalism that refused to fit people to architectural designs, preferring to fit the designs to the people. I noted that Moore’s Piazza d’Italia was rather a cynical simulation of a cliched sense of “Italianness”. Postmodern architecture is the aesthetic of an inconsiderate corporate ethos which reduces a community and its people into flat images which are easily reproduced and replicated. Rather than reflecting the surrounding community postmodernist architecture isolates communities, reducing their image into easily reproducible cogs; the transference of communities and individuals into commodities is slavery.
1. Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, p. 5.
2. Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, p. 5.
3. Lyotard, ‘Defining the Postmodern’, p. 1613.
4. Charles Jencks in Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 15.
5. Linda Hutcheon in Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 15.
6. Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 17.
7. Hal Foster, ‘(Post) Modern Polemics’, Perspecta, Vol. 21 (1984), pp. 145-153, p. 146.
8. Hal Foster, ‘(Post) Modern Polemics’, p. 148.
9. Hal Foster, ‘(Post) Modern Polemics’, p. 147.
Identity is a central issue in postmodernism and many theorists and artists have argued that identity is ‘infinitely mutable rather than being based on some essential nature’.(1.) An important concept is the subject in a technologically advanced capitalist society. Haraway’s concept of the Cyborg is an investigation into, and formulation of, an identity which refuses binary opposition. Haraway uses the term Cyborgs because it means a Being which is part human and part technological construct. The technological aspect is important because to Haraway ‘communications technologies and biotechnologies are the crucial tools [enabling the] recrafting [of] bodies’.(2.) Haraway states ‘neither Marxist nor radical feminist points of view have tended to embrace the status of a partial explanation: both were regularly constituted as totalities’.(3.) According to Haraway Marxism and radical feminism, both “Modernist”(4.) in their belief in political emancipation, insist on essentialist, rationalizing understandings of identity. These organizing systems, grand narratives, according to Haraway, tend to exclude oppositional and marginal discourses (voices) dominating and or excluding “others”. Haraway asserts that these rationalizing forces offer ‘unity-through-domination’.(5.) This domination or violence, according to the anti-essentialist postmodernist position, is what led to ‘Auschwitz and the Soviet Gulags’.(6.) Haraway asserts that the Cyborg rejects ‘identity grounding’ because the Cyborg would be unafraid ‘of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints’.(7.) The Cyborg is a chimera, a mixture, a hybrid. The Cyborg isn’t a Being defined by either/or – the binary construction of identity found in rationalizing “Modernist” grand narratives – but a Being defined by both/and. The Cyborg, as Malpas explains, ‘is a means of challenging those dualism that shape modern accounts of identity’ such as self/other white/black male/female: the Cyborg potentially offers ‘heteroglossia’(8.) A term originating from Mikhail Bakhtin, heteroglossia is the coexistence of multiple meanings, connotations, within one word, phrase, utterance, and in the case of Haraway’s Cyborg, a Being. Haraway’s ‘cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled post-modern collective and personal self’, an ‘organism’ according to Haraway, both social and private.(9.) To Haraway the Cyborg is a positive inhuman, a required irrational response to the rational project of Modernity and the Enlightenment.
Haraway sees the “techno-sciences” as a positive vehicle enabling a polysemic identity. However postmodernist theorists vary on the nature of science and the potential it offers. A central criticism of techno-science comes from Jean-François Lyotard. Lyotard notes that ‘the development of techno-sciences has become a means of increasing disease, not of fighting it’.(10.) One such instance of science increasing disease is the over-prescription of antibiotics which has lead to the production of “superbugs” which are resistant to nearly all forms of medication. The MRSA bacterium mutated from the common bacterium Staphylococcus Aureus because of the over-prescription of antibiotics and is responsible for the death of 1,593 people in the UK in 2007 and is a growing epidemic due to an ‘increase from 51 to 1,652 deaths between 1993 and 2006′.(11.) The techno-sciences are primarily motivated by its own continuing evolution and as Lyotard notes ‘doesn’t respond to a demand coming from human needs’.(12.) The techno-sciences are ‘determined by the pragmatic logic of the markets rather than the overarching dream of a universal human good’ and therefore a part of ‘a system whose only criterion is efficiency’.(13.) The techno-sciences are explicitly linked to enabling the continuing domination of Western capitalist society.
If we engage and willingly enter into a symbiotic relationship – recrafting our bodies through science in Haraways’ words – with the techno-sciences, as the Cyborg requires, then we cannot truly be sure that the increasingly dangerous production of superbugs will not ensure that we must retreat fully into techno-science, departing from our biological identity, and succumbing to the nightmarish vision of the Robot. The Robot, and the problem of techno-science and potentially the Cyborg, is that it is programmed in computer logic which reduces identities into workable, reproducible logarithms and mathematical commands; a language of mechanical efficiency programmed to serve capitalist markets. The totalizing force of computer logic seems to be similar if not identical to the rationalizing systems of thought the Cyborg was not meant to be. The tyranny of Modernism is replaced by another tyranny; the tyranny of androgyny. The binary of either/or is replaced by both/and of the Cyborg. Rather than a positive, both/and seems to be a synonym of, and the road to, a homogeneous mass which covers and entails everything; the Cyborg comes to be another totalizing force, the Cyborg offers unity-through-domination. The Cyborg is a world of “anything goes”, a concept which seems to reproduce the very essence of capitalist culture. Lyotard notes the ‘realism of money’ or “anything goes” concept ‘accommodates every tendency just as capitalism accommodates every “need” – so long as these tendencies and needs have buying power’.(14.) The variety and eclecticism of the Cyborg’s Being is only facilitated by the continuing domination of the markets: ‘the apparently borderless postmodern world is so only for the Western elites who have the wealth and power to travel, consume and freely choose their lifestyles’.(15.) The Cyborg “myth” is an identity reliant on money, an identity determined by the financial power of the individual. A financial power which determines the constituent parts of the Being’s self; the Cyborg screams “You can wear any style you want – as long as you buy it”. The Cyborg is a reified or alienated Being, removed from the potential of opposition, it is unable to oppose the capitalist society it is borne from; the Cyborg rather than enabling difference seems to disable difference. By being both/and there seems to be a lack of space for the “other” to define itself and although the already dominant white middle-class may wish to remove any site of binary opposition the Islamic, Afro-Caribbean, working class or Eastern “others” may prefer the “violence” of binary opposition to the androgyny which the Capitalist West offers. Without this space for opposition, this no-man’s land, and difference an individual or subject cannot possibly show ‘the contradictions [a] culture contains… represses, refuses to recognise or makes unrepresentative’ and therefore becomes a cog, a robot mindlessly serving postmodernist capitalist society.(16.) Haraway’s Cyborg, a prime example of postmodernist thinking, seems to produce a problem concerning oppositional thinking in relation to the cultural dominant capitalism. The Cyborg by refusing to engage with depth – preferring to play in the shallow pool of images and depthlessness – renders itself either irrelevant in engaging with capitalism or, as I have argued, complicate with the totalizing drive for inhuman efficiency and capital. To create an oppositional grand narrative is said to be taking ourselves towards building another Auschwitz however without opposition to the totalizing force of capitalism we seem to be just as guilty, albeit implicitly rather than explicitly, of building, to use the hyperbole of postmodernism, another Gulag. What postmodernism must allow, and which the Cyborg doesn’t, is space to be different without the threat of assimilation.
The concept of identity is central to postmodernism. Haraway’s Cyborg is an anti-essentialist theory of identity which refuses binary oppositions and ideas of naturalness. The Cyborg, being part organic part techno-science, is conceived by Haraway as a positive irrational defence against rational excluding discourse. The Cyborg, a chimera, which allows heteroglossia is seen as a concept allowing both/and rather than either/or. Although Haraway sees techno-sciences as a positive, I argued that the development of techno-sciences has facilitated dangerous diseases rather than aid humanity and therefore union with technology must be approached with cynicism regarding its intentions. A further reason to be cynical is that techno-science is implicitly linked to its role in enabling the continuing domination of western capitalist society. Entering into communion with the cyborg is to recraft ourselves into a world of computer logic – a totalizing force. I noted that the hybrid nature of the Cyborg is facilitated by capitalist society society and therefore the the Cyborg is complicate with the dominating rationale of the markets. The Cyborg doesn’t offer space to be different without the threat of assimilation.
1. Simon Malpas, The Postmodern, Oxon: Routledge, (2005). p. 74.
2. Donna Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s’ in Vincent Leitch (ed) et al, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, London: WW Norton & Company, (2001), pp. 2269-2299. p. 2284.
3. Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’, p. 2277.
4. Modernist and of the Enlightenment.
5. Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’, p. 2277.
6. Jean-Francois Lyotard, ‘Defining the Postmodern’ in Vincent Leitch (ed) et al, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, London: WW Norton & Company, (2001), pp. 1612-1615. p. 1610.
7. Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’, p. 2275.
8. Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 78.
9. Haraway, ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’, p. 2284.
10. Lyotard, ‘Defining the Postmodern’, p. 1612.
11. MRSA: Deaths decrease in 2007, (National Statistics Online), http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1067, [Accessed 21 January 2009].
12. Lyotard, ‘Defining the Postmodern’. p. 1614.
13. Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 39.
14. J F Lyotard in Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 2.
15. Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 2.
16. Malpas, The Postmodern, p. 30.
A.R. Duckworth
Vedette Bianciotti