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Are We Having Fun Yet? "Mad Men" and the Happiness Industry.

Last Sunday in the NY Times, Katie Roiphe speculated on the appeal of the TV show "Mad Men":

"The phenomenal success of the show relies at least in part" Roiphe wrote, "on the thrill of casual vice, on the glamour of spectacularly messy, self-destructive behavior to our relatively staid and enlightened times.  As a culture we have moved in the direction of the gym, of the enriching, wholesome pursuit, of the embrace of responsibility, and the furthering of goals, and away from lounging around in the middle of the afternoon with a drink." 

Just as the early 60s "smoldered" against 50s repression, so Roiphe sees our own attraction to the "world of excess" in "Mad Men" as a symptom of our own irritation with "the wilier and subtler repression of our own undoubtedly healthier, more upstanding times." 

Be Happy Now!

If Roiphe is right, and at least some viewers look with a sort of nostalgic longing on glamorously bad behavior, you have to ask why. Aren't we better off now?  Especially when there's never been so much attention paid to happiness?  

After all, as Savoj Zizek reminds us, "...over the last decade, the study of happiness has emerged as a scientific discipline of its own: there are now 'professors of happiness' at universities, 'quality of life' institutes attached to them, and numerous research papers; there is even the Journal of Happiness Studies..." (p.44)

If we're not perpetually overjoyed after all this, it may be there are tactical errors in happiness literature. For example, happiness manuals like The Secret (not to mention countless other Positive Mental Attitude books) tend to offer strategies for raising your expectations. Yet, when Danes, reportedly the  "happiest people in the world," were studied for their secret, researchers concluded that it was their  "modest expectations" (leading to fewer disappointments). 

In any case, this sort of happiness scrutiny is a symptom, according to Zizek, of a new social imperative: "happiness as the supreme duty." (44)  Hyperbole?
 
Maybe not.  Barbara Ehrenreich's recent Bright-Sided studies U.S. culture's "relentless promotion of positive thinking" and its practices. One of the darker aspects of such thought (aside from the apparently disastrous effects it had on investment strategy) is its application in some types of business management.

"Except in clear cut cases of racial, gender, age, or religious discrimination," Ehrenreich writes, "Americans can be fired for anything, such as failing to generate positive vibes.  A computer technician in Minneapolis told me he lost one job for uttering a stray remark that was never identified for him but taken as evidence of sarcasm and a 'negative attitude.' " (54)

The "subtler repression" Roiphe alludes to may be the result of these cultural currents.  If our "New Age" happiness is a "duty", it becomes a job like any other.  You end up working too hard to have a good time.

And if it comes at the the expense of critical thought, the result may be a sense that there's something missing from this brand of joy.  What?  The wildness of a little freedom. 

A Narcissistic Act

I wrote a poem a few years back that plays with these ideas.  And though I'm hesitant to present my own work, happiness therapists the world over tell me I must fight this embarrassment to achieve self-realization. So in the interest of my happiness, the sales of my book Look Slimmer Instantly, and, I hope, your personal enjoyment and self-fulfillment, here it is:

It Was the Night Before Monday

and a good thing too
because if the weekend went on any longer
the populace was in danger of the overwork
it took to have a good time

you could feel the relief in the night air
in every restaurant
around every TV screen
among the crowds pouring out of the Sunday night features
leaving the parks
or in the minds of those obstinate individuals
visiting a last site at their keyboards

you could hear the chatter 
arising into the atmosphere like a swarm
people excitedly planning
how they would spend their morning
relaxing in front of a column of figures
or obeying the kind machines that urged them forward
at a more human pace
than the cruel bosses
of the leisure industry

and among those who were tired
(and there were many)
of risking their lives
in order to enjoy them

voices began to cry out
and demand revolutionary action--

some called for a longer work week
supported by a leisure strike
so that the oppression known as entertainment
could be retired forever    

  

             

        

        

Is All Good Art About Nothing? Seinfeld as an Allegory About Aesthetics

Reading a book that came my way as gift, Jacques Ranciere's Aesthetics and Its Discontents, I discovered this provocative passage:

"'The social function of Art', as Adorno will echo, 'is to not have one.'  Egalitarian promise is enclosed in the work's self-sufficiency, in its indifference to every particular political project and in its refusal to get involved in decorating the mundane world.  It is owing to this indifference that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, that work about nothing, that 'work supported on itself' written by the aesthete Flaubert, was straightaway perceived by the contemporary advocates of the hierarchical order as a manifestation of 'democracy'. The work that desires nothing, the work without any point of view, which conveys no message and has no care either for democracy or for anti-democracy, this work is 'egalitarian' by dint of its very indifference, by which it suspends all preference, all hierarchy." (p. 40)

A few days later, while indulging in a nightly habit of watching Seinfeld reruns on TV before bed, I saw the episode that encapsulates the entire concept of the show.  Any fan of the series will remember this scene:

A lot has been made about Seinfeld as "the show about nothing."  In books like Seinfeld and Philosophy, for example, "nothingness" is connected to vast questions about existence itself.  After the reading the passage I mentioned, though, I started to wonder if the "nothingness" of the show had more to do with creativity and aesthetics than "the philosophy of Being."

If you think that's a reach, check out this scene, which appears after George and Jerry have made their pitch to studio executives about a "show on nothing."  Jerry is scolding George for his refusal to compromise:

Art-for-Trivia's-Sake

There's no mention of philosophy in this clip, but there's lots about George's "artistic integrity."  Jerry, who is this case serves as the voice of the commercial world, even offers the stereotypical mainstream media response to artistic ambition: "you must be crazy."

As the show develops over its seasons, this "art about nothing" shares something else with other types of "crazy" art: it begins to seem almost anti-social.  Much of the humor in Seinfeld derives from the apparent indifference the characters exhibit to social proprieties.  As a running gag, George and Jerry in particular stumble over ethnic, sexual and religious slurs of all varieties.

In fact, almost any "serious" matter is refused attention in favor of what the show celebrates: the minutiae (or nothingness) of everyday life.  Jobs, politics, even death -- all become victims of the show's endless distractions.  And this is democratic.  Who, after all, can't relate to trivia?

But, does refusing to deal with "the big questions" enable the show to become entirely devoted to its own "free play" and wit?  Not exactly.

Why Does the Seinfeld Crew End Up in Jail? 

Watching Seinfeld reruns this time around, I was struck by how the characters get progressively nastier. Rather than just clueless, they almost begin to seem, well, bad.  Think of the way Susan's death (George's fiance) is greeted with glee by George himself, and a characteristic ho-hum by the Seinfeld posse. Then, of course, in the last episode the gang ends up in the clink for laughing at someone who's getting mugged.

Does their incarceration mean that the show developed a guilty conscience?  Perhaps.  But, returning to Seinfeld as an allegory about aesthetics enables another reading.

Ranciere tells us that, in addition to the "art-for-art's-sake" impulse, the other pole of aesthetics is what he calls "engaged art".  This is art that confronts social reality (rather than turning its back on it), and seeks to intervene directly (often by "bearing witness" to injustice).  Ranciere theorizes that the battle of these two impulses is what gives modern aesthetics its dynamism.

You can read the last few episodes of Seinfeld as re-enacting this battle.  One side insists that art, even TV comedy, must exhibit a social conscience.  The other side resists, knowing that adopting an engaged stance will kill the show's humor.  The mock judgement against the show at the end is as much aesthetic as it is moral.  It says: art like this is flawed: reform.

Characteristically, even in jail Jerry and crew are unable to take this verdict at all seriously.               

A Poet or "Just Another Rock Star"? Jim Morrison and The Doors on American Masters (PBS)

Toward the end of When You're Strange: a Film About the Doors (a recent documentary from PBS's American Masters series), narrator Johnny Depp intones these lines in a deep voice:

"To some, Jim was a poet, his soul trapped between heaven and hell.  To others, he was just another rock star who crashed and burned.  But this much is true.  You can't burn out if you're not on fire." (Source: Unclebarky)

It's well-known, as commentators to this blog have pointed out, that, especially toward the end of his life,   Morrison wanted to be considered a poet.  The documentary tells us that Pamela Courson, his lifelong mate, urged him to quit the rock star life altogether and devote himself to his second love.  Michael McClure and a number of scholars have considered his writings important.

I myself am no expert on his poetry; you'll have to check it out for yourself.  (Perhaps comments can enlighten me?)

But the issue the film brings up for me isn't whether he was a "good" poet or not.  It's why his literary status seems important in the first place.  Couldn't he be a key 60s figure on the strength of his music alone?

Can't 60s Rock Stars Just Be Rock Stars?

There is, in fact, a whole genre of "60s-rockers-who-are-called-poets" (by critics, other writers, fans and the press).  Morrison joins the ranks of troubadours such as John Lennon and Bob Dylan (and later, others). As featured in an earlier post, Dylan especially has been subjected to "poetic recitations" of his lyrics. Why, I wonder, can't we just let rock stars be rock stars?

The answer, I think, is that that for many their music so vividly captures the feelings of the era that these individuals are seen to embody the era itself.  So much so, that judging them becomes a way to judge the 60s.

I am reminded in connection with this of Alain Badiou's observation that in France, a common way to explain away the trauma of "May 1968" is to "reduce" it "to a student stampede for sexual liberation." If Morrison and The Doors, Dylan and Lennon, were just about "sex, drugs and rock n' roll" -- very well.  They were right.  We were all too uptight.  Now let's get back to business as usual.

 But if Morrison was more like, say, William Blake (who is invoked often in the film) than "the American version of the Rolling Stones," his legacy, and by extension the 60s, can be seen as more than just a big frat party.  And the visions of the era of enduring value (like canonical texts) and perhaps even sustainable -- rather than simply evanescent drug hallucinations.

Then there's the fact, as Bourdieu pointed out, that poetry, since Modernism, has presented itself as the art form least interested in values such as money, power and even popularity.  Calling these figures "poets", then, suggests they may not have been sold on the mainstream ethos of "if-you're-so-smart-how-come-you-ain't-rich (or powerful or popular)".  It's a way of saying, in other words, that they, and the era they symbolize, were sincerely (as we think of Blake) rebellious.

Why Does Johnny Depp Sound Over-Dramatic?

Of course, no single rock band or singer (no matter how cool), can bear the weight of such historical importance.  That's why the deep, at times hushed tone of Johnny Depp's narration seems overdone, at times even unintentionally funny.

It's also why I think the script of this documentary sounds so similar to other 60s rock docs.  It seems in films like these, the trauma of the era is not only displaced onto its rockers -- but reduced to a question of their legitimacy.  As such, these films may help sweep the era under the rug.  For, it's a lot easier to endorse or dismiss a band, or a singer, than a whole period of social shake-ups.

But the irritation surrounding the 60s is unlikely to go away--no matter what people decide about The Doors.