"Waiting for Godot" with Sex: Seeing The Band’s Visit politically.

I want to thank my wife Donna, for, even though she was tired and didn’t want to be lectured to about film theory, her presence nevertheless, after a long 5 days absence, got picked up by me at the airport and was there in the family room, nodding off, while I clarified for myself out loud some ideas about film I had been mulling over in relation to The Band’s Visit (2008).

We don’t interpret films; they interpret us (or interpellate us, to use Althusser’s term), which is to say, films construct for us a subject position and call us to identify with it, from which we are able to make sense of the “Real.” (By the “Real,” I don’t mean the actual, but the socially constructed “Real” of ideology). These subject positions (which entail also a concept of what it means to be an “individual”) are made to seem intelligible by situating them within those larger frames of intelligibility available at this time in history (global capitalism). In other words, film is the medium through which we are instructed in the nature of the “Real.”  Where else but from film do we get our sense of “how the world works”? Of course, we think that we already know how the world works from “experience” [unmediated, direct knowledge] and we judge film on the basis of how well it reflects or fails to reflect the “real world.”

Film teaches us to make sense of the flux of actuality out there, by turning it into the “Real,” which is still “out there” (external to us) but which now makes sense. Because of the tales movies tell us and teach us to construct, we are enabled to make sense of the world out there and ourselves in it. To do this, film constructs for us a subject position, which “explains” the world in such a way that it seems to make sense, even under world-wide conditions of ruthless exploitation, which is to say, it’s an ideological subject position, which film provides us, which casts us viewers into the position of already always having understood the way things are. We are of course offered no subject positions which would contest this ”way things are.” No, such positions are always already outside the frame of intelligibility needed by world capitalism. To the extent that a movie makes sense to you, you will find that the “Real” makes sense to you too, it’s “the way things are.” Thus, the Real is fetishized. And thus, such questions as: What about 2 million children living on the streets in cities around the world! Whose desire is this? And with whom are we implicated in allowing it? – such questions are ruled unintelligible or else given the answer, “That’s just the way things are.”

So, if I tell the tale of The Band’s Visit, what do I come up with? It’s a tale mainly about subject positions within what Raymond William calls the “structure of feeling,” available at this time (late capitalism) for gendered subjects. It tells a tale of the feminine and the male (heterosexual), the range of their possible behavior toward each other, on the level of “intimacy,”either sexual or verbal. It tells a tale of the nature of loneliness, as the outside of intimacy. The tale of the film is in effect: All are lonely, it’s part of the human condition, it’s with you even in a room with nothing but a lamp and a sleeping baby. It is possible to overcome it through the practice of intimacy, either of a discursive or of a sexual nature, but it is unlikely to be enduring, in either case.

The film is telling you that if you are a woman pushing middle age and you are stuck out in the middle of nowhere permanently and you are lonely and a bit desperate, having an affair with a married man is understandable, even if he is a “Kalb.” Don’t give up, you can still allow your life force expression. Be as free as you want sexually, be natural, use a man to make your lover jealous, if you want; go ahead, indulge in sexual fantasy, if you want, but don’t let it get out of control. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. You are a sexual woman! A natural woman! You are a good woman. Remember your femininity is not only your sexuality but also your general attitude of friendliness and helpfulness, nurturing qualities, even mothering, even though you are being punished for your fooling-around past, as it were, by your infertility now, that’s a minor issue.

If you are a man of the professional managerial class, being pushed by middle age and a guilty, almost debilitating, past, forget about sex. You’ve got responsibilities, you’ve got to keep an eye on people and organize things. You can appreciate a beautiful woman, though, and perhaps feel a little sad about their loss, but you have had an “exchange of quiet desperation” (Ebert), call it verbal intimacy, with her and it was nice, but you do have your work and your work is music which is feeling and beyond discursive contestation and grounded in nature; feelings are natural, are they not? And thus serve to ground the whole film-ideology in nature, which is what ideology does; it attempts to naturalize the Real, turn it into the way things are now, yesterday and forever, amen. You can be called a good man. And, at the end of the movie, it turns out that the Manager General is a superb singer of beautiful classic Arabic music, the first a dirge with soul; the second, lighter, happy even.

If you’re a young guy, get it while you can! That’s only natural. Just show up and do a good job tomorrow at work! We’ll be watching you.

This movie is supposed to take place in the present (2008), just three years before the Egyptian Revolution, which began as a workers rebellion against the State over economic issues of joblessness and low pay. Clearly, the Egyptian revolution marks the first great experience in a new period of international revolutionary struggles. There is however no sense of these Egyptians having been stirred by any anticipation of social unrest, let alone revolution back home.

The film does gesture toward the memory of the Yom Kippur War (1973), which almost resulted in the defeat of the Israeli Army. The film implies that the legacy of that war can be overcome with more “intimacy” or “sharing of their common humanity” between these former enemies. Intimacy is privileged in this film as a zone free from politics and strife, the concept of intimacy is “private” and as such posits the existence of the unique individual with a public and a private self; one need do hardly more than point to the “obviousness” and “common sense” of it. With this private self,  one is a free individual to enter into contracts, make decisions based on one’s experience. In other words, this private self authorizes and legitimates the humanist, liberal concept of the self as solitary (lonely) and situated beyond all discursive contestations or interventions as relatively fixed and stable and unitary and present to itself in its full plenitude and available to others (often even bodily available) in a state of fully transparent intimacy, if the individual chooses.

The film posits as solution to the world’s strife (Egyptian vs Israeli, eg), individual voluntary acts of intimacy across national, racial and religious divides. Class divisions however are untouched and remain the unspoken of the film.

Sex or verbal intimacy is the only possibility, given the circumstances, which loom large but remain unspoken, limiting the realm of the possible to just this. Intimacy in its sexual form is offered as compensation for lives of boredom, deadendedness, quiet desperation and loneliness. Music is the metaphor for “natural” (beyond discussion) feelings of intimacy and sexuality. Twafiq sings sexy songs.

That’s why this film seems to push the limits of what’s permissible regarding sexual morality (extra marital sex, recreational sex), which gives it its avant-guard quality.  Puritanical Islam’s critique of Western sexual morality is ruled out of bounds. It’s unnatural and outdated in this context.

By taking this seemingly ultra liberal permissive view , the film ideology signals that it doesn’t really care about sex much at all. What it is concerned with is establishing the naturalness of the world capitalist order by constructing subject positions (film viewers), from which perspective, within the structure of feeling historically available, the self as “private individual” is safeguarded and it’s from this subject position that “the ways things are” is made intelligible, and becomes the Real.

Charlie Hynes

English 440-Cultural Criticism

Professor: Michelle Kells

October 1, 2012

Presentation

CULTURAL CRITICISM CHAPTER 6

·         ANTHROPOLOGISTS “see culture as the central organizing concept in their discipline.”(page 136,CC)

·         “culture refers to the pattern of beliefs and values, reflected in artifacts, objects, and institutions, that is passed on from generation to generation.”(page 136, CC)

·         SOCIOLOGISTS define “culture” with a number of variables.  Some of these variables concentrate on where you are from, your religious beliefs, economic status within your region, and your first language.

·         Being “cultured” is a term describing people we have all heard.  Being “cultured”, or “non-cultured” is an insinuation that one either does, or does not engage in their cultures offerings of “fine arts”, such as the opera, or classical music, or the ballet.

QUESTION #1.  Do you see yourself as being a cultured individual as before defined?

·         POPULAR CULTURE as we know it is all about what is happening now, and is consumed my mass group populations.  Wrap music and cartoons, media such as magazines and talk shows, sports and fashions.  In the 1970’s bell bottom pants were an expression of pop-culture.  Today “The John Stewart Show” is a media based expression of our popular culture.  His following is large, his humor is hip and sharp, and we are engaged in his rhetoric and sense of “popular culture.”

QUESTION #2.  What are some examples we can come up with of the most popular examples of “pop culture” today?”

·         ELITE CULTURE as described by postmodernists, as well as our “Cultural Criticism” text on page 138 to paraphrase refers to things like the opera or classical comedies by Shakespeare, or paintings.

QUESTION #3.  How does our text mediate the middle ground between popular culture and elite culture-what do you think tempers this shady ground?

By expanding our search and moving forward into a multicultural identity we are acknowledging the diversity of a singular larger culture.  This is apparent here in the United States where “Multiculturalism” is as abundant as the diverse ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, and regionally diverse backgrounds we all stem from.  We have gay communities, exclusive clubs, political diversity, generally a large group of people who do have strong differences in their beliefs on a large scale.  It is no wonder our universities have expanded with their “Cultural-Multicultural” studies programs.  To live in the United States, and elsewhere, although, I would argue to lesser degrees than here, is to be immersed in a “multicultural” field study on a daily basis.  There are strong bias’ that are constantly being tugged at in our cultures efforts to move forward, and I believe that of itself is the definition of multiculturalism. 

·         DWEMS=DEAD WHITE EUROPEAN MALES

·         LWEMS=LIVIND, OR RECENTLY DECEASED WHITE EUROPEAN MALES

QUESTION #3.  What is the significance of these two groups in relationship to “Political Correctness?”

·         POLITICAL CORRECTNESS according to our “Cultural Criticism” text is a term under “contention”, and possibly being used to stereotype certain professors as Marxist, or left wing.  To paraphrase a section of the text; it seems conservatives are using the term “political correctness” in an attempt to keep collegiate curriculum s from becoming anymore multicultural in nature.  There is a discrepancy in ideological thought and the usage of the term “political correctness” is being used as ammunition from the conservative right against the liberal left.

QUESTION #4.  In the past “anomic behavior” could be tied to the gay and lesbian movement.  Today, how would we define “anomic behavior?

·         FUNCTIONALISM is the glue that holds our society together; “the institutions, entities and practices of our society.” (page 146, CC)  Sociologists use functionalism to determine whether institutions are benefiting our society or not.  It has been criticized as being a conservative practice of sociologists but, sociologists contend its practice is useful in its approach to learning the value of certain institutions. 

Question #5.  From a functionalist perspective can we evaluate how two antagonistic religious factions might come into contention with each other and cause social unrest?

·         SACRED/PROFANE Durkheim “explains how religious thought divided the world into two distinctive spheres.” (page 148, CC)

·         “Utopian movements such as Marxism are tied to the eschatological myth of the redeeming few.”(page 149, CC)

·         “Nudism and sexual freedom movements are connected to the notion of human innocence before the Fall and a nostalgia for Eden.” (page 149, CC)

·         THEORIES OF MASS MEDIA TERMS “1.  USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY.  2.  DEPENDENCY THEORY.  3.  AGENDA SETTING THEORY.  3.  CULTIVATION THEORY.  4.  GATE-KEEPING THEORY.  5.  TWO-STEP FLOW THEORY.  6.  HYPODERMIC THEORY.  7.  SPIRAL OF SILENCE THEORY.”(pages 151-152, CC)

I had no real interest in this section above so I just listed the key terms and not their definitions.  If we wish to discuss them we can go back to the book.

·         MASS SOCIETY.  The metaphor in the book sums this theory up well.  To paraphrase and pose as a question; Have you ever felt like you were just a grain of sand on an endless beach?

The influence from mass media onto mass society has become a way to get large groups of people in an otherwise alienating setting to have a commonality with their emotions and feelings in response to the mass medias entertainment value; true, or false?  If it is true, then I feel like a puppet.

Is the medium more important than the message as Mcluhan from our text argues?  How may our media intake be affecting the way we learn as we evolve as a species? 

The media loves to stereotype, by this I mean the advertisers who are trying to sell their product during our favorite t.v. shows.  Is it working?  Do they know what you want by knowing what you watch?

            As we consider this chapter in “Cultural Criticism” it is easy to see how the world just keeps growing.  It is a little off topic, but in 1970 there were just under 3 billion people on the planet.  That is the year I was born.  As we are closing in on 7 billion people on the planet isn’t it more apparent today that we keep a liberal view toward curriculum, like a growing interest in the study of multiculturalism, and allow it to grow just as our population has been.  “We” should be trying to understand each other even more as our population grows and we move closer to each other, literally, closer to each other.  There is nowhere to hide in this world anymore, no more hidden island tribes or Amazon tribes, people are integrated, for the most part in western cultures, and integrating more and more every day. 

 Charlie Hynes

My Life is a Metaphor

            We all go through life comparing our situation, whether it is our socioeconomic status, or health related, even in terms of our relationships with others.  Are we single, have a girlfriend/boyfriend, or are we married?  I am a married man who struggles to keep his small business afloat, works a second job, and goes to school with the hope of improving my economic situation.  While watching the Democratic National Convention for instance I related to President Obamas’ acceptance speech because I could relate statistically to those people who he was trying to reach.  My life is a metaphor for many of those causes the President spoke of.  I need medical insurance, and sometimes I cannot afford it.  The economy has hit trade contractors such as myself very hard as we survive off of the well being of those around us. 

            When I see a dog running off his leash near the road I go to help him, but when I am lost and struggling to find my way in this world it is my family that helps me to find my way.  Often they can only be encouraging and maybe advise me in the proper direction.  I have found a couple dogs in the past year that all I could afford to do was to get them to a shelter, it is the lucky ones who have held on to their tags and have an owner on the other end of a phone number, anxious to find and help their dog. 

            Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing a stop sign when I am in a hurry to be somewhere.  The sign is a reminder to “stop” and take in what is going on around me as much as it is a traffic signal to stop and literally look around before proceeding.  It is these symbols that bring metaphor to my world.  Metaphor comes when we identify an analogy, something that is not total likeness, like with “simile”.  Metaphor can have a total different construct like the lost dog and my being lost in my career.  What is applicable is the noting of help from another source outside of myself, just as the dog finds help from me.

            Today the weather was crisp and cool and sunny when I woke up, as was I after I had my coffee.  I noticed my cat was in the yard on an early morning hunt as I looked through the window of our living room.  At that same moment I was scouring the cupboards and the refrigerator in search of a snack.  Life is full of metaphor when we consider the trials and tribulations of others paving their own ways through the same complex world.  My life is a metaphor to whatever I take notice of that I can relate to on a personal level.

   

Positive Psychology visits Peta Tikva, Israel

Maria Elwan

Eng 440
October 2, 2012
Journal & Log 7

The Band’s Visit –  “Positive Psychology Visits Peta Tikva, Israel”

In the film, The Bands Visit I initially saw Dina as the Positive Psychology figure. She was very optimistic and friendly to the band members. She empathized with their situation and was the one who arranged for the band members to be taken in for the evening. Then as the film progressed the director reveals her loneliness and feelings of inadequacy when she tell Tawfiq, “There, I thought tonight would be a special Big Arab Words night, and I’ve screwed it up again.”  But all in all I thought she was the most Positive Psychology figure.

The overall feeling of the film was that of an unconscious loneliness amongst most or all of the characters. It was a window into very personal relationship issues with the Israeli couple (birthday girl) and their problems over the husband being out of work for a year. The film also had a Freudian hint of homosexuality and the “return of the repressed” when Tawfiq tells Dina that his son had done some very foolish things, and Tawfiq couldn’t understand how gentle his son was, causing the son to commit suicide. Tawfiq then felt guilty that his actions had also killed the wife.

The film also brought out the ‘Archetype’ showing the similarities of these two perceived enemies, the Egyptians and Israelis, and how there is actually a kinship and bond formed from “an alleged collective unconscious found in all people (Berger 124).

Freudian sublimation is also present in Tawfiq who rechannels his sexual desire for Dina to conform to his societal (Egyptian) demands. He feels that he is a representative of Egypt, and does not want to do anything to soil the Egyptian reputation. Tawfiq also demonstrates ‘positive psychology’ he is pretty optimistic and accepting of his situation, and believes the band’s troubles will be resolved in due time.

Condensation (“the representation of a single word or image which takes one many different meanings” was used with the reference to the American musician Chet Baker (Berger 11).  Discussing Baker was bonding the two nationalities in music, even though they may have enjoyed different things about the music, and their minds held different images of it.  Their love of music and these musicians transcended the hostilities between them. Dina even commented how years ago her Israeli village street would be empty on Friday afternoon because that’s when the TV played Egyptian movies. Music and movies was used as a symbol of many different thoughts that brings pleasure.

Last but not least there was Khaled, sweet, narcissistic, sexual Khaled. He had what Freud would call a healthy dose of narcissism. He loved himself as much as he loved women. This film was very endearing and heartwarming. You come away with the positive psychology that there is yet hope for the world, if they two enemies can sit down at a table and break bread together. I guess that’s spoken also in a true positive psychology mode.

Barry Schwartz: Using our practical wisdom

What are these filmmakers trying to do? The intentionalist fallacy!

On the intention of the author or authors (filmmakers).

While it is of course true that we usually cannot know the intention of the author(s) – unless they are living and can tell us (have told us) what they intended – but even here, they are often an unreliable source, since there is a large unconscious component that goes into artistic creation of which the author may not be aware  – in other words, the author aimed at one thing but the work produced is something else – and, finally,  knowledge of an author’s intention is useless for evaluating a work – yes, he may have intended this and achieved it but what has that to do with our judgment of the work as good or bad, etc? The author may have intended to write a fluff piece for money and achieved fully his intention, but it’s still a fluff piece.

The concept of intention is indeed problematic, even though it is key in legal thinking and writing. Determining the intention of someone is what the law is largely about. Call it a legal fiction, if you will, but it is used all the time. If a defense attorney tried to claim that we cannot know, in principle, the intention of the accused, he would be reminded that he is basing himself on a principle, not recognized as valid by the court.

I propose using the intention of the author as a kind of “legal fiction,” and allow talk about intention into the conversation about a work of art, a film, say. Even though we cannot know it, let’s talk about it anyway, if we want, and then look at our answer to the question, How do the filmmakers want us to respond to the character played by Morgan Freeman? Our answer will always be provisional and a kind of collectively negotiated guess. Thus for all practical purposes, ie, for the purpose of discussion, we will regard as definitive this group’s consensus of opinion (with of course minority opinion acknowledged as well).

Why do this? Why insist that talk of the filmmaker’s intention be legitimized?

Because it helps us clarify our answer to the question, What do we think that we are responding to?

If someone says, eg, In this film Morgan Freeman is an obnoxious rich man, using his money, power and influence, to try to seduce a checkout girl.

And someone else says, But you don’t really think that the filmmakers intended us to conceptualize and respond this way to Morgan Freeman in this movie, do you?

I don’t care about the intention of the filmmakers and, besides, we can’t really know it anyway.

Well, the question still stands. What is it that you think that you are responding to then? It seems to me that you are responding to the film, as if it were real life. But, obviously, that can’t be the case. (No sane person is incapable of telling the difference between Donald Duck and a picture of Donald Duck). It must be that you are responding to a fictional character, ie, a literary character fashioned in such a way by the filmmakers’ conscious intentions (including the real actor himself). In the creation of the screen image of this character, decisions have been made about how to select and arrange the actor’s behavior, so that he represents the kind of character the filmmakers want.

If we are allowed to ask the question, How do the filmmakers intend us to respond to this fictional character?, and if we have the answer to this question (provisionally, to be sure, as a result of class discussion and negotiation, then we can get a handle on how our responses differ from each other’s and even begin to get a handle on why they differ, this latter question answerable by the respondent who wishes to negotiate his response with others. In other words, he will need to search himself for the subjective factors which “caused” him to respond in the way he did. Perhaps he will understand that he is resymbolizing the character of Morgan Freeman on the basis of his image of his father, whom he hates for oedipal reasons, whatever!

What I am saying is that the image (symbol) of the character created by the filmmakers is motivated (intended) and one’s interpretation (resymblization) of this image is also motivated.

The alternative is to slough ahead insisting on one’s sovereign subjectivity: This is the way I see it, and I don’t care if it’s the way I’m supposed to or not, cause we can’t know how we are supposed to respond. I also don’t care how others see it either. We all respond differently, period. And I am not at all interested in negotiating my response in relation to that of others. This is the way I see it and that’s an end to it!