Make Love, Not Mannequins

            Cindy Sherman’s photography is filled with powerfully complex images.  Both the subject matter and the content intself provide an excellent base to further explore themes pertinent to the class.  After finishing both the novel and film, Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, one of the themes that I enjoyed exploring the most was the theme of capitalism.  In the novel, the quest for material goods in a capitalist culture has left many of the characters spiritually empty and longing for some sort of substance.  The novel seemed to almost be a warning against using materialism as spiritual filler.  In terms of connecting the novel with the works of Cindy Sherman, one important passage and photo seem to address the downfalls of a capitalist culture.

                        Both Fight Club and Sherman’s piece entitled number 255 deal with the theme of capitalism and sexuality.  To explore this idea further, the following passage and picture will be posted together in order to easily see the comparison.  they are as follows:                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                

                                                                    

                                                 “The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture”(Palahniuk, 43).

                      In terms of passage from the novel, the message seems to be fairly clear.  Material goods have replaced the lust provoking images of naked people.  Capitalism has become so important in their lives that they have actually become sexually aroused by the possibility of vintage plates or handmade rugs.  The image also provokes a similar message although some interpretation is required.  At first glance, we can clearly see a mannequin posed in the infamous doggy style position.  Before discussing the doggy, the focus should drift towards the mannequin itself.  One could say that a mannequin is an essential tool in a capitalist society.  Not unlike the narrator from the novel, material goods are a main source of identity to a great majority of people.  The mannequin could be seen as playing a large part in helping people with identifying themselves with the goods they are sold.  One could see a mannequin, sitting in a brand new car, euphorically gazing out with a blank stare and a content smile, and may think that they may that a new car will make them as happy as the mannequin.  

                    Wendy Sherman’s piece sexualizes the mannequin to convey the same idea as the passage from the novel.  This symbol of capitalism strikes a pornographic pose, while even the medium that is image is created with (the photograph)  gives the viewer the sense that he/she could be skimming through a pornographic magazine.  In this shot, a real woman has been replaced by a symbol of capitalism, much like the symbolic IKEA magazine replacing the pornography in Fight Club.                  

                       

So a Scizophranic and a Group of Support Club Members walk into a bar….

                 The ending of novel version of Fight Club, by Chuck Palaniuk, has the narrator blowing a hole through his face with a pistol while being surrounded by a support group.  What is interesting about this moment is that it directly follows some sort of epiphany the narrator experiences.  But how and why did his encounter with marla and the  support group members lead to the narrator pulling the trigger?

                 To further understand the correlation between support groups and scizophranic suicide, it’s important to unpack the passage on the bottom of page 204 and 205.  The narrator is standing with a gun in his mouth when the support group members intercede.  “They’re saying, “Wait.” Their voices come to me on the cold wind saying,”Stop.” And, “We can help you.” “Let us help you.”  Across the sky comes the whop, whop, whop of police helicopters.  I yell, go.  Get out of here.  This building is going to explode.  Marla yells, “We know.” This is like a total epiphany moment for me.  I’m not killing myself, I yell.  I’m killing tyler”(204-205, Palahniuk).

               One of the ways in which the conversation could have enlightened the narrator lies in the character of the support group members.  In all of these support groups, the members are trying to come to terms with their afflictions by sharing their experiences.  It could be said that the majority of them definately don’t want to die.  With the exception of the sex craving Chloe, they can’t give up hope that their brain parasites, cancers, and other morbid afflictions.  The creation of tyler Durden, as the narrator admits, was a reponse to his own self doubts.   In the beginning, the narrator’s life became more fulfilling and enjoying than his previous one constructed by materialism.  Maybe this became a integral part of his final decision to kill his alter ego. 

                         There could have been a part of the narrator that felt he didn’t want to give up the contentment and satisfaction he had with his relationship to Tyler.  The death bound support group members, in the scene with the suicidal narrator, finally accept that they are going to die.  In essence, they have given up all hope for life, future, etc..  The narrator’s could have been deeply rooted in this acceptance.  The narrator, like the support groups, gives up all hope for a future with Tyler and dedicates himself to destroying the mischevous alter ego.   He very well could have decided not to pull the trigger if this encounter had not occured.  Maybe it would have been a little more similar to the movie ending.               

Capitalism and Fight Club

           Within the novel, Fight Club, By Chuck Palahniuk, capitalism plays an integral part in the actions of the narrator, Tyler Durden, and their many devout members.  As the story unfolds, we see the narrator being a person who bases himself using his possessions.  The narrator expresses this materialstic identity  during a conversation beginning on page 110 with the police regarding the unfortunate incineration of his apartment.  The narrator states, “I tell the detective, no, I did not leave the gas on and then leave town.  I loved that condo.  I loved every stick of furniture.  that was my whole life.  Everything, the lamps, the chairs, the rugs were me.  the dishes in the cabinets were me.  the plants were me.  The television was me.  It was me that blew up.  Couldn’t he see that”(Palahniuk, 110).  In this passage it’s clear that the narrator, prior to the Tyler Durden awakening, based his whole life around his possessions.  It was this materialism that left the narrator spiritually hollow, yearning for something more.  It was almost as if the effects of the capitalist economy has provided the fuel for a serious mental breakdown, and all the narrator needed was a spark. 

                   The job of the narrator brings about another interesting aspect of capitalism and the novel.  The narrator has a  gruesome job working for a car company.  His profession lies in choosing between a profit and a life.  A description of his job can be found on the passage that states, “If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles an hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall.”  He goes on to describe his method for deciding how much a life is worth when he states, “You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-cour settlement (C).  A times B times C equals x.  This is what it will cost if we don’t initiate a recall.  If X is greater that the cost of the recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.  If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don’t recall”(Palahniuk, 58).  This seems to be an example of capitalism at both it’s finest and worst.  On one hand, the company has perfected a method of saving the most money possible.  If we were to look at this from a purely capitalist perspective, we could say that the company is working in their best interests and are profiting from this equation.  But on the other hand, the company has degraded the value of a life into dollars. 

                      But the car company, still thinking of profits, wants to show that they care about their customers.  This can be seen when the narrator talks about a potentially product.  He states, “Last week the issue was some leather cured with a known teratogenic substance, synthetic Nirret or something just as illegal that’s still used in third world tanning.  Something so strong that it could cause birth defects of any pregnant woman who comes across it.  Last wee, nobody called the Department of Transportation.  Nobody initiated a recall.”  It’s obvious that the leather could seriously hurt the unborn child of any pregnant passenger.   The callousness of the company can be seen when the narrator states, “New leather multiplied by labor cost multiplied by administration cost would equal more than our first-quarter profits.  If anyone ever discovers our mistake, we can still pay off a lot of grieving families before we come close to the cost of retrofitting sixty-five hundred leather interiors.  But this week, we’re doing a recall campaign”(Palahniuk, 96).  From the reading, there seems to more concerned over a public image than the an unborn child.

                  By reading the above material regarding the novel, one could easily develop the theme that death is an integral part of capitalism.  The car company uses death to justify recalls, and then later in the novel we see death literally feeding a capitalist venture.  Whether it may only be a means to an ends, project mayhem’s soap making company profits from re-selling fat asses.  It’s not as much the recycled fat but rather the garden that project mayhem uses to accentuate it’s products.  This garden is fueled, in part, to death.  This can be seen when the text states, “At any time of the night, space monkeys from slaughterhouse come home with bags of blood to boost the iron in the soil and bone meal to boost the phosphorous”(Palahniuk, 131).  We get an even more sinister view of the plant food when the narrator discovers a gold filling in the garden.  the narrator states, “In the corner of my eye, the space monkeys pace around in black, each one hunched over his candle.  the little spot of gold in the dirt is a molar with a gold filling.  Next to it surface two more molars with silver amalgam fillings.  It’s a jawbone.  I say, no, I can say what’s going to happen.  And I push the one two, three molars into the dirt and hair and shit and bone and blood where Marla won’t see”(Palahniuk, 136).  This is an excellent example of capitalism being fueled by death.  If a definition was to arise from this characterization, capitalism is profit blooming out of death. 

                      In terms of linking this idea to postmodernism, the discussion involving the shoes seems to be relevant to the novel.  The Andy Warhol piece seems to be very similar to the plight of the man in fight club.  The piece reflects the emptyness that materialism has instilled within the majority of the characters in the novel.  The shoes themselves are a result of faceless mass production and have no real character.  Prior to their violent spiritual awakenings, the men are another result of a kind of cultural mass production, programmed to yearn for possessions in an attempt to substantiate their lives.  In contrast to Warhol’s piece, the Van Gogh piece is one that exudes a rich substance.  The piece itself is rather simple, and yet it is human that the viewer can almost visualize the person wearing the boots.  this idea of substance could be related to the transformation of project mayhem members.  They abandon their possessions and become a simple, black clothed cog in the soap making machine.  It’s only when they abandon their mass produced lives that they develop any real substance. 

Condiments to Crazy

                             Chuck Palahniuk’s, Fight Club, tells the story of a man who’s abandoned society and, whether he knows it or not, devotes his life to throwing a monkey wrench it.  As most of us know, The narrator’s companion, Tyler Durden, is actually his alter ego.  I can only imagine what it would be like to discover that you have gone so far off the deep end that you can create an alter ego bent on destruction.  What what is interesting is what pushed the narrator into such extenseive dimensia.  In my opinion, it was the emptyness of materialism that pushed the narrator over the edge.

                    One of the most interesting images of this emptyness can be seen when the narrator describes his apartment, or rather, his fridge.  the emptyness is quite literally described in the passage that states, “Oh, not my refrigerator.  I’d collected shelves full of different mustards, some stone-ground, some English pub style.  There were fourteen different flavors of fat-free salad dressing, and seven kinds of capers.  I know, I know, a house full of condiments and no real food”(Palahniuk, 45).  One could interpret the elements of this passage as a symbol reflecting the life of the narrator.  The author has all of these condiments, but no real food.   The lack of food could in the fridge could stand for a lack of any real substance in the narrator’s life.  The condiments could stand for all of fancy possessions the narrator’s used to fulfill the void in his life.  The multiple types of condiments are useless without any types of food to put them on.  All of the narrators possessions could be seen as just as useless when there is nothing else besides a quest for more of these “condiments”.  The narrator could almost be seen as spiritually starved because he’s filled with life with sustenance-less condiments.

                      The empty fridge seems to be one of the many aspects of the narrator’s life which eventually drove him to developing the menacing Tyler Durden.  the empty life of a spiritual quest to the Pottery Barn drove the narrator to supports groups, fight clubs, and terrorist acts of mass destruction.   

Postmodern/post-911 culture

                      To be honest, I really didn’t enjoy reading ”Post Modernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”.  It’s not that the text was overtly difficult to understand, but I think that the author had put too much personal bias into his views of postmodernism.  It almost seemed as though he was on some marxist agenda, and used this idea to bend and twist certain ideas to fit into his political stance.  Although I didn’t agree with much of the work, one part aroused my interest.  The excerpt which I found interesting can be found on page 5 of the packet.  It immediately jumped out to me as relevant to current America. 

                    War has become so commonplace in our everyday lives that more people care more about how fat Britney Spears ass has become than how many American Soldiers die in Iraq and Afghanistan during any certain day.   War has become such an integral part of our culture that it has become socially acceptable.  The author makes a great point in the passage on page five which states, ” Yet this is the point at which I must remind the reader of the obvious; namely, that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world:  in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror.”  I agree that our whole culture has adopted this violent and bloodthirsty undertone.

                 The easiest and most accessible way to see this is to simply read the news.  Ever since the attacks on September 11th, the United States has seemed to adopt this violent approach to dealing with the world around us.  Everything and everyone has turned into a potential threat that must be dealt with.  Our culture has adapted to welcome violence and death in the name of liberty, democracy, and even safety.  An excellent example of this would be the infamous torture at Abu Gahrab prison.  Of course there was outrage when America learned of these events, but how much action was actually taken?  Soldiers were punished and courtmartialed, but are we to believe that anything has actually changed.  Many people I talked to about the torture didn’t see what the big deal was, and I think that undertone was felt throughout the country. 

                             It’s sad to think that postmodern culture has become what it is.  It’s interesting that the author conveys that these violent aspects exist in the underside of culture.  I wonder if this negative underbelly to our current culture will ever change. 

The ikea rebellion

One of the most interesting ideas from Chuck Palahniu’s novel, Fight Club, would have to be the idea of attacking the very culture that has denied the male characters so much for so long. The men of the novel seem to attempting to fill a void that society has created for them. This idea could be embodied in an excerpts from one of Tyler’s rants to his fellow members which states, “We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.” A materialistic culture has failed the characters in the novel and they are left to find some other spiritual path. One by one, each rejects the docile ikea world for one of bare nuckle fights, chemical burns, and acts of commercial terrorism with a guy with bitch tits.

The extremes to which the fight club members go seems to embody the antithesis of their previous. The men had been trained to avoid violence at all costs. They, like many other of society, have been wired to desire possessions over the opposite sex. To solve their problems, men go talk about their feelings with other men. The men of this novel have been raised without a male model figure and have had to figuratively start from scratch. But what they become leaves them empty and angry. It seems as though many have felt that they have been cheated out of their lives by their culture, and when once enlightened by a good beating, they strove for revenge. there were the computer bombings, realistic airplane tutorials, and other commercial attacks by the members. All of these acts weren’t directed towards any one individual, but rather an attempt to strike at the culture that had restrained them for so long.

The membership of fight club, as can be seen from the film, grows exponentially throughout the film. By the end, it seems as though fight club has infiltrated every aspect of the very society that they wish to destroy. One could say that it has gone from an club in a dank basement to an all out cultural revolution. So many have been freed from stagnancy and are angry. As can be seen in the film, they attack they very system which suppressed them for so long. there is no one person pulling the strings, and it all aspects of the culture which are attacked. If such a rebellion had been allowed to continue to grow, one could only imagine what the Tyler Durden’s vision would actually look like.

Don’t Quote Me on it, But…

                         One of the most interesting aspects of todays discussion (and the one which made the most sense) would have to be in relation to Leotard’s passage on page 81 that states, “Finally, it must be clear that it is our business not to supply reality but to invent allusions to the conceivable which cannot be presented”(Leotard, 81).  After first reading this passage I had absolutely no clue what message the author was trying to convey. 

                      It was after the discussion today that I came to the conclusion that the author is trying to say that there is no single truth to much of what’s around us.  Everything seems to be relative to a persons’s perception.  This made the most sense when we were discussing drawing.  When asked to draw something like love or hate is, one could draw a fluffy red heart or bombs being dropped out of an airplane.  But would everyone draw these same depictions?  It seems as though the author is saying that each person’s perceptions are unique, and it is this idea which keeps there from being one universal truth or picture from being plausible.  One person could draw a gun as hatred while another could draw their older sister.   Therefore, postmodernism should use this fact to present ideas that point   

              Becauset is not the idea of postmodernism to try to create this one truth/reality to an aspect, but rather to accept that there is no truth .  It’s almost as if he’s trying say that the idea is to point the reader in a direction to a truth that they can develop on their own.  Postmodernism seems to try to present the reader with a picture of a certain subject area, and it is the reader’s job to discover what the picture means.  The postmodernist needs to provide the reader with clues so that their focus is narrowed onto one subject.  This seems to be the most effective way at attempting to address this truth issue because it accepts the fact that there is no universal truth.

                      It seems that presenting one idea and calling it the ultimate truth is easier than Leotard’s post-modernism is attempting to do.  Much more time and energy must go in to cue the reader into a certain direction, rather than just pushing him there yourself.  But in the end, trying to present one single truth becomes trying to present the unpresentable. 

Gail Right

                    One of the most interesting characters from the final portion of Jeanette Wintersons, Writing on the Body, Would have to be Gail Right.   Gail seems tame in comparison to others from the novel, and yet she seems to be one the most important characters in the novel.  But what is important about this character is not she does, but what she says to the narrator that makes her such an important piece of the novel.  Gail seems to be an example of the narrator could have been had he/she continued her exclusively sexual relationship.     

                  Gail Right, the frumpy bar owner, provides the narrator with a glimpse into what he/she could have ended up as had louise never came into the picture.  Gail has no reservations about expressing herself as a purely sexual woman.  This can be seen on page 149 when she states, “I know, you think I’m a fat old slag who just wants a piece of something firm and juicy.  Well you’re right.  But I’d do my share of the work.  I’d care for you and be a good friend to you and see you right.  I’m not a sponger, I’m not a tart.  I’m a good-time girl whose body has blown.  Shall I tell you something honey?  You don’t lost your lust at the rate you lose your looks.  It’s a cruel fact of nature.  You go on fancying it just the same.  And that’s hard but I’ve got a few things left.  I don’t come to the table empty handed”(Winterson, 149).  Throughout this passage, the reader can get the impression that the only thing that Gail craves is lust and passion.  There seems to be no real attempt at anything really emotional being put into her invitiation, only a guarantee of sexual satisfaction. 

                         The narrator clearly has a disdain for this character, but what is important is why this disdain exists.  Gail may be a frumply old lesbian that vomits all over herself, but I believe that there is something more than just cellulite and puke that rattles “Sam”.  It seems as though the narrator could see a lot of similarities between him/her and Right.   All of the narrator’s previous relationships seem to share the same pattern as Gail’s invitation.  One such example from the text is when Gail states, “I’d care for you and be a good friend to you and see you right”(Winterson, 149).  The narrator’s relationships, excluding Louise, seem to mirror this same idea.  All of his/her previous lovers seem to be no more than a sexual relationship. 

                 What disgusts the narrator about this character is that he/she has a window into what she/he could have been.  Gail right seems to be consumed with lust and cares for little more than a sexual relationship.  It’s possible that the narrator could see how empty Gail’s words are in this passage.  She’s promising little more than temporary satisfaction followed by post-orgasmic friendship.  This seems to be the same setup of the narrator’s previous relationships.  This event could have helped the narrator into seeing what he/she had looked like before the romance with Louise, but also what he/she could have been had Lousie never came into the picture.  The narrator could have very well ended up as ”A fat old slag who just wants a piece of something firm and juicy”(Winterson, 149).

                        Although Gail Right proves to be an important character in motivating the narrator into finding Louise, she also provides a perfect example of how he/she could have ended up.  This glimpse into the future could have had a great impact on how the narrator saw his/her previous actions.  This could have also been an imporant key in not only seeing how important Louise was, but also showing how important it is to find her.     

Dude, it’s a Dude–Or is it?

                       Throughout the novel, Written on the Body, by Jeannette Winterson, we are introduced to a wide variety of rather peculiar characters.  There is the anarcho-feminist, the voyeouristic lovemaker, and even the hot house clothes burner.  Not only do these characters seem to do an excellent job at raising the eyebrow of the reader, but also share one important charactertistic.  This lies in the fact that all of the romances of the narrator are shared with women.  If we were to look at this novel in a rather traditional sense, it would seem obvious that the narrator is indeed a man.  And then there’s Crazy Frank… 

                  The introduction of a male romance into the narrators repertoire leads to a shift into rather or not the narrator is male or female.  The introduction of Crazy Frank on page 92 sends us back to square one.  Now we are left asking, is this is a bi-sexual male or female?  Again, Winterson does an excellent job at keeping us in the dark.

                Although Crazy Frank may be a male, he still shares the same avant-garde qualities as the narrator’s previous lovers.  As the text states, “I had a boyfriend once called Crazy Frank.  He had been brought up by midgets although he himself was over six feet tall.  He loved his adopted parents and used to carry them one on each shoulder.  I met him doing exactly that at a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition in Paris.  We went to a bar and then on to another bar and got very drunk and while we were in a hot shot bed in a cheap pension he told me about his passion for minatures”(Winterson, 92-3).  Although this excerpt paints the picture of a rather strange man, it in no way gives us any proof as to the narrator’s sex.

                As we read on further in this passage, little clues seem to be included by Winterson to keep us guessing.  One area in which we could interpret the narrator as feminine is when he/she is describing Crazy Frank’s piercings.  The text states, “Frank had the body of a bull, an image he intensified by wearing great gold hoops through his nipples.  Unfortunately he had joined the hoops with a chain of heavy gold links.  The effect should have been deeply butch but in fact it looked rather like the handle of a chanel shopping bag” (Winterson, 93).  The correlation between Frank’s nipple rings and a chanel bag could give us the idea that the narrator is a female.  It could be said that a woman would be more prone to such a description because she herself has been brought up to use and enjoy purses.

                    Although the previous paragraph may sway some readers into believing the narrator is a female, another area of the novel is included to keep us guessing.  This can be seen when Crazy Frank describes his sexual preference.  The text states, “Hi didn’t want to settle down.  His ambition was to find a hole in every port.  He wasn’t fussy about the precise location” (Winterson, 93).  It seems obvious that Crazy frank is talking about sex, but what is interesting is what type of sex he is referring to.  By using such a line as “he wasn’t fussy about the precise location”, it seems to be hinting at the fact that Frank could be bisexual.  If the reader was to interpret the sentence in that way, it may lead to the conclusion that narrator could also be a bisexual male.

                   Although it is still unclear as to whether or not the narrator is a male or female character, it seems to do little to hinder the story as a whole.  Winterson’s impressive writing avoids telling us the true sex of the character.  Instead, we are left in this grey area, carefully dissecting each part of the story to find the truth.    

Pigeons?

         One of the most interesting, and yet bazaar aspects of Janeatte Winterson’s, Written on the Body would have to be the pidgeons.  Inge, the porcelin pummeling Dutch feminist, gives the reader a definite sense that is a strange woman.  This character is so radical in her belief that she decrees that the only way to escape male chauvenism is to only communicate through pigeon.  Her beliefs on male domination can be seen when the narrator states, ”She forbade me to telephone her. She said that telephones where for Receptionists, that is, women without status.  I said, fine, I’ll write.  Wrong, she said.  The Postal Service was run by despots who exploited non-union labour. ”(Winterson, 23).  After reading this piece of the novel, I couldn’t understand why the author had decided that pigeons were an appopriate way to solve Igna’s quest for male free communication.

              Jeanette Winterson could have decided to use homing pigeons  as a symbol of Sam’s failure in their relationship.  The failure of the homing pigeons on page 24 seems to correlate with the collapse of Igna and “Sam’s” courtship.  This can be seen when the text states, “The pigeons, Adam, Eve and Kissmequick, couldn’t manage Holland.  Eve got as far as folkestone.  Adam dropped out and went to live in Trafalgar Square, another victory to Nelson.  Kissmequick was scared of heights, a drawback for a bird, but the WI took him in as their mascot and rechristened him Boadicea.  If he has not died yet he is still living.  I don’t know what happened to Inge’s birds.  They never came to me”(Winterson, 24).  All three of the character’s birds seem to lack any real fervor in their duties.  Two give up trying while the third refuses to fly at all.  This lack of enthusiasm in the birds correlates with the narrator’s indiffernce with his/her relationship with Igna.  There seems to be no real emotion put into the description of the failure of the pigeons ability to keep the two together.  Even the character of the pigeons’ refusal to perform their instinctual duties furthers this idea.  Homing pigeons (according to wikipedia) were pigeons bred to develop the ability to be able to return to their nests and waiting mates in spite of long distances.  This fact is interesting when compared to Adam, Eve, and Kissmequick.  these were obviously very poor homing pigeons who had no real interest in returning to their mates and nests.  He/she seems to share the same enthusiasm in returning to Igna.   

               Although there is a lot left to the novel, I can start to sense that the narrator will have substantial issues with his/her relationships.  The pigeons, Adam, Eve and Kissmequick seem to come together to effectively hint at the romantic failures the narrator has, and will continue to have.