I'll admit I'm a cat lady--except with books. At least ten of them followed me home recently from the local thrift store.
I was thrilled to start reading Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,* by Chris Hedges. Oddly enough, this is the sort of book that engages and relaxes me: being a work-from-home mother (and animating Playmobile animals for hours to amuse my youngest daughter), I miss having the regular intellectual work-outs of my university and teaching days.
This book quickly became one of those books I carry with me everywhere--in my mind. It has systematically pieced together so many of the aspects of American (and Canadian) culture that feel so terribly off, though I can't always put my finger on how we arrived at this place, let alone connect the dots between cultural trends.
Hedges begins his book with a quotation from John Ralston Saul:
Now the death of God combined with the perfection of the image has
brought us to a whole new state of expectation. We are the image. We
are the viewer and the viewed. There is no other distracting presence.
And that image has all the Godly powers. It kills at will. Kills
effortlessly. Kills beautifully. It dispenses morality. Judges endlessly. The
electronic image is man as God and the ritual involved leads us not to a
mysterious Holy Trinity but back to ourselves. In the absence of a clear
understanding that we are now the only source, these images cannot
help but return to the expression of magic and fear proper to idolatrous
societies. This in turn facilitates the use of the electronic image as
propaganda by whoever can control some part of it.
He (Hedges) then delves into the fascinating world of World Wrestling Entertainment--a venue in which illusion reigns. Professional wrestling is so successful, Hedges observes, because we wish to be fooled, to "happily pay for the chance to suspend reality." Wrestlers become our "vicarious selves," doing what we cannot, facing epic challenges and garnering fame in the process. Reflecting current economic and social struggles, scripts and characters have moved from crude racial stereotypes (from the Russian Bear to the Iron Sheik) of the 50s to the 1980s, to representations of more current social, economic, and psychological breakdown. (Nailz, for example, suffers from PTSD, having been brutalized as a former inmate.)
What's fascinating is that, as Hedge notes, morality is shifting rather than fixed. Good and evil are irrelevant. Values are dispensed of: victory is the only worthy pursuit. Aggressors seeking emotional gratification at the expense of others are not to blame: rather, child abuse or exploitation by an employer grant them that right. Characters' destructive behaviours, coupled with their self-pity, depict "the undiluted narcissism of a society in precipitous decline." And the referee--the sole authority figure--is incompetent when it come to meting out justice.
Celebrity culture is equally disturbing. We are, Hedges argues, Plato's human beings, "chained to the flickering shadows of celebrity culture, the spectacles of the arena and the airwave, the lies of advertising, the endless personal dramas, many of them completely fictional, that have become the staple of news, celebrity gossip, New Age mysticism, and pop psychology" (15). Fantasy, in America, is more real than reality.
I've noted this phenomenon myself after a friend recommended the MTV show "Catfish." (Incidentally, I'm fascinated by cultural trends--media, technology, pornography and the sexualisation of childhood, etc.--and MTV is evidence of some disturbing ones.) The show typically follows the story of a young adult who feels he has made a profound internet connection, a soul connection. Marriage is often being contemplated as the next logical step. The catch? They've never met. And thus "Nev" (the host) helps the unlucky participant track down the love of his/her life, only to discover that he is a she, or she is a he, or a fashion model is a 500-lb male who breeds snakes, or the entire romance has been a prank all along. "Catfish" is a humane show: Nev and his sidekick Max gently delve into the psychological state of both the jilted lover and the catfish. The false love is never humiliated, nor is the person who has invested years of his life into pursuing an illusion.
What disturbs me is the passion participants feel for what often turns out to be a false image. They place all of their hopes and dreams onto an entity that communicates through text in vacuous snippets ("U mean the world 2 me, Babe"). The unknown person behind the internet is whatever the recipient wishes him or her to be--whatever fills that void. It's sick, and it's sad.
"Catfish," of course, is not nearly as sick as "The Swan," a 2004 reality show that reveals the transformation of an unattractive poor soul into a being worthy of admiration. Hedges describes the process used to correct "Cristina":
The surgical procedures she would undergo were typed out beside each body
part. Brow lift, eye lift, nose job, liposuction of chin and cheeks, dermatologist
visits, collagen injections, LASIK eye surgery, tummy tuck, breast augmentation,
liposuction of thighs, dental bleaching, full dental veneers, gum tissue recontouring,
a 1,200-calorie daily diet, 120 hours in the gym, weekly therapy, and coaching. (24)
At the end of a process that I would deem torture, Cristina is ecstatic. She declares, "I'm in love with myself!" Now that she is an illusion, an unrecognizable substitute for the person she was born to be, she has arrived. Her destination in my mind is unclear of course: surely she will need to upgrade her husband, and her children, and her home, and her dog. But the message to us all is, as Hedges points out, that once a woman is made to resemble a celebrity, her "problems will be solved."
Somehow, I'd rather take my crooked bottom teeth and the slight tummy bulge that resulted from two pregnancies any day. Gum tissue recontouring for aesthetic purposes? Really? Having one's wisdom teeth removed for medical reasons is certainly bad enough, in my opinion. And I would like to resemble myself. It's easier for my children recognize me this way. Much more convenient. And wouldn't you have to stand in line for a new passport photo and driver's license after each major surgery?
Hedges nails it when he points out that our preoccupation with celebrity and illusion "conceals the meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives." Furthermore, he writes, "It seduces us to engage in imitative consumption," and "deflects the moral questions arising from mounting social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse, and political corruption" (38). The Titanic is sinking, and we're all bleaching our teeth.
I have only covered the first chapter of this brilliant book. I feel inspired, now, to move away from the computer screen and to engage in reality. I hope that you will cancel your gum tissue recontouring, or your brow lift, or whatever is on your agenda today, and join me in the real world.
(The next blog will cover Chapter 2, which delves into the world of pornography.)
*Please note that my copy of the book is not this pristine. My daughter kicked a cup of coffee onto it, so my version is brown and white and decidedly crumpled. But its exterior appearance does not reduce its value in any way (though its resale value, perhaps)--I firmly believe that one cannot judge a book by its soiled cover.
