In "Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the
American Dream" Jhally & Lewis maintain the show intended to encourage the
belief that if one only worked hard enough, anything was possible -- in
essence, the American Dream. Unfortunately they believe what it actually
ended up doing was to reinforce the hegemonic belief that denies social
inequities and growing racial distinctions in the US, while maintaining
white hegemony and class structures. By "envisag[ing] class not as a
series of barriers but as a series of hurdles that can be overcome (Jhally
& Lewis, p 73)," it laid the blame for inequality of opportunity upon the
(undeserving) individual, rather than the society which was designed to
perpetuate and strengthen the current economic and political system.[1]
This premise of a projected subversive text unintentionally replicating
and sustaining social inequities is further explored in bell hooks'
"'Whose Pussy is This?' a Feminist Comment." hooks notes Spike Lee's
movie She's Gotta Have It is commonly considered a feminist movie
with an independent, sexually liberated female protagonist. However hooks
notes "[i]f lip service provides a pseudo-anticipation of challenge to
old values and images, the real business at hand is to refurbish the
established view (hooks p 235)." The film claims to tell the woman's
story, yet privileges the male narratives. Thus we see Nola, the female
protagonist, submissively surrendering her independent sexuality to one
of her lovers after he rapes her. She ends up a fantasy woman "(who is
in actuality a victim) [who] has the power to change this violent act
[rape] into a pleasurable experience (hooks p 233)." hooks eloquently
concludes the movie (unintentionally?) co-opts the ideals of feminism
while subordinating them into a reinforcement of societal hegemony.
This concept, I believe, also extends through director Kevin Smith's
movie Dogma. It purports to explore some radical and humorous
new insights into Catholicism, offering a potentially non-patriarchal,
non-hegemonic, questioning viewpoint. I shall demonstrate that although
this is the director's stated intent, what he actually ends up doing is
supporting, even reifying the status quo.
The basic premise of the movie is the protagonist's mission to prevent
two fallen angels who have been banished forever from Heaven from walking
through a particular Catholic church's front door. The protagonist is
chosen due to her being the Last Scion, or the last human on Earth related
(however remotely) to Jesus. For some reason historically God chose to
make the directives of the Catholic Church binding upon both Heaven and
Earth. The Catholic Church has decreed that for one day walking through
the church's front door is a plenary indulgence, or in other words, will
cause all one's sins to be forgiven. If the fallen angels walk through
the door, allow themselves to become mortal, and are then killed, they
will instantly return to Heaven. Since all existence is premised upon
the infallibility of God, the return to Heaven of angels that have been
permanently banished will demonstrate that God can be wrong, which will
unmake all existence.
The most radical departure from current hegemonic imagery, and the
one audiences most used to describe the film, is the portrayal of God
as a woman. The actor is, in fact, Alanis Morrisette, a rock star, and
viewers seemed to conflate her with the deific character she portrayed
("God is Alanis Morrisette in boxer shorts!"). If we continue to look
only at the actors, rather than at their film characters, we see the
protagonist also is a middle-aged white woman. She is aided by two working
class young white men, a young black man, an older white Englishman,
and a young Indian woman, in her mission to defend the existence of all
creation against three young white males and three white male teens. This
would appear to be an interestingly subversive beginning, at least as far
as superficial imagery. However, when one unpacks the imagery a far less
radical viewpoint appears. Since the appearance of God as a woman seems
to initiate the most audience comment, I will analyze that role first.[2]
Is God actually female in the movie? What does this say about the
intersection of gender roles and hierarchies? Actually God, like the
angels, is carefully rendered as non-gendered in Dogma, as more
an idea than a sexed individual. She is constantly referred to via
both male and female pronouns, and appears in two forms in the movie;
initially as an old, harmless looking bum, and later as a woman. In both
cases God is white, leaving current racial hierarchies unchallenged.
However, while shown most often in female form, God is also re-created
as curiously male and/or childish in behavior and in portrayal. For
example, Her means of speaking to humans is an angel called the
Metatron. She cannot speak to human beings, since (as Metatron explains)
they "have neither the aural nor psychological capacity to withstand the
awesome power of God's true voice." The Metatron's form is that of an
older white man with an English accent and an aristocratic, sarcastic
demeanor -- he even nags at God on occasion. The authoritative voice
of God heard by mortals is therefore that of a patronizing upper class,
white male.
Metatron's nagging of God does not appear to be unfounded, however
-- God does not seem to take Her responsibilities at all seriously. For
example, at movie's beginning God has sneaked off without telling anyone
where She was going -- in order to play Skee-ball on Earth. Later, when
faced with a horrific amount of devastation and murder by the two fallen
angels She shakes Her head, then apparently simply wills it all away.
There is no hint as to whether She restored the murdered to life or
dealt in any fashion with the ramifications of Her carelessness -- it
is simply gone, and She dusts off Her hands and looks satisfied.
Once She's finished there She wanders off to do handstands against a tree
(the famous "Alanis Morrisette in boxer shorts" scene) while everyone
else attempts to recover from shock. Finally, when Bethany asks God
why they are here, God simply beeps her on the nose in sole reply,
then leaves. This patronizing response is referred to admiringly by
Metatron as yet another example of God's marvelous sense of humor.[3]
Most appallingly, She doesn't appear to learn from Her
mistakes. Not only is She described as historically indulging in repeated
temper tantrums at things not going Her way, causing short-sighted
dictums such as Her banishment of the two fallen angels and valorizing
the Catholic Church over all other churches (an insulting premise
in and of itself), but She continues to play thoughtlessly with the
human beings She meets, demonstrating an almost childish arrogance.
For example, at one point Her carelessness causes the protagonist,
Bethany, to be killed. God shows no remorse or concern at Her actions,
She simply restores Bethany to life -- and in the process impregnates her
as well. I found this horrifying for several reasons: not only did God
murder Bethany, then impregnate her without permission, not only did this
seem to reduce Bethany to but a vehicle for the next deific offspring,
but the Metatron had previously stated that every time Jesus or
a Last Scion is told they are either fully or partially deific they are
horrified by the revelation, and furious at being played with by God. Is
this God indifferent to how She shatters the lives of those She touches,
or is She simply clueless?[4]
Thus the imagery of God offered in the movie ultimately offers no
real resistance to the current hegemonic, racist, sexist, classist views
of God. When in female form (which occurs for only a short while in the
movie) Her voice is that of an upper class male, and She behaves with
the arrogant carelessness one would expect from a member of the ruling
class. In fact, God embodies ruling class ideals quite well: white,
well-dressed, patronizing, accepting abject submission (by the working
class, female, and black characters, but interestingly not the white
upper class male character) as Her unquestioned, automatic right.
If, therefore, God does not succeed as a new interpretation of current
meaning systems, perhaps the other individuals in the movie can offer
resistant interpretations of race, class, or gender? Unfortunately I
do not believe they do.[5] It is true the protagonist, Bethany, is female,
but that is about as far as any potential resistance goes.
Bethany is an embodiment of the anthropological theory of cultures
defining, using, and being inscribed upon female bodies. For example, it
is through a single action by her that God is released from a temporary
prison -- an action that results both in her accidental death through
God's carelessness, and in the culture being saved from extinction. Thus
the "culture" (or all existence in this case) uses her up to further
its existence -- just as later she is impregnated, merely to provide
another deific offspring. Furthermore she is repeatedly physically
threatened throughout the movie (always by males), yet is always saved
by the intervention of others, who are again overwhelmingly male, thus
demonstrating the cultural paradigm of woman as both passive and acted
upon by men.
She is focused almost exclusively on the role of female as mother,
even to being a counselor in an abortion clinic. Her crisis of faith
centers around her sterility due to infection -- she asks "Where was
God then?" and demonstrates her male- and child-centered viewpoint by
tearful confessions of her husband leaving her because she could not have
children. In some ways she is the least defined personality in the movie,
helplessly swept along by an indifferent genetic fate. She literally
defines herself as nothing more than an embodiment of motherhood at
movie's end, when she smilingly tells someone they have to talk nicely
to her now, because she's "going to be somebody's mother."
The only other female in the movie is Serendipity, the muse.
Serendipity too fulfills culturally determined roles, and does not offer
much in the way of resistant thinking. She is the perennial sidekick, the
passive inspiration who cannot actively create on her own (a situation
referred to admiringly as yet another example of God's "great sense of
humor"). She cannot fulfill the role of mother, since like the angels
she too is without sexual organs, so instead she embodies both the role
of passive receptacle of cultural knowledge, and the "bad girl." For
example, she is presented as a sort of librarian of knowledge: it is she
that first figures out what the ultimate goal of the demon is, although
by the time she arrives with the information the others have already
been told by the demon himself; and it is she who guesses how to slay
the demon, although it is a man who actually does so.
Furthermore, we are initially introduced to her when she appears as a
stripper dressed as a little girl, playing the bar's male customers off
each other to increase her tips. It is true her body form in the movie is
that of an Indian woman, but aside from a slight accent, her long black
hair, and the bindi she always wears on her forehead there's
not much Indian about her.[6] It is startlingly culturally ethnocentric,
in fact, to claim an Indian woman is a muse (a Greek concept) who is
submissive to the God of the Catholic Church. Ultimately she is gendered
female but passively sexless, portrayed as visually ethnic but culturally
white, shown as too weak to threaten the male demon or fallen angels,
and submissive to a male-inscribed God. None of these are inspiring
or resistant ideas.[7]
Since none of the women in the movie offer any subversive ideas,
perhaps the men do. We have several to chose from. There is the black
apostle, Rufus, and the two young white working class males, referred to
as the prophets. There are also the fallen angels, Loki and Bartleby.
Unfortunately once again, I do not believe any rewriting of societal
expectations occurs.
Rufus, the black apostle, is a fast-talking hustler, here on Earth
mostly to protest his being the "forgotten" thirteenth apostle who was
deliberately left out of the Bible. His biggest regret is apparently
that he didn't "get any" while he was on Earth last time -- yet another
young male obsessed with sex. He arrives nude, falling painfully and
ridiculously down to Earth, and frequently looks or behaves in an absurd
fashion -- such as his voice cracking shrilly when he is startled. He is
not a very impressive or challenging depiction of blackness. His main
role in the movie seems to be as a sidekick/messenger with some useful
but not unique information, although I found it fascinating when
later reading the screenplay to discover that a scene where he describes
Jesus as also being black had been cut. Perhaps that was considered too
radical even for this movie's intended goals... although I find it sad
that God as a white woman is societally more acceptable, to Hollywood's
point of view, than Jesus as a black man.
The prophets are the characters the director most empathizes with
(he plays one of them) and are unkempt, shabbily dressed, and frequently
clueless as to what's going on around them. Their "prophetic natures"
aren't made very clear -- their few revelations seems more accidental than
not -- but they do seem to be physical enough that they can repeatedly
protect the heroine. They are literally obsessed with sex. For
example, they are at the abortion clinic to pick up "loose women," and one
of them cannot seem to get a single sentence out without using the word
"fuck," tries to have sex with Bethany during the climactic final
battle scene, and when she tells them she's been impregnated by God he
tells her that it's possible to have sex up until the third trimester.
I found it disturbing that their obsession with sex was so naturalized
that Bethany never protests their cheerful assumption and discussion in
front of her of when, how, and where she would be having sex with them --
that, in fact, this obsession is depicted as merely a bit of light humor
within the movie. Their portrayal as sexually obsessed, clueless, shabby,
but well-intentioned working class white males offers the audience no
challenge to traditional middle class social expectations.
In contrast Loki and Bartleby, while insanely psychopathic, are at
least well dressed and well spoken. They routinely shatter the faith
of the faithful through specious and deliberately deceitful theological
arguments, and commit multiple murders when the whim strikes them, but
these acts are self-justified by a desire to keep the clergy on their
toes, and after all, they only kill sinners. It is interesting that the
only people we see Loki (the main murderer) threaten on screen are a
white woman, whom he declares an innocent and reluctantly spares, and
a dark skinned, ethnic and working-class-seeming man whom he proclaims
an adulterer and kills. Loki also, like Serendipity, is another example
of religio-cultural ethnocentrism, in that while the name Loki is from
the ancient Norse pantheon, he is here portrayed as the Christian Angel
of Death.
The two fallen angels are disturbingly sympathetic -- first when we
discover that Loki had the courage to publicly tell God to Her face that
he was sick of the job of God's assassin, and secondly when Bartleby
has his crisis of faith, realizing angels were cheated by having been
created as eternal servants lacking in free will to an indifferent God
and a destructively, faithless humanity. I say disturbingly sympathetic,
because if anything the identity the movie offers us for them is that
of misled young frat boys out on a lark, that go just a little too far
-- when what they are actually doing, as implied by off screen cues,
is messily murdering people. But it's all in God's name, and so by some
cinematic sleight of hand it's somehow not their fault.
The hypocrisy and emptiness of a religion that condones this sort
of behavior is beautifully embodied by the Catholic cardinal (played
by George Carlin) who starts the whole problem by making the plenary
indulgence part of his new PR campaign, centered around the image of
Jesus as hip, with-it, surfer-dude -- a priest so shallow he blesses
his golf clubs so he can get an advantage in his game!
I still believe my textual interpretation, in regards to the
movie's ultimately supportive relationship with mainstream texts, is
correct. However, I do not believe that any or all subversive reading
of the text is impossible, nor that my view is the only possible
reading. As Fregoso notes in "Humor as Subversive Deconstruction:
Born in East L.A. " it is humor that makes life's misfortunes
bearable, and it is comedy, effectively used, which most effectively
and subversively critiques dominant racist, sexist, and classist
discourse. This I think Dogma does successfully accomplish.[10]
It therefore seems reasonable to me that some of the dominant social
codes deconstructed in the movie might be new concepts to some of its
audience, effectively (if temporarily) challenging their old values and
images. Also, while it is true methods of ideological co-option were
active in the movie, I cannot deny the humorous presentation of various
forms of resistance (however small) to hegemonic codes. As Fregoso notes
of Born in East L.A., the movie Dogma "forces viewers to
engage dominant codes of valorization and, in so doing, positions viewers
in the unsettling role of questioning hegemonic racist [and also sexist
and classist] signs (Fregoso p 59)."
It is worth noting the audience seemed appreciative and amused when I
saw the movie, not angry or threatened by violated social expectations
of their normative assumptions. Also, public textual discourse[11],
while not always complimentary, did at least cover some of the religious
issues challenged by the movie. Ultimately I found myself wondering, both
while listening to friends discussing the movie and while writing this
paper, if religion based on questioning and perhaps subtly rephrasing
or reclaiming old images, concepts, and ideas was really so much worse
than religion based on inflexible hegemonic dogma?
I therefore currently find myself questioning my own internalized
assumptions concerning popular culture. Just because I personally
do not find a cultural text subversive does not mean it has failed
completely in this respect. Furthermore, humor as resistance is a much
more successful tool of discourse than arrogant assumptions of superior
insight or cultural capital. It seems to me that ultimately all I can
confidently assert concerning the movie is that it proves Gramsci's
point -- cultural texts are endlessly negotiated, and Dogma
embodies this concept well.
In essence life imitates art imitates life: the movie's director
(a self-styled fan of pop culture) has externalized his questioning and
challenging of societal and religious normative assumptions, expressing
this through his movie. The audience internalizes that which they wish
to take from the movie, that which does not too radically violate their
social expectations, and they will reflect it back through society in
various forms of self-expression... just as the director originally
did. The guardians of the hegemony will resist as well, of course, but
in the constant process of negotiation small resistances to the status
quo are subversively ingrained into hegemony, concept by concept.
Once again I will reiterate the movie does not appear to completely
embody a totality of anti-hegemonic thought, but rather co-opts several
radical images to express a more palatable image of the status quo.[12]
However, if present-day society is built upon what has gone before,
it seems reasonable to me to believe that any lasting change of this
society's present unequal and limiting principles must also be built
slowly, step by step, on what has gone before. A sudden, radical
alteration of our culture into one lacking any inequity whatsoever is,
by that definition, impossible.
Instead, the sort of ideological hybridization demonstrated by
Dogma seems a far more likely vehicle to initiate lasting social
change -- it is but one small step amongst many, on the path to a society
not based on racism, classism, or sexism. Did the movie in fact accomplish
the director's goals? Were those goals actually resistance to hegemonic
thought? There is no way to know for sure. However, the very fact that the
movie provoked a small storm of discourse and inquiry would indicate to
me its success as yet one more small expression of the cultural struggle
against societal inequity.
